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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Developing A Personality

« Last post by sKePTiKal on December 05, 2024, 07:55:07 AM »

Poor dear! Drink a hot lemon & honey tea - and if you don't have to be somewhere maybe a dram or two to help you sleep. When I come down with something, I can always tell because everything emotional gets magnified - like the car mirror that says "objects appear larger & closer"... which right now, I can't for the life of me understand the utility of such a thing.

Wind is howling here this morning; 50-60 mph and very cold. Generator has kicked on several times as the power has blipped off due to tree branches moving, etc. Fire sirens down the mountain early, about 6 am. Probably a chimney fire somewhere or an accident - the roads are a little slick. I don't have to go out until this afternoon, with Lucy & Pickles for their first vet visit & shots.

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Developing A Personality

« Last post by Twoapenny on December 05, 2024, 04:57:47 AM »

Thanks, everybody.  It's been a big help to log on and see all your lovely and helpful messages, thank you.

I do feel like I'm swimming through treacle with concrete boots on but it's alright.  Rape Crisis have been very helpful, got back in touch with me very quickly, have sent an information pack and we've a phone appointment next week to go through the initial information and set up the first appointment.  So that's good, I remember contacting a rape/sexual abuse charity another time and it was nearly a year before they got back to me, with then another year waiting to be seen.  So this is moving a lot quicker.

Hops, I did take your advice about the echinacea and elderberry and got some yesterday.  Unfortunately it's already past the heading it off stage, but hopefully it will see it off quicker and I'm stocked up for next time so that's good.

I didn't want to spend the day moping around the house yesterday so we went to the beach.  We had a nice breakfast at a cafe we like there (Scottish Square Sausages are the best thing ever), there's a retro gaming arcade that my son spent a bit of time in and then we went for a walk that can only be described as 'bracing'.  It took up a big chunk of the day so it was good.  I felt terrible last night, cold was really hitting hard so I went to bed early.  It does feel like it's eased off today, still full of it but not as bad as yesterday.  Hopefully the echinacea and elderberry is doing its thing.

Son is out today and has a group tomorrow, then two cinema trips over the weekend so that is all good, it means he's out doing things and I can collapse in a heap.  I'm just focusing on food and bare essentials that either one of us needs.  That will do for now.

Thank you for the support, it really means a lot.  I won't write any more now as head is very fuzzy but I'll check back in tomorrow.  Hope everyone is doing okay xx

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Developing A Personality

« Last post by Hopalong on December 04, 2024, 08:07:03 PM »

I'm so glad you've reached out for trained, experienced help with this, Tupp.
I hope you're at the top of their list soon, and will tell them exactly everything you just told us. Fear of a breakdown, worry for Son, not going backward, etc etc.

I'm hoping this fear will float off of you soon, and you'll be longer and longer in the state of mind you were in two days ago.

You are still moving FORWARD, and it's just noisy and rusty like a train that was stalled for a time. So the cars jump and jerk. But the motion toward health is still there within you, and you're giving it a better chance.

This is smoke from an old fire and it WILL move through. Breathe, try to distract yourself from doom-thinking, and try also to feel some faith in life itself. I believe you want to be well more than not, and that you already are manifesting that in so many ways.

Don't forget how far you've come. This is just a juncture, and with holidays (which set off bomblets in most people with past traumas)...things can be murky for a bit.

Just don't let that MEAN anything big and dark. It's just symptoms of healing. The ache and the itch and the flashes of fear. Keep on breathing. You're okay, ((((Tupp))). Again, I hope you'll connect with others who've been there, somehow. Not just online or through old friendships, but new and now and not alone. Perhaps there's a group for rape or child sexual abuse survivors. That could be golden.

hugs and hopes,
Hops

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Developing A Personality

« Last post by lighter on December 04, 2024, 03:33:00 PM »

Oh dear, ((Tupp.)). I wish we could sleep trauma off....or vanquish it with an Amazon bonfire. 

You're in the abyss now.  It's scary and no one knows what's beyond the point they've never traveled beyond.  That stuck place, where trauma bounces around, has always been there....distanced....never far.  It doesn't know you can move through and beyond it ....relieve it .

The cow and buffalo analogy pops up for me.  Cows run from storms and the storm moves with them, over them, they're in the storm longer than if they stood still.

Buffalo run into the storm and the strategy moves them through and out the other side with economy if motion.  I'm paraphrasing here.

