Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Mindfulness and codependence thread
lighter:
Thanks, and Happy Thanksgiving to you too, Hops: )
Lighter
lighter:
::munching blueberries the size of grapes::
They're really good. Most are tart and sweet, just the way I like them. I don't like bland ones, and the occasional moldy one doesn't upset me. The discomfort, if there's any discomfort now... and there is.... is more about MY eating something I bought for the girls.
Usually I don't eat fresh fruit in the fridge. If the girls don't eat it, then it typically dies, or I've frozen it for smoothies, or as little blueberry popsicles, which youngest dd likes. I've felt that way about food for years.... eating what they left, not preparing a plate for myself, bc money was scary, and anxiety always kills my appetite anyways.
It's concerning, but I'm managing to stay in observer mode. Mostly.
SO... yesterday with T we explored feeling worthy enough, and that lead to an hour long dash down one triggered rabbit hole after another.
I'm not over the legals, I have more hard feelings for third party bystanders and enablers than I do toward my ASPD N husband as my expectations for him came into focus pretty quickly. Not so with the systems, law officers, and people who should do the right thing, but have so often fallen down, failed, done the wrong thing or just a little favor for a buddy(Judge in the case I'm thinking about THIS SECOND), then thrown the case into a baby judge's lap so he didn't have to look at what he'd done, or deal with it. Maybe putting faces in the room where he threw a stink bomb (fig.) just isn't pleasant, but WTH has to happen when people without standing to BRING a case get to file an Appeal, and win it, on the case that was thrown out? That makes my eyes cross, and there are years of this kind of sabotage and heinous fuckery I'll have to finish processing, and put behind me.
So, we did an excercise where I talked about a time I felt empowered, what was I wearing (favorite boots), what color comes up around that (black) how it felt to BE in that space.... I felt in control, remembered the click of my heels, and the purpose in my strides.... always very physical.... I felt that power in my hips.
Then we shifted to a time I felt vulnerable, and at the mercy of. That color was gray... it was dark, and lonely, and I could picture a grey sky framed by leafless black trees.... but gray was the color not feeling worthy.
We put the black in one hand and the gray in the other, T mirroring me, and held them like little balls about a foot apart. The right hand, holding the black... tingled like crazy. The left hand felt lighter. Now, we're sensing how each hand feels... the brain processes in symbols and finds it hard to hold two opposing ideas at the same time, and will make sense of them. I won't bore you with it all, but we moved the hands closer together, and talked about how that felt, and what I saw when I pictured the gray... then pictured the black. What were the changes, etc.
When we eventually merged hands my fingers experienced an electrical shock so intense I was surprised there wasn't any noise associated with it. A few fingers actually hurt. We explored the black and feeling empowered, then examined the gray and back and forth... not sure exactly how that went, bc I was trying to FINISH it. Sometimes I go in thinking I'll really pay attention and try to remember what happened, but it never goes that way, bc I can't do both, and I'm there to process as priority.
I was feeling OK when the hour was up, but then.... I wasn't. T used EMDR. I focused on the somatic sensations, which were all neutral... shocking considering the emotional upset, but in these cases I focus on the feelings of neutrality while doing the EMDR. it was really difficult to follow her fingers with my eyes for some reason. Sometimes my tongue wants to help out, but not this time. It was just so darned hard... like my vision wanted to stop on her face. VERY hard to think about bodily sensations and follow the fingers. Each time she stopped and checked in... I felt better. This is called desensitizing, and I can do it on my own.
There was another pass or two with focus on anything that felt pleasant in the body,and I have to say... .just feeling neutral was a very pleasant feeling for me.
Tupp.... it's nice to put the story on the shelf, then do really important work by focusing ONLY on the somatic sensations. I think it takes the retraumatizing factor down to a footnote very quickly, then helps to process the source trauma, but that's what happened last week, and I'll post about that on it's own.
Lighter
lighter:
Fork. I can't find my notes on last week's T session, but will put down what I remember.
This was the second time we processed a particlary triggering story, and I notice I'll just blather on and on if the T doesn't stop me pretty quickly.... put the story on the shelf then move on to what we're there to do.
