Truth

[October]

{{{{ hang in there - we are here }}}

bunny

Thank you for your posts, Bunny.  I will look into the things you have listed, and try to learn more.  I have a book on this subject, called the Inner Child workbook.  It looks really good, but so far I can't get past a brief reading of it, because it is too distressing on my own.  But I keep trying, every now and then.     I can read the examples, but I can't fill in the exercises.    

[October]

Hi October, glad you have a neighbour you can chat to. It's worth a lot you know?

I keep seeing references to your flashbacks and you know how curious I am. Do you want to talk about them, what they're about? If not, no problema, but I thought I'd ask.

Hiya P

The angel is kind of neither he or she, but it seems a bit rude to say 'it'.     And it is made of light, but light you can feel the same as you feel people.  Sorry, sounds weird.  It is like when you walk towards a house and you can always tell if the people are home or not before you ring.  Same kind of feeling; someone is there.

I always wanted to write an article about the links between trauma and mysticism.  One of these days ...  I don't think I saw the film you mentioned.  I will have to look out for it.

You don't need to apologise for the NHS - it is as much my fault as anyone else's.  I dare say we get the health service we deserve, as a nation.  

My PC is playing up tonight.  This is my second attempt at answering this one, and most of the emoticons have disappeared, so can't use them.  : (

Flashbacks are memories that won't go away.  Everyone has them sometimes, after something particularly nasty happens.  Supposedly, they are caused by a failure of processing.  The memory loops because the mind is trying to process the event, but can't.  So it keeps looping over and over.  Very wearing.  It can last months or even years.  Sometimes you suppress the memory, and even forget it completely.  Then years later it gets triggered by another event, and the looping begins again.

What I get is the current event looping, and the hidden trigger situation is so far away by now that I don't see it.  But sometimes the layers unravel and I get one event leading into another and another and another, then repeating through the sequence.  Not very nice.

I stay at home because I don't get flashbacks of lying in bed reading.  I do get flashbacks of emails, or message board messages, if they are distressing, though.  But sometimes you have to pay a price for being connected, and I take the chance.  If things get too bad I disappear for a few days or weeks or change site for a while.

[bunny as guest]

October,

There is no way I could work with the "inner child" even now. But I am okay reading about child development in general. A therapist HAS to know this stuff or they are dangerous. All therapy patients are to be understood as children at some level. It's not your job to see your own self as a child unless you can handle it. The main thing is, there is a thing called object constancy. This is the ability to survive separations from perceived caregivers, to realize that people are there even if they aren't in the room or on the phone. Many of us have weak object constancy or it's not there at all. A therapist is supposed to help us strengthen this if we didn't get to it earlier. All therapists are supposed to look at object constancy of their patients when they go on holiday or on trips. They have to see if their patient is going to need a substitute therapist, postcards, phone calls, or some way to deal with the separation.

bunny

[October]

October,

There is no way I could work with the "inner child" even now. But I am okay reading about child development in general. A therapist HAS to know this stuff or they are dangerous. All therapy patients are to be understood as children at some level. It's not your job to see your own self as a child unless you can handle it. The main thing is, there is a thing called object constancy. This is the ability to survive separations from perceived caregivers, to realize that people are there even if they aren't in the room or on the phone. Many of us have weak object constancy or it's not there at all. A therapist is supposed to help us strengthen this if we didn't get to it earlier. All therapists are supposed to look at object constancy of their patients when they go on holiday or on trips. They have to see if their patient is going to need a substitute therapist, postcards, phone calls, or some way to deal with the separation.

bunny

This all makes such a lot of sense.  Thank you.

If my t were giving swimming lessons, I think what she would do is to make people jump off the diving board into the deep end, then say 'now start swimming'.  Then she would go on holiday.

     

Unless people are with me I don't believe that they exist.  I have to logically assume that they do, but I don't believe it inside.  Strangely, thinking about it, my dentist seems to be a moderate kind of exception to this.  Not sure why, but he is more real.  Could be to do with touch.  I don't touch anyone, and nobody touches me.

Trauma makes this more real.  It wipes out everyone on earth all in one go.  Or perhaps another way of saying it is that earth is still there, somewhere, but I am somewhere else.  Like standing on the moon, looking at home, and being very alone.  This is so painful that dissociation takes over and numbs the pain, so you look back and don't care any more.  