Your wounded and protective parts fly into action when old trauma/danger pops up, as they have since you were a baby, likely ...and that's ok. Their intentions are always positive. They're trying to help, but they don't  know you're an adult, able to care for yourself and them ...so they can stand down and rest.

I notice things get calmer when I face them....just notice and acknowledge them without expectation....do my best to drop judgement and just be present.  The parts want to help....not terrorize you, IME.  You can ask them to calm down.....tell them you can work with them now.

In the meantime....

I hope you can practice finding your center ...the light that is you.....
the blue sky......
everything else is storm and cloud and wind, not you.  Never you.

Whatever works....EMDR, breathing, touching trees, pushing on door jams with everything you've got while focusing on breathing......
you can find a way to calm survival brain and bring problem solving/logical frontal cortex back online.  You're integrated whole brain can process this.....if it just has the chance.  If you can engage your Parasympathetic Nervous System, IME.

Your protective parts don't believe that can happen, bc it hasn't around this trauma....
yet. 

Not gonna lie.....I have to push on door jams when deep in survival brain activation, bc survival mode actually believes I'm back in that danger, physically, and survival brain wants to, neeeeeeeeds to ACT.  It's an imperative and it's good to understand  intentions are to protect, however misguided. 

And it feels like dying......to be back in that kind of danger, ime. 

It's the past, stuck in your limbic system, bouncing and howling, unaware you're safe now.  And you are safe.

 In your bed or car or the garden.... you're safe to notice shapes and colors and smells and your peripheral vision.....to notice the space above and beside and beneath you.
Perhaps, find, name and breathe into the pain in your body....tend to it....breathe space around it, when calm enough.  Or not and that's ok too.

No shoulds or have to's. 

Just openness to curiosity and possibilities.



This too shall pass, darling one and you don't have to be perfect for your ds.  Being sad or upset is part of life.  Your son learns it's ok to not be ok all the time, and it passes. He learns by watching you come through it, IME.

You are the sky. The sky is always there, aware storms are temporary and not part of the sky at all. 

::nodding::.

Lighter

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Developing A Personality

« Last post by sKePTiKal on December 04, 2024, 09:05:34 AM »

Once I regained my memory of my rape, I spent a long series of months with rape support groups online. It helped a lot. My shame about it evaporated when I realized it was (sadly) so common an experience one could easily see the behavioral patterns used to cope with it.

Then, I started putting 2+2 together on the circumstances around that (which was even more painful!) and simply journalled out my nuclear blast anger over it. After a few journals wore out, it got so it was no more emotional for me to talk about it; think about it; than it was having the Hong Kong flu or chickenpox.

And that's not a tragedy. It WAS absolutely pivotal in making me who I am now. And that was just a starting point for more growth. But it was important to wear out the sensational horror of the emotional side of the experience. So it couldn't take me by surprise in some innocent setting and then I'd endure an unexpected "reliving the emotions again" time.

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Developing A Personality

« Last post by Twoapenny on December 04, 2024, 02:33:44 AM »

Thanks, Hopsie.  I have to say that at the moment, things are the worst they've been for a very long time.  I can't remember the last time I felt this wretched.  I don't know what I unleashed during that yoga session, but it's not good.  I've contacted the local Rape Crisis centre.  I probably won't be able to see anybody until after Christmas now, it takes longer than that to sort these things out, but I'm on their list which is good.  I'm just trying to keep to my routine a bit, get through the day and not fall too deep into the pit.  Luckily son has a lot of Christmas stuff organised so he's got things going on which only involve me dropping him off and picking him up.  And fortunately Christmas is pretty much prepared so I can be a helpless mess now and he'll still get his presents and Christmas dinner, so it's alright.  Sorry for being mopey.   I know I need to work through all this stuff but it really scares me.  I worry I'll fall into a pit I won't get out of again.  I don't want my son to be affected by it.  I've fallen apart before but he was too little to notice.  He's very perceptive now, I don't want him dragged into it.  I don't want him knowing even more ghastly family secrets.  Equally I feel like I'm lying to him and that doesn't feel good either.  Fortunately he's got Christmas to be distracted by.  Why can't it be easy?  I wish there was some magic pill you could take that just fixed everything, you just went to bed for two days, got up, and everything was fine.
In other news, I hope pup's training is going well.  He'll be bossing you about now and making you get off the couch   Lol x

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Developing A Personality

« Last post by Hopalong on December 03, 2024, 11:05:07 AM »

((((((((Tupp))))))). I hope the cold turns around and leaves.
I've found if I hammer the earliest cold symptoms with regular doses of echinacea and black elderberry syrup, mine will. Quick dosing seems most important.