I AM RIGHT THERE, in that moment, unable to distinguish between then and the present.... I am engaged fully, as I was in those moments. She sees that, and cuts it right off. We focus on the sensations, we do some EMDR, we check in and note any changes, then dive back into the sensations.
At a point we bring up the event, and I think about it from beginning to end while doing EMDR. Check in with how I'm feeling, focus on that and do more EMDR.
It's like we bring up the distress, then calm it down, bring it up, calm it down, and so on. Put numbers on it. In this case I had a very sharp stabbing pain in my back, left side which is associate with being chakras, and being betrayed in a nutshell. Made sense to me.
Next we go through the story and loop it from beginning to end more than once while doing EMDR, then check in on feelings, and address them witih EMDR.
I'm not sure what happens next, so will jot down approximates....
Bring up someone INTO the scenario we look up to, trust, feel protected by and advocated by.... I chose myself, again, grown, calm, and helping everyone in the scene, which was intuitive for me.
I went through the story as I wished it had happened, and that went pretty quick, compared to the other stuff. I noticed the original story was getting more difficult to bring into focus, when I tried, and was just not coming up for me when I tried to picture it as we went along.
Then it was time to put everything in to a box from the original story, or from a set of years, or an entire lifetime, or just an entire childhood, and I chose all the upsetting incidents I could recall, put them in the box, and chose total destruction through burning.
I built the fire in my firepit, and there were family membersd... everyone close, all deceased, and my siblings when they were younger, and our grandparents and parents comforted sibs and my younger self while I burned the entire box to ashes. Mom served food from a picnic basket.... children napped.... everyone sat in the old time yard chairs from my Paternal grandparent's yard.
When the deed was done, I think we got up, and headed toward a bridge to our new lives. At the bridges edge we stopped to empty our pockets of everything from the past that needed to be left behind. I just had us take off all our clothes, and walk across the bridge in white cotton shifts, shorts and tee shirts.
When we got there we explored how that felt, then pictured a fountain.
Babies played in the spray, and grandparents sat on the edge, or in chairs by the side, and I dived in, and twirled, and did backflips in the water over and over... just all in, immersed, and refreshed.
I didn't think about the original story, bc in memory reconsolidation you want to let the new story continue processing as is. Every time we bring up a picture or story it's changed. Never static. It was easy to leave it alone, as it was the first time we did this for a different story..... I'd say I was 4 yo for the first one, and 11yo for the second story.
Those two stories were traced back from current trigger stories, and we worked on them until there was zero emotional charge involved with any aspect of the original story or the present-day triggers we started with.
It's easier to lean into the discomfort of this work when I know and trust it leads to processing the story, and into a serene place of relief, and gratitude it's done. I believe it will last, and so far so good... it's 100% remained in place. Old stories gone.
New stories in place... I experience so much relief where there was a lot of pain, tough emotions, and painful bodily sensations. Like a thousand pounds lifted. I don't care what the pounds were, or where they went, though I visualize them as
engaging unprocessed emotions in the amygdala....
the T assists with brain integration, helping to bring other parts of the brain online to support the amygdala, relieve tension around the story and in the brain, and make it possible to move that story into the processing center, then present it again and again to be processed until the brain has calmed enough to complete processing and file it into historic files in just the way I would have had that story go IF I HAD CONTROL OVER THE SITUATION.
I can't tell you how satisfying it is to EXPERIENCE that outcome, and process.... just the details that come out of my mouth when asked how I'd rather have had that experience go.... I'm always shocked by the details and direction, and those things come without having to think, typically, or with very little reflection. It feels like just the right answers were always there, waiting.
This is a pretty close approximating, and I didn't remember the fire, or the bridge, or the fountain from the first time we completed this process. It felt like we were doing this for the first time.
Shiftring into fight or flight mode feels a lot like being blindfolded and gagged.... sat on..... forced into a corner..... unable to move or shift out of that space, and it's EVERYTHING.....
I just didn't have the ability to remember those parts of the process when we completed the experience the first time.
