Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
This and That
Twoapenny:
--- Quote from: lighter on April 13, 2018, 01:59:10 PM ---Nooo, Amber... got so much more from it. In that moment, I had a very clear image of the completed house getting swept off the beach.... it took my breath away.
I'm feeling much better now..... heh.
I always feel like Sarah Connor's character when I say or write that. And I've written it a lot.
And.... the plan is to wait and see how I feel about the cottage before deciding what to build for a seawall. If I'm selling I'll build a less impressive, but good looking wall. If I want to keep it and hand it down to the kiddos.... a better wall will be built. Right now there's no emergency, though many people, native and non natives, are telling me the beach won't stand another hurricane season.... I don't think that's quite right.
I honestly think my immune system is frozen... deiciding what to do with me right now. I'm the kind of person who gets through crisis, then collapses for a bit.
I can help my grandfather cough up blood and lung and whatever else it was... then slide down walls when I leave the room, wondering how I did it. I see my own blood or get a shot and faint.
My breathing is all messed up. Not sure why.... maybe muscles around lungs lock up.... something about breathing under stress goes all whacka doo. Very familiar. I think that alone escalates anxiety.
And....
I'm feeling a better now; )
That is a scary thing, right there.... when "I'm feeling better now" comes up for me. I say it so people around me stop focusing on me... so they can feel at ease again, even though I'm focused on challenges ahead, and worry that I'll get through it. I don't know what it means... it's almost a challenge as it leaves me. Like.... I'll not let anyone help me through this, and I WILL get through this. It's an odd sort of thing when it comes up. I don't want to feel that way, or think that any longer. I want to be able to give and receive help without it bringing up old stuff..... stuck stuff.
I want to not feel pressed or strung out alone or like I have to protect everyone around me from everything
all
the
time.
Anymore.
Maybe a good cry will set me right as rain.
::nodding::.
::sigh::.
I have to find a way to discharge the stress around recent violence... not against me, but in my presence. Human on human violence is one thing everyone, except ASPDs, are allergic to. I can tell you that it does terrible things to my physical and emotional health... things that surprise and astonish me always. I was raised in a home without violence. Experiencing it for the first time.... really experiencing it against me... was a shock that shut down my breathing and ability to eat... I lost 20 lbs in a month in 2007. The recent stuff is tied into that I think. I've put it aside in order to get through this month, but I have to just process it so it's not underneath all the other stress... heightening it.
Lighter
--- End quote ---
Lighter, I'm reading all of this and I'm thinking - you just lost your dad. Grief, I think, affects us in different ways, and often in subtle ways - not crying or shaking or having to say goodbye, but unsettling and throwing us off course, wobbling our foundations, making all our coping mechanisms look like a two foot wall in the face of a tsunami. The beach house project sounds horribly stressful and difficult to cope with under any circumstances, but in addition to corrupt officials, delayed flights, tornadoes and your dad going suddenly when you were so far away, that's an unimaginable amount of pressure to be under. Please don't think you have to get through this politely and gracefully. I get the being able to keep going thing; I think there are certain types of people who go into autopilot/survival mode in difficult situations and just get on with it. The adrenalin fades and that's why we collapse afterwards, in my opinion. And I get not wanting to let others in to help cope; there's a vulnerability that goes alongside that and I often get a feeling that if I let my guard down just a little I'll collapse completely - the stress and tension is what keeps me going, sometimes (the same way some people seem to feed off of anger, I guess). But your girls will be there for you; they're good kids and you've taught them well. I'm wrapping a blanket around you and telling you it's alright to cry or shout or lie in the moss; no need to glide through this. This is a wrestling through the mud, fighting alligators period, it's alright if it gets tough and messy. We're all here, Lighter, you're not alone xx
lighter:
Tupp:
Grief folds over me like a wet dishtowel. All through the day. Especially in the early morning hours, when I'[m alone. No one counting on me to wake them, remind them, drive them, drop them..... and it's very very sad. SO sad, Tupp.
As I move through options for a local service.... for my Father.... I realize my kiddos have it right. It NEEEDS to be at Dad's farm, where the kids knew him, got to know him, only ever knew him THERE. He'd want us to be together there, embracing, sharing stories, and just plain gathered together... on his farm. It's what he intended when he bought it. It's what's right for his service. My children know this. It seems obvious to them.
I've missed many CALL THE MIDWIFE shows. Running them in the background is so comforting.... but also sad. I wish I had that kind of female support in my life. That kind of maternal care..... it's so painfully absent.
Lighter
sKePTiKal:
The farm sounds right to me too Lighter. People gathering together, sharing food brought from home. Sharing stories... being together.
Now walk right over here into the never-ending hug.
Twoapenny:
I'm sorry, Lighter. It's so tough. Sadness is tough to cope with, I think - other things like anger and rage can give you a kind of energy that you can work through by attacking the garden or running yourself ragged but sadness is just there and it's so consuming. I think the farm service sounds lovely. Your kiddos do have the right idea. Maternal support is so helpful and yes, not having it is very hard. Bizarrely, I've never actually seen an episode of Call the Midwife, lol, I seem to miss things until years after they start and then there's too much of them to catch up on :) I get what you mean about comfort from having it on in the background, though, there is something soothing about someone else's life playing out on the TV.
((((((((((((Lighter)))))))))))))))) Sending love and big maternal hugs xx
lighter:
((((Amber and Tupp)))) I'm so grateful for the hugs.
This morning I was trying to put my very compromised Otterbox case on my new phone. I'd broken out the hard plastic bits during a four year period with my now very broken phone.
It was childlike.... I was sad watching myself do it. Wrong size. Wrong holes for toggles and phone..... but there I was, trying.
I feel that sort of sums up the loast 18 years of my life. I was that sort of child. Hopeful. Trying to make things work that had no possible chance of working out.
Last year my youngest DD was watching Kill Bill with me.... and the scene where Uma Thurman is in the PussyWagon comes up..... Uma commands.... "Wiggle your big toe..." and DD says...
"She reminds me of you, Mom."
I thought, What a strange thing for her to say.
This morning.... I GOT it. And.... I've been aware, for quite some time, I sometimes must do things the hard way. I think it's part of the INFP external world MUST reflect my internal world programming. Just the way I was made, or came to be formed, byut sometimes I CAN SEE what will happen if I choose to honor myself... and it's catastrophic. Sometimes I see where hhonoroing myself or not.... catastrophe was going to happen. I think that sometimes undermines the honoring stuff.... that it's backfired fantastically enough times..... I hesitate.... I flinch..... I fail.
I'm feeling very in touch with my child self today.... reflecting on my father, and our relationship.... what he was like when I was young... what I was like. It was similiar when my mom died, except it was more about her as a teen, and really connecting with who she was then. How she felt about herself, and us... her children. I have a letter on my bed... she wrote it to her children in 1980. I get something different from it every time I read it. I'll read it again soon when I can focus. Right now there's so much to be done.
This is grieving. This is allowing myself to feel very sad, so I can move through it, and get past it. It's very sad, guys. This is also exploration of my decision making process. All the fear, and paralysis around it.... the pulling it apart, figuring out what's fear, and what's safety. I have got to find more comfort with making decisions. There's too much anxiety around it. Just too much. That must change.
Lighter
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