Thanks for being there, Bunny.  Wherever you are.  Good job there is internet connection on the moon.    

[bunny as guest]

Hi October,

See, a therapist who works with you (with any intelligence) would realize quickly that you go to a "very young place" that is before words and rational thoughts. This intelligent and knowledgable therapist would know how to work with that. If they retraumatized you, they would be interested, in a non-defensive way, to hear how they did it. Maybe your dentist is an innately understanding person who "gets" where a person is at and accepts it. I'm sure the touching is significant as well.

bunny

[mum as guest]

I don't touch anyone, and nobody touches me.

October: I am sad when I read that.  I remember after my father's funeral, I was sitting with my mom in a large armchair at my brother's house.  I had my arm around her, and when I got up to leave the chair, she said, "no...please keep your arm around me a while"....and through tears, added,  "I will miss touch so much."  Now, in her twilight, family members simply sit and hold her hand for hours....I can imagine after having nine chilren that this is so important to her. She knows it's importance as she massaged all of us as babies regularly...a real pioneer, she was.

I also have a friend who for various reasons, has no "special someone" including children, in her life.  We hug, etc, but she says the lack of physicality is really hard.  She has found an enormous amount of relief in massage therapy.  She said it has not only helped her with various post cancer muscle problems....but it reminds her what it is to be touched with caring.
Is this too far out of the realm for you?

[October]

Maybe your dentist is an innately understanding person who "gets" where a person is at and accepts it. I'm sure the touching is significant as well.

bunny

Yes.  When I go to pieces a bit (from fear) he says things like, 'don't worry.  We've been friends a long time'.  I know as well as he does that we are not friends in the real sense, but there is no need for apologies or explanations.  Just acceptance.  Good job I can still manage that.  

At present I have a real fear of ever seeing even my GP again, but when I think of the dentist, that is not a problem.  Well, no more than going shopping.  

[October]

Is this too far out of the realm for you?

Massage would be too scarey.  Too personal.  I might even have to take some clothes off!!  

I can touch C ok, although she is growing up, so there is less contact than when she was little, when we had lots of nice cuddly times.  Less so now, unless she is not too well.  I try to let her decide what she needs and when.

When I went to tell my brother that I was pregnant, straight after seeing the GP, because he worked just round the corner from there, he was really pleased, and he shook my hand.     Since then he and I have touched maybe twice.  That is kind of normal for my family.  Weird, but normal.  He can hug his kids (and so can I), I can hug C (although he can't) and we never ever touch one another, even in passing.

It looks as though there is an unwritten rule relating to incest in operation here, due to repression of something or other.  Feelings of love.  A ringfence around the Torah.  (Extra laws around the Law, in order to ensure the sanctity of the central Law.) So the concept of 'safe touch' never exists.

[Anonymous]

Hi again October:

When a therapist asks me that question I never answer, because they are not able to hear the answer. But just for you, I will answer it.

I want to be dead.

Well, thankyou for answering it and in that case, I'm glad you're not giving yourself what you want.

What's your second choice?

Happy now??

Why would you ask that?  I'm just curious.  I would never be happy to know that you feel that way.  Did you think I would be happy to know this?

But that is not me. That is a symptom.

I think you're saying that you're wanting to be dead is a symptom?

Same as the vision of the future.

I'm not convinced that these two are the same.  You may be right, but in that case, that would mean you have absolutely no control over what you think, what visions are created, etc in your mind.  Sometimes, we choose not to dream.

It is these things I am fighting to escape from, rather than making happen. If I do nothing, they happen.

Yes.  That happens to me too, believe it or not (some thoughts just happen, I mean...especially if I do nothing to try to counteract that process).  But.....do you ever just lie in your bed and try to imagine yourself happy....doing something you like......or remembering something you enjoyed from the past?  I bet you do that sometimes?

I have not yet given up trying,

I'm glad to hear that!  Good for you October.

It is very easy with illness to blame the patient for the symptom. It does not help the patient. But life is not an ATM machine, and to suggest that it is puts the blame on anyone poor, or unwell, or disadvantaged, for the life they have. This is medieval thinking, where the person stricken with plague was reckoned cursed by God and therefore getting what they deserve.

Is that what you think?  That I am blaming you for your illness/symptom?  Do you feel like I'm putting blame on you by asking if you realize you have a great power?  If you don't have that power, who does?  This isn't to suggest that you can rid your mind of unhelpful thoughts.  It just means pretending a little, sometimes.  See what I mean?  Maybe not.  Maybe I'm not saying it right.