I must not have had access to the parts of my brain that create new memories while I was IN that place..... and this time.... that I can remember more.... for me means I've calmed my brain enough to have some restored access during times of intense stress.... of reducing the stress, and it's hoped every time we get through this, along with consistent practice to fire and wire new neural pathways... I'll achieve more resilience, finish processing the unprocessed triggers from most to least powerful, until I'm able to regulate my emotions consistently as default setting. If not, I'll know how to calm myself and move into a place where I can regulate my emotions.
Sometimes when we do check ins at the end of a session, something will come up... 2 sessions ago it was a T who harmed me and my children... the court appointed T who terrorized us an entire summer, and made my children fearl they'd be taken from me and given to their paternal grandparents in 2013.... THAT woman, the thought of her... that she made my youngest feel responsible for that terror.... is still in place, and T said it's my own self judgment that's behind that, which shut me up, and made me think.
Just shutting down the cycle is an amazing thing. Bringing my attention to it.... and knocking the stuffing out of rage that's building and building... is an amazing thing.
Yesterday T told the story of monks burying a golden buddha in mud when their village was ransacked and overtaken by an enemy. Years later, after all the monks were gone, a child saw the glint of gold, leading to uncovering this beautiful buddha, and that reminded me of Tupp.
Just clearing out all the mud, and garbage, and judgments other people installed when we weren't able to defend ourselves, or make sense of it at the time.
Now that we're adults, and capable of defending ourselves.... and in my case, with help from a good T maybe to show me how, and keep me focused....
we uninstall the garbage, and remember what was always there.
And that brings me back to the gray black excercise. We're reconsolidating and changing the garbage stories INTO the original truth.
It's not hard. It's not a difficult process. It's relieving stress in the brain so the brain can do what it does efficiently WHEN IT'S NOT STUCK IN FIGHT OR FLIGHT MODE/amygdala/reptilian brain. We're remembering what's been there from the start, and will always be there.
One last thing about yesterday's appointment.... I didn't realize I held some of the beliefs around the story of my ASPD N husband, and the first night he assaulted me and I thought I would be killed while listening to my oldest 4yo dd call our for me.... THAT is something I've never processed, and thinking about it was like experiencing someone else's feelings and thoughts about it, bc I just haven't done it. Ever.
I didn't recognize my own belief system about it. I'd never asked myself, or allowed myself to process it.
It's time, and that one thing leads to a hundred, IME.
The journey continues.
Lighter
Twoapenny:
--- Quote from: lighter on December 06, 2019, 02:46:38 PM ---::munching blueberries the size of grapes::
They're really good. Most are tart and sweet, just the way I like them. I don't like bland ones, and the occasional moldy one doesn't upset me. The discomfort, if there's any discomfort now... and there is.... is more about MY eating something I bought for the girls.
Usually I don't eat fresh fruit in the fridge. If the girls don't eat it, then it typically dies, or I've frozen it for smoothies, or as little blueberry popsicles, which youngest dd likes. I've felt that way about food for years.... eating what they left, not preparing a plate for myself, bc money was scary, and anxiety always kills my appetite anyways.
Interesting, Lighter, I'm very similar. I'll go to great lengths to do nice meals for son but when it comes to myself it's often bits cobbled together in a 'that'll do' manner. I bought a cookbook in the charity shop last week that suggests meals made from foods that help with certain types of health problems - things to keep your heart healthy, things to balance your blood sugar, things to help with anxiety and so on. A lot of the meals look really nice but they contain ingredients that I don't usually buy because of the cost and it was interesting for me to notice how difficult I find it to spend money on food and cook myself good meals every day, rather than every now and again. Mmmm, more to ponder.
It's concerning, but I'm managing to stay in observer mode. Mostly.
SO... yesterday with T we explored feeling worthy enough, and that lead to an hour long dash down one triggered rabbit hole after another.
I'm not over the legals, I have more hard feelings for third party bystanders and enablers than I do toward my ASPD N husband as my expectations for him came into focus pretty quickly. Not so with the systems, law officers, and people who should do the right thing, but have so often fallen down, failed, done the wrong thing or just a little favor for a buddy(Judge in the case I'm thinking about THIS SECOND), then thrown the case into a baby judge's lap so he didn't have to look at what he'd done, or deal with it. Maybe putting faces in the room where he threw a stink bomb (fig.) just isn't pleasant, but WTH has to happen when people without standing to BRING a case get to file an Appeal, and win it, on the case that was thrown out? That makes my eyes cross, and there are years of this kind of sabotage and heinous fuckery I'll have to finish processing, and put behind me.
