Continued healing

[lighter]

When we view the sadness as a messenger, and listen for the message, it helps to avoid panic, IME.

It's difficult to rise up, assume that position of observer, and stay still without reacting, IME.

I think you've identified an opportunity also: )

Lighter

[sKePTiKal]

Very bad day.  Actually slipped in depression.  Totally paralyzed - more than ever.

THEN, I realized that I have not fallen back into old ways or old stuff but more old stuff is bubbling up, like air in a liquid, bubbling up to be released, to allow me to turn repressed, unconscious into awareness.  .  This is an opportunity for further healing.  No fear.  This is hope..

Not totally paralyzed; you realized that this was old pain - leaving the body. That "knowing" separates you from the experience you had. And if you can observe quietly and patiently, you can start to "know" the "knower" too. That's the real you.

It's probably a silly analogy - but the process of letting go all of that kind of stuff isn't that much different than the "archeological digs" through years & years of accumulated "stuff". Our memory (most of the time) can place the details of how we acquired something, why we've kept it, and maybe even when it changed from a "thing" to an emotional symbol of times, places, people past. Things aren't the experience either - and they usually aren't "us" - they don't mean enough or serve enough purpose to keep them, when we're in the huge process of "lightening our load".

Whether that be emotionally, letting the past's hold on us go, or the accumulated "stuff" that someone just had to have, at the time... in the past.

I think you're doing wonderfully, moving through all this. Sure, some things will made us sad or feel like it's hopeless from time to time. It's only hopeless if you stop; give up; can't bear to choose, review, decide... one         more        thing. For me, that's a sign to take a break, and "take care of me". And with some of the bigger things, when it's really and truly gone you now have the problem of that big space it took up in "you". That's a really good problem to have... because you know enough, are whole enough, and strong enough... to just put you in that space. (Even if you simply guard it as "open space" while you're deciding - LOL.)

[Hopalong]

Hitchhiking on the help...

Amber.

Thank you.

love to you both,
Hops

[Gaining Strength]

I'm so appreciative of the support you give me.  It is such sweet balm.

This is a very slow process but I do see minute progress. And each straw added will eventually break the camels back.

I am finding that imagining myself receiving loving kindness when I feel shaming anxiety is slowly chipping away at the pain and paralysis.  As I progress I also see in more clarity how much there is of this dark stuff.  I see the ways shame led to resentment and those two wired together in an anxiety response.

sadly, even attempts to improve my situation and my life are profoundly shamed.  I have understood that for a very long time.  But now I can continue to use the loving kindness meditation and the image of being loved and nurtured in my sadness and brokenness to begin to address the countless memories. 

I have always had a system of repression. So when something triggered a shaming response my initial reaction may have benne resentment and then a flash of anger or irritation and my body tensed, especially my shoulders and back of my neck.  The first thing that happens now is that I acknowledge what is going on and name it.  I immediately feel a relaxation and release but that is like taking the armor off and it opens the flood gates for more shame and a flood of anxiety.  And that's when I use the images.  It may take a while to calm that down.  But I believe that the more I do this the more it will become automatic. 

That is my goal. 

For so long I have not been able to face these memories nor the wretched feelings that come up and that repression is intimately at the para
Uses that I have experienced for decades..It started around one or two activities in my childhood but over time it spread to most everything. 

Now I am able to be present to the feelings I have repressed for so long.  I'm counting the days to healing.

[Gaining Strength]

My mind scans channels to find the thing that I must be vigilant over.  Reading David Kesslers new book Capture, I learn that this is a normal process from earliest man that evolution has not yet shifted.  Mine unfortunately gets stuck.  When my mind lands on shaming memories or people who cause me shame I am now able to hold that person in my memory and use the process to I shame it. 

That is such relief.

[Gaining Strength]

For example often when we are in trauma, the stomach will begin to contract at a rapid speed. The immediate reaction is to make it stop or react to it.  What if we fully feel that contraction and allow it to happen?  If it is pushed away that moves the emotional pain from the surface and deeper to the core where it may cause more harm such as turning into illness, anger or even depression.

I came across this today.  It is about yoga but it describes so well what I have been doing about my shame and anxiety.  This is so helpful for me to read, an affirmation that is so encouraging.

I have begun doing more to help, using more therapeutic things tDCS, infrared light, plexus, now time to add exercise back in.  That will be huge.  Slowly I see myself emerge from this paralysis.  You don't know how welcomed that is..

Like an I thawing after the deep freeze.  It continues to be easier to recover from shame and anxiety flashes.  They occur less frequently, now countless times a day rather than all day.  But I am also able to focus on growing loving kindness and feeling my heart grow and that is so welcomed.  I am beginning to be able to tackle responsibilities and that is such a relief.

So bit by bit, feeling the darkness and staying with it, concentrating on loving kindness until it passes it healing and freeing.

I am so thankful.

[Gaining Strength]

I'm in a truly insane situation. That's the bad news. The good news is that I have completely controlled my anxiety. That gives me such hope.

I traveled 750 miles withy former sister-in-law to visit my 24 year old nephew.  My nephew is not educated, doesn't work and lives with his non-working 26 year old girlfriend and her father. The girlfriend demands my nephew work but sabotages him when he gets a job. His truck only works in 1st gear. His phone is on his girl friend's father's account b/c he works for ATT. The girlfriend told my nephew to either get a job or get out by May 1. She is very abusive and he cries about it regularly.