I love that you're giving yourself the gift of doing what you need (likewise not doing things) today.

I wonder if you dreamed about Pup, who's going off on his training expedition today. It rattles me quite deeply, which should be embarrassing to admit but I'm too far gone. Please send him encouraging vibes. Send me some too!

I really like what you're doing and thinking, Tupp. Your clarity. Bravery. Constancy.

Instead of self-punishment all day long. Untangling Every Human Being You Encounter Anywhere from your parents. So liberating to leave them in the past. You did not put them where they wound up. You could not. They put themselves there, and their own gene mix and personal histories and choices and beliefs did, as complicated as spiderwebs but as logical. So they lost out on celebrating and enjoying a unique, talented, loving, bold and resilient daughter. Because she escaped and is not going back.

You really can't break a child's heart over and over and not pay the price. Now that we're custodians of our own hearts, we learn not to break our own hearts. There are thoughts that heal and thoughts that undermine and you are so clearly practicing healing and sanity. Wowsers.

hugs
Hops

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Developing A Personality

« Last post by Twoapenny on December 03, 2024, 03:31:25 AM »

Thanks, Lighter.  I'm glad the vertigo is a bit better.  Things have kind of been okay.  Yesterday was hard going, I kind of plodded through feeling worse and worse.  Collected son early evening, sorted him out and then went to bed.  Didn't sleep brilliantly, kept dreaming about dogs!  But did the yoga again this morning, focused on the groin area - and it was alright.  Didn't zone out, didn't feel anything unpleasant come up, did find it very difficult physically but I'm more interested in the emotional side of it rather than being able to do the poses perfectly or hold them for hours.  I've got a cold coming now and am very tired so I am going to have a quiet, comfortable day today.  Son had a busy day yesterday so he's happy to not do much and other than our veg box being delivered, nothing else is organised.  So I'm back in bed, with my book, the cat has wedged himself under a radiator and is making no sign of coming out and I did cook up enough stuff yesterday that I can just reheat food today instead of cooking from scratch so we can eat well with minimum effort.  That feels nice.  I'm happy to make a constructive decision to take a day off, I just hate it when everything collapses and I stop functioning.  That drives me nuts.  So if I can get to a point where downtime is a choice, rather than something forced upon me, that will be good x

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Developing A Personality

« Last post by lighter on December 02, 2024, 08:11:47 AM »

Aww, ((Tupp.)) You do so much, without support.  Things are gonna get messy when you put down a ball to pick another up and that's ok.  You'll get back to the house and whatever else, bc you always have and will.

Whatever energy you give to worrying can be gifted to the parts asking for attention, IME.  It's scary, but tending to the wounded and protective parts creates helpful change and more serenity, IME.

Remember.....if you drop judgement, shift into observation and look for what's really there ... tend to it.....ask what it has to say....what does it need....where in your body you feel it.....put a number on it....breath into..... that's a way through and out of the pain. 

It won't hold you down forever, scare and hurt you.  It just wants to be noticed and tended to.  It belongs and deserves to be released.....to rest.

This is the big work, Tupp.  You're doing it.

My vertigo is mostly better....often not showing up at all.  I admit, I'm making more ruthless decisions....read that as self protective, bc vertigo seems tied to self care and emotional regulation.

Breathe and lean in to what's there, Tupp.  It's going to be ok and we're here for you.

Lighter

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Developing A Personality

« Last post by Twoapenny on December 02, 2024, 05:13:19 AM »

Grrrr I hate feeling like this, it's like being hit by a truck and swimming through treacle at the same time.  This is why I find it so hard to really move forward.  Feeling like this makes me want to go to bed and sleep, or curl up on the sofa and watch TV.  Sometimes hours, sometimes days, sometimes even longer.  But what happens then is the house descends into chaos, my new habits of eating healthy food and doing yoga stop, I don't look after myself and everything gets a mess.  Then I spend days/weeks/months getting back on track again and catching up with everything I didn't do, and then once I get to a more balanced place again, another little 'revelation' comes along and the cycle starts back up again.  grrr grrr and grrr.  So I'm not relenting to it, I've dropped my son off for his day out, I'm making short lists of five tasks at a time and sticking to it regardless.  Even if I feel worse as the day goes on at least some of the necessary stuff will be done and I don't know, maybe the time's come that I need to show myself I can deal with it and still keep going.