Yes, exactly the same, Lighter! My mum was only able to carry out that decade long campaign of abuse because so many people helped her. That people who have chosen to do a job that involves helping vulnerable people (as all public sector jobs do, in one way or another) and then chose to ignore the procedure and legislation and lie and manipulate the situation to give more power to the abuser than the abusee - that bothers me so much more than anything my mum did. And more so because it means we know we don't have a safety net. The services and support systems that are supposed to be there when we need protection or help are so flawed that they can do us more harm than good. Certainly for me, it's what makes me want to keep away from them. And it's a frightening world when you know you can't rely on doctors, the police, social workers, judges and so on to just do their job properly, regardless of their personal feelings about a situation. Very scary.
So, we did an excercise where I talked about a time I felt empowered, what was I wearing (favorite boots), what color comes up around that (black) how it felt to BE in that space.... I felt in control, remembered the click of my heels, and the purpose in my strides.... always very physical.... I felt that power in my hips.
Then we shifted to a time I felt vulnerable, and at the mercy of. That color was gray... it was dark, and lonely, and I could picture a grey sky framed by leafless black trees.... but gray was the color not feeling worthy.
We put the black in one hand and the gray in the other, T mirroring me, and held them like little balls about a foot apart. The right hand, holding the black... tingled like crazy. The left hand felt lighter. Now, we're sensing how each hand feels... the brain processes in symbols and finds it hard to hold two opposing ideas at the same time, and will make sense of them. I won't bore you with it all, but we moved the hands closer together, and talked about how that felt, and what I saw when I pictured the gray... then pictured the black. What were the changes, etc.
So interesting that it actually creates a physical sensation. Do you think you are more emotionally/spiritually sensitive than an average person or do you think anyone doing this would experience the same thing? it sounds quite incredible. Does if feel scary while you do it?
When we eventually merged hands my fingers experienced an electrical shock so intense I was surprised there wasn't any noise associated with it. A few fingers actually hurt. We explored the black and feeling empowered, then examined the gray and back and forth... not sure exactly how that went, bc I was trying to FINISH it. Sometimes I go in thinking I'll really pay attention and try to remember what happened, but it never goes that way, bc I can't do both, and I'm there to process as priority.
I was feeling OK when the hour was up, but then.... I wasn't. T used EMDR. I focused on the somatic sensations, which were all neutral... shocking considering the emotional upset, but in these cases I focus on the feelings of neutrality while doing the EMDR. it was really difficult to follow her fingers with my eyes for some reason. Sometimes my tongue wants to help out, but not this time. It was just so darned hard... like my vision wanted to stop on her face. VERY hard to think about bodily sensations and follow the fingers. Each time she stopped and checked in... I felt better. This is called desensitizing, and I can do it on my own.
There was another pass or two with focus on anything that felt pleasant in the body,and I have to say... .just feeling neutral was a very pleasant feeling for me.
Tupp.... it's nice to put the story on the shelf, then do really important work by focusing ONLY on the somatic sensations. I think it takes the retraumatizing factor down to a footnote very quickly, then helps to process the source trauma, but that's what happened last week, and I'll post about that on it's own.
Lighter
--- End quote ---
'm scrolling down to read the next bit, Lighter :) Lol xx
Twoapenny:
--- Quote from: lighter on December 06, 2019, 03:51:55 PM ---Fork. I can't find my notes on last week's T session, but will put down what I remember.
This was the second time we processed a particlary triggering story, and I notice I'll just blather on and on if the T doesn't stop me pretty quickly.... put the story on the shelf then move on to what we're there to do.
I AM RIGHT THERE, in that moment, unable to distinguish between then and the present.... I am engaged fully, as I was in those moments. She sees that, and cuts it right off. We focus on the sensations, we do some EMDR, we check in and note any changes, then dive back into the sensations.