My SIL planned this trip,  scheduled vacation from work, worked it out with my nephew 4 weeks ago. But when we got down here he would not see us Monday night. Not until Ties afternoon and not today. He doesn't answer the phone and only occasionally responds to texts. When I hear her behavior it appears that she is exhibiting BPD like behavior. She tells him he is not welcomed there and demands he return. She demands my sister-in-law pay his share of the rent. When my sister-in-law contacted the father, whose name is on the lease he did nt answer the phone but had his daughter text my sister-in-law to ask how dare she call him when he was at work. We happened to know he was not at work but was off.

I could go on and on. But this behavior is all too familiar to all of us. Unfortunately my SIL won't draw a line in the sand, won't go on and head home even though my nephew won't communicate or agree to see her.

So we sit, hour after hour, in a Comfort Inn 100s of miles from home - waiting. And it is miserable and dealing with my nephew is completely crazy making but I am keeping my mind focused and staying even keeled. And that is something wonderful.

If I continue on this path I will find myself functioning well very soon. I can almost see it happening. I'm so thankful. 

[Gaining Strength]

Here is a short description of one mans hellish life living with cPTSD since his father blamed him for his father's suicide attempt. 

It is so helpful to read this. I felt so connected and such compassion.  It helps me be kinder to my struggling self.

https://medium.com/@otherlives/i-have-complex-ptsd-it-works-like-this-63ef1de35b2f#.rrimzp7q0

[Gaining Strength]

This trip and my meditation are bring so much of the past into consciousness.  It feels wretched but now I am able to hold it until it dissipates but only because I attentively call on my heart to tune into what it feels like to give and receive love.

We drove for 12 hours Monday and tried to see my nephew that night.  He refused.  Then on Tuesday he would not respond to texts or calls until 2:00.  Finally after 30 minutes of waiting at the house he lives in he came out and went with us to get something to eat.  Yesterday we waited all day and even though he said he would see us he wouldn't respond to texts or calls.  We went by his house and knocked on his door, standing waiting at the stoop the rains began to pour, we got wet and he refused to come out.  Late last night she picked him up at almost 10:00pm.  But she keeps giving him money even as she has said she wouldn't.  This morning she she tells me she is going to pay his rent to these people.  Meanwhile the girlfriend is screaming and yelling at him because he is spending time or speaking to his mother.

She gave him $300 Monday night and it was gone Tues. morning.  She gave him more money yesterday and then $50 last night for gas, oil and cigarettes.  Today it's money for rent and back rent.  Each time she says she is not going to give him money and each time she does.  She is in recovery, 12 years sober.  Total insanity.  In 24 hours I will be out of here.

It is total insanity.  This is exactly what would send me into a tailspin in the past.  But now I can focus on transforming, staying out of depression and anxiety.  That is what I have the ability to do.

[Gaining Strength]

When I first started the heartscape meditation it was very difficult to tap into feeling what it feels like to be loved.  I concentrated on the spot in the back of my neck where I fell a knot of anxiety and darkness.  Over the weeks that has shifted.  I now feel it in my heart. 

But I also felt something else yesterday.  I had a faint image of a memory of being offered love and feeling terror.  Instantly I recalled how my parents both said, "I love you." But the love they offered was demeaning and demanded a form of servitude.  The two became entangled within my being, even as I sought love from others.  What it meant was twisted and contorted.

Almost daily, these insights and memories waft up.  Some clear as bells other vague but each is attached to twisted feelings and with each I return to the Heartscape. It is now offering a healing sanctuary.

[Gaining Strength]

So today my SIL is planning to do things to help my nephew, get his truck fixed, go to job fair so he can qualify for food stamps, buy food, pay his back rent. She didn't want to go to get breakfast in case he called saying he was ready. He called at 11:30. We got there at 11:45. She panics that he will say again that she didn't warn him she was coming.

See anything crazy here?

Day three of this. Stressful but I'm holding.

[Gaining Strength]

I am remembering that in the past, in a similar situation I would be stewing, nursing resentment, making this worse as I seethed with anger. I can almost feel that but what a relief to be free of that and yet see where I have been all at the same time.

[Hopalong]

What an extraordinary situation you are posting "from", GS!

And yet you have the stamina to observe without enmeshing in it.

BRAVO to you.

And also thank you for the Medium story. Joe is astonishing,
and I can imagine how it felt to you to read what he wrote
about shame.

love, and safe home,
Hops

[lighter]

GS:

Glad you're holding your own in the midst of all that crazy.

What an amazing journey you're on.

I'm happy you're sharing it with us: )

Thank you,
Lighter

[Gaining Strength]

From a Hubpage post.  It always helps me keep my perspective to read another's view.  This helps remind me why no one helped me and why no one believed me.

THE NARCISSISTIC PARENT

Young children of a parent who has Narcissistic Personality Disorder are genuine victims of their parent and the disorder, as much as any child who lives through life with an addicted parent, or a parent guilty of physical or sexual abuse. The narcissistic parent abuses in an intensely subtle and devious fashion: they are guilty of severe emotional and mental abuse, and no one outside of the family would ever suspect anything wrong.. These child victims quite often go unnoticed, untreated, and not helped by other adults outside of the immediate family. This is due to the nature of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).