I appreciate that you care, but I am not sure your comments are helpful.

Sorry October.  Sorry if I annoyed you.

For one thing you picked up on the negative at the end of my post, but ignored the positive at the start.

Very true.  Do you always pick up and comment on the positives in people's posts, all of the time, first?   I don't always do that.
 

You can't have it both ways; either I am an optimistic person struggling womanfully with a desperate situation, or else I am bringing it all on myself by negativity. I would suggest that the former interpretation is nearer my own truth and that of anyone who truly knows me.

For me, some days I'm one and other days, another.  It varies with my mood, hormones, how many people get in my face, how positive I feel, and how hard I try, and how determined I am to focus.  I'm not always one or the other.

I acknowlege that positive thinking has a role to play,

I'm glad you agree and really, this was all I was trying to point out and I do appologize for not doing it more gently.

... but if you can see no evidence of that kind of positivity in my writing, then that just amazes me.

Wait a minute October, did I say that?  I don't think that.  Are you thinking up stuff....negative stuff and then deciding that's what I see?  That's not what I see, October.

But you are, of course, entitled to retain your own view, against the evidence, if you prefer.

Yep.  I think I annoyed you.  Sorry October.  Not what I meant to do at all.

GFN

[bunny as guest]

Hi GFN,

This is a total butt in but I have a bit of feedback. In some cases, asking a lot of questions isn't the way to go. The person isn't in that cognitive place. Especially if they mentioned dissociation. They can be reached other ways but not with questions and cognitive examples. Do you know what I mean?

bunny

[Stormchild]

October - the title of the film Portia recommended is "Michael", it does indeed star John Travolta, and it was written by Nora Ephron, who also directed it. [I've surprised myself by being very wrong about some of this stuff when I've posted to this board in the past, so this time I did my homework up front, and here's a URL for a review: http://www.stairwell.com/doc/exam/michael.html ]

I am terribly sorry about the finances and the lousy treatment you received at the private facility. Is there any chance at all of your being able to find a decent, psych-trained Diocesan priest to talk with in a pastoral care kind of setting?

Or could your vicar [in his better moments] maybe refer you to someone he knows, in ministry, for pastoral care? That is supposed to be low-cost to no-cost, and the Jungian archetypes are not at all incompatible with the sacred calling, so you might get some decent help that way. If he has any connections with university-level theologians who train folks in pastoral care... that is probably the level of spiritual and psychological understanding that you would be best helped by. It's hard to find, but I'll pray for you and light candles and everything else that I can think of.

I am so sorry, dear October. I know that standing-on-the-moon feeling   you describe, although I came there by a different route. It does pass, but you know that already.

I'm glad you have an angelic guardian caring for you, and even more glad that you are aware of their presence...

[October]

I'm glad you have an angelic guardian caring for you, and even more glad that you are aware of their presence...

Thanks, Stormy.  Even more importantly to me, I have someone else who needs my prayers and love (such as it is) at the moment.  Saves me falling into my own navel.  

So, any spare thoughts for the Blessed Brenda,   who is in lots of pain at present.  She hurt her back last Saturday and has hardly been able to sleep since.  She is the nearest I have to a mum of the real kind, and I need her to stay with us for a while longer, DV.  (she has a v weak heart and has had heart surgery twice, ten years ago and last year.)  

GFN, thanks for the love.  Can't cope with the logic and the reasoning bit at present; like reading Chinese.  But this place certainly wouldn't be the same without you.

((((safe hugs to everyone))))

[October]

Written by yrs trly in 1999.  Still true today.  I can hear GFN saying 'walk out of that d*** corner!!' as I post it.        


The Angel

I am trapped in a corner
and the devil is throwing stones
and trying to kill me.

But the angel kisses each one
and it turns into a flower.
And the petals fall around my head
and at my feet.

And it is good.

[Portia]

Thanks Stormchild, that’s the one, I liked that film. Simple but deep.

Hiya October.

Massage would be too scarey. Too personal.

Agreed. Why put myself into an anxiety state for something that’s supposed to be a treat? So I won’t do it. It would be a complete waste of money for me. Just because other people do it, doesn’t mean I have to. Maybe I’ll try it one day.  
 