Yes, exactly the same. It's almost like an out of body experience for me. I know I'm spiraling, I know I'm out of control, I know I'm reacting to something from the past and not from the present - but I can't step in to do anything about it. It's like watching a crash in slow motion, when you can see the cars are going to hit but there's nothing you can do to stop it.
At a point we bring up the event, and I think about it from beginning to end while doing EMDR. Check in with how I'm feeling, focus on that and do more EMDR.
It's like we bring up the distress, then calm it down, bring it up, calm it down, and so on. Put numbers on it. In this case I had a very sharp stabbing pain in my back, left side which is associate with being chakras, and being betrayed in a nutshell. Made sense to me.
Yes, makes sense to me as well.
Next we go through the story and loop it from beginning to end more than once while doing EMDR, then check in on feelings, and address them witih EMDR.
I'm not sure what happens next, so will jot down approximates....
Bring up someone INTO the scenario we look up to, trust, feel protected by and advocated by.... I chose myself, again, grown, calm, and helping everyone in the scene, which was intuitive for me.
It's telling that you choose yourself, Lighter, to stand up for yourself.
I went through the story as I wished it had happened, and that went pretty quick, compared to the other stuff. I noticed the original story was getting more difficult to bring into focus, when I tried, and was just not coming up for me when I tried to picture it as we went along.
Then it was time to put everything in to a box from the original story, or from a set of years, or an entire lifetime, or just an entire childhood, and I chose all the upsetting incidents I could recall, put them in the box, and chose total destruction through burning.
I built the fire in my firepit, and there were family membersd... everyone close, all deceased, and my siblings when they were younger, and our grandparents and parents comforted sibs and my younger self while I burned the entire box to ashes. Mom served food from a picnic basket.... children napped.... everyone sat in the old time yard chairs from my Paternal grandparent's yard.
I love that there was a picnic :) Does T talk you through that story or do you create that in your mind?
When the deed was done, I think we got up, and headed toward a bridge to our new lives. At the bridges edge we stopped to empty our pockets of everything from the past that needed to be left behind. I just had us take off all our clothes, and walk across the bridge in white cotton shifts, shorts and tee shirts.
When we got there we explored how that felt, then pictured a fountain.
Babies played in the spray, and grandparents sat on the edge, or in chairs by the side, and I dived in, and twirled, and did backflips in the water over and over... just all in, immersed, and refreshed.
I didn't think about the original story, bc in memory reconsolidation you want to let the new story continue processing as is. Every time we bring up a picture or story it's changed. Never static. It was easy to leave it alone, as it was the first time we did this for a different story..... I'd say I was 4 yo for the first one, and 11yo for the second story.
Those two stories were traced back from current trigger stories, and we worked on them until there was zero emotional charge involved with any aspect of the original story or the present-day triggers we started with.
It's easier to lean into the discomfort of this work when I know and trust it leads to processing the story, and into a serene place of relief, and gratitude it's done. I believe it will last, and so far so good... it's 100% remained in place. Old stories gone.
It's amazing that it's re-wiring your brain like this. And doing physical good, I imagine, by unlocking and unblocking things.
New stories in place... I experience so much relief where there was a lot of pain, tough emotions, and painful bodily sensations. Like a thousand pounds lifted. I don't care what the pounds were, or where they went, though I visualize them as
engaging unprocessed emotions in the amygdala....
the T assists with brain integration, helping to bring other parts of the brain online to support the amygdala, relieve tension around the story and in the brain, and make it possible to move that story into the processing center, then present it again and again to be processed until the brain has calmed enough to complete processing and file it into historic files in just the way I would have had that story go IF I HAD CONTROL OVER THE SITUATION.
I can't tell you how satisfying it is to EXPERIENCE that outcome, and process.... just the details that come out of my mouth when asked how I'd rather have had that experience go.... I'm always shocked by the details and direction, and those things come without having to think, typically, or with very little reflection. It feels like just the right answers were always there, waiting.
This is a pretty close approximating, and I didn't remember the fire, or the bridge, or the fountain from the first time we completed this process. It felt like we were doing this for the first time.
Shiftring into fight or flight mode feels a lot like being blindfolded and gagged.... sat on..... forced into a corner..... unable to move or shift out of that space, and it's EVERYTHING.....
I just didn't have the ability to remember those parts of the process when we completed the experience the first time.
I must not have had access to the parts of my brain that create new memories while I was IN that place..... and this time.... that I can remember more.... for me means I've calmed my brain enough to have some restored access during times of intense stress.... of reducing the stress, and it's hoped every time we get through this, along with consistent practice to fire and wire new neural pathways... I'll achieve more resilience, finish processing the unprocessed triggers from most to least powerful, until I'm able to regulate my emotions consistently as default setting. If not, I'll know how to calm myself and move into a place where I can regulate my emotions.
Will be so amazing for you to get to a point where all you're dealing with is right here and right now, Lighter, and being able to put all that energy into creating things that you want, rather than dealing with things that you don't. So amazing and much deserved.
Sometimes when we do check ins at the end of a session, something will come up... 2 sessions ago it was a T who harmed me and my children... the court appointed T who terrorized us an entire summer, and made my children fearl they'd be taken from me and given to their paternal grandparents in 2013.... THAT woman, the thought of her... that she made my youngest feel responsible for that terror.... is still in place, and T said it's my own self judgment that's behind that, which shut me up, and made me think.
What does she mean by your self judgement, Lighter? I was a bit confused by that. It's quite early here :) Lol
Just shutting down the cycle is an amazing thing. Bringing my attention to it.... and knocking the stuffing out of rage that's building and building... is an amazing thing.
Yesterday T told the story of monks burying a golden buddha in mud when their village was ransacked and overtaken by an enemy. Years later, after all the monks were gone, a child saw the glint of gold, leading to uncovering this beautiful buddha, and that reminded me of Tupp.
Lol, I often look in the mirror and think I look like I've been dug up, Lighter :) Lol
Just clearing out all the mud, and garbage, and judgments other people installed when we weren't able to defend ourselves, or make sense of it at the time.
Now that we're adults, and capable of defending ourselves.... and in my case, with help from a good T maybe to show me how, and keep me focused....
we uninstall the garbage, and remember what was always there.
And that brings me back to the gray black excercise. We're reconsolidating and changing the garbage stories INTO the original truth.
It's not hard. It's not a difficult process. It's relieving stress in the brain so the brain can do what it does efficiently WHEN IT'S NOT STUCK IN FIGHT OR FLIGHT MODE/amygdala/reptilian brain. We're remembering what's been there from the start, and will always be there.
One last thing about yesterday's appointment.... I didn't realize I held some of the beliefs around the story of my ASPD N husband, and the first night he assaulted me and I thought I would be killed while listening to my oldest 4yo dd call our for me.... THAT is something I've never processed, and thinking about it was like experiencing someone else's feelings and thoughts about it, bc I just haven't done it. Ever.
Terrifying, Lighter, and more so because of the kids. I had one aggressive incident with son's father. He had me backed against a wall and was screaming in my face - not physically touching, but very aggressive, very violent, very unpleasant. Son was asleep in his cot, very young at the time, but what was going through my mind was that I could easily get away from this idiot and get out the front door - but I couldn't easily get away, get up the stairs, get son, get back down the stairs and get past him to get out the front door with son in my arms. And if I got out I wouldn't have any feeds, nappies or a change of clothes for son, either. It makes a huge difference when your kids are being exposed to that level of violence as well. We were, as children, although with us it was usually my mum attacking my dad. Makes it a much harder thing to deal with and yes, processing will be tough. But such a relief, I would have thought. You might need to change your name from Lighter to Lightest :) Lol
I didn't recognize my own belief system about it. I'd never asked myself, or allowed myself to process it.
It's time, and that one thing leads to a hundred, IME.
The journey continues.
Lighter
--- End quote ---
Phew! A lot of work, Lighter, but so rewarding! I am thinking I might look for an EMDR therapist to help me process everything that comes up as I tackle my paperwork mountain next year. 32 boxes and lever arch files, all representing nearly two decades of abuse, inequality and repeated experiences. Mmm. Might be worth investing in some practical support to get through that. I will look into it further. Thank you so much for sharing all of this. I'm glad you are finding it all so useful xx
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