When I went to tell my brother that I was pregnant, straight after seeing the GP, because he worked just round the corner from there, he was really pleased, and he shook my hand.  Since then he and I have touched maybe twice. That is kind of normal for my family. Weird, but normal. He can hug his kids (and so can I), I can hug C (although he can't) and we never ever touch one another, even in passing.

I think this is weird but very normal for many, many families. And a lot of touch is used as a method of control, especially in business. Hand on the back = I’m in charge, hand on the arm = shut up I’m talking etc. I hate it. I have very little touch in my life. Why should that be a problem?

It looks as though there is an unwritten rule relating to incest in operation here, due to repression of something or other. Feelings of love. A ringfence around the Torah. (Extra laws around the Law, in order to ensure the sanctity of the central Law.) So the concept of 'safe touch' never exists.

I don’t imagine it’s repression of feelings of love. Do you think your mother is repressing love? Maybe there is love in your family that is repressed. Wow. I can’t imagine that. I just know there’s no repressed love in my family. It just isn’t there, the participants in the ‘family’ (what is ‘family’ anyway) aren’t capable of it. Maybe that makes it easier for me to accept?

To me the concept of ‘safe touch’ is almost a contradiction in terms. Almost. But then I’m weird, so what, it’s my thing. Maybe I’ll change. Does it bother me? Not a lot.


I want to ask you, I was thinking about this last night, have you ever wept because you were sad? I don’t mean crying from anger, frustration, tiredness etc. I mean weeping from sadness perhaps about a loss, maybe a bereavement. Or perhaps finding yourself crying at some inhumanity. Have you experienced this?

Another question I just thought of, was your therapist seeing you for a particular 'label' as such? E.g. specifically seeing you for 'social phobia' or 'depression' or whatever? This might have a bearing on her somewhat less than perfect approach I guess.

[October]

I don’t imagine it’s repression of feelings of love. Do you think your mother is repressing love? Maybe there is love in your family that is repressed. Wow. I can’t imagine that. I just know there’s no repressed love in my family. It just isn’t there, the participants in the ‘family’ (what is ‘family’ anyway) aren’t capable of it. Maybe that makes it easier for me to accept?

All I know is that when my goddaughter was born my brother told me he would never ever take her on his knee to give her a cuddle, in case anyone thought he was wanting to interfere with  her.  I said, who would think that in a million years?  But he still never did it.  Then, when my daughter was born, and he came to visit, straight away I gave her to him to hold, and he did it, but he never volunteered to do it.  He is very uncomfortable with touch, and it relates to rules about what is and what is not allowed.

My mum doesn't know what love is, and whatever emotions she has certainly don't get repressed; they are there.  But the rest of us, well, very little honest expression allowed there, of any kind.

To me the concept of ‘safe touch’ is almost a contradiction in terms. Almost. But then I’m weird, so what, it’s my thing. Maybe I’ll change. Does it bother me? Not a lot.

Me too.  But I can give a lot more hugs, or even kisses, here than I can in real life.  Once in a while I have a hug with a friend, but it is rare, and I am never quite happy until we let go again.  Isn't it horrible when the other person has a longer 'hug threshold' than you do, and you keep trying to disengage and they are still hugging away.  <shudder!!!>  

I want to ask you, I was thinking about this last night, have you ever wept because you were sad? I don’t mean crying from anger, frustration, tiredness etc. I mean weeping from sadness perhaps about a loss, maybe a bereavement. Or perhaps finding yourself crying at some inhumanity. Have you experienced this?

Not sure, to be honest.  Sometimes I remember my granddad and I cry then, but not for long.  But that is another story.  

Another question I just thought of, was your therapist seeing you for a particular 'label' as such? E.g. specifically seeing you for 'social phobia' or 'depression' or whatever? This might have a bearing on her somewhat less than perfect approach I guess.

Should have been for ptsd, but there are no ptsd practitioners here.  She is a generalist in adult mental health, she told me on Monday, rather than a specialist.  To which I said a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.  From now on I need either a specialist in ptsd, who does nothing else, or nothing at all, imo.  I don't think that what she did was necessarily wrong, but certainly, for me, the way she did it was very dangerous.  I have had to contain so much danger (sorry, can't think of less emotive word) for so long, and I am left drained, and very let down.  You don't realise how much your life is built around hope of recovery until it stops.