Tag: #theinvisiblebattle

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Writing Down the Bones while Exploring this Wild Mind

Pilgrimage

It’s time. To be here now. Deep breath. Ocean Eyes by Scvrina is on.

I just attended Cheryl Strayed writing workshop Wild Awakenings. She was live from The Omega Institute in Rhinebeck. It walked me back through my experience there in 2015, on scholarship. Elizabeth Gilbert was promoting Big Magic and spoke.

I was wanting to be a writer then, permission for something already mine. There are too many takeaways from the course that are amazing to shuffle back through.

I remember sitting there feeling so frozen inside myself. I looked to others to try and figure out what I should be doing. They looked like they had it figured out. I felt alien and cold and emotionally stopped up and exploding all at once. All of this carefully contained by a scratchy wool sweater.

Other people smiled and spoke freely with one another. I was sweaty and terrified.

In this particular workshop unbeknownst to me we got put into breakout rooms on zoom cameras and read our pieces and I did not balk. Not one shred of fear or self consciousness on the camera. Because why. This is me. It’s how I look and what I have to offer, and why is that any less or more for that matter than anyone else.

So I’ll talk about my experience. I just chose a prompt and wrote for 10 minutes each writing exercise and was shocked at the results. I was shocked at how much I have repressed about my own experience because of how I’m supposed to think, be, do.

I realized I don’t lose control on the page, the one place I am supposed to (able to). I still don’t, because what will it mean?! That folks is anxiety programming in action. To make our thoughts mean more than they need to before they are even processed yet.

My writing means nothing but someone else’s interpretation when shared, and everything to me. That’s what it means. It’s my flow. My self on the page. My wild mind. Scattered or with blank spots, flooded, however it is it’s mine and there are reasons are minds are as they are: some more mysterious than others.

So don’t process at all?! Well you know my every heart beat is based on the belief in the process and yet I stopped trusting my own. I stopped trusting everything really. That’s such an unpleasant place to be in. My well of passion dried up via suppression. That realization feels like a rock in my stomach.

I guess that is part of the freeze after deep pain, regret, etc.

Balance is a tight rope walk of acknowledgment of the things we can let go of, the destructive thoughts about anything. I didn’t know I could let go. I’ve been holding on tight for so long.

So it’s October and I’m finally going to begin (already have) and finish On Writing by Stephen King. I had read half breathlessly and was afraid of it being over. That’s an example of how scared I am every single day. I’m scared of attachment. And I created so many self fulfilling prophecies with this wound.

I did it by rushing. I did it by being a coping mechanism. Now I’m trying to be a human, and not just any human, my SELF. It’s a little harder than one might think with all this wiring.

I’ve lived with so much fear. I’ve lived so tamed. I thought being highly emotionally reactive at times meant being untamed, but it’s the opposite. That’s the result of constantly taming oneself. I watched The Luckiest Girl Alive last night and I don’t think I’ve ever resonated with a movie more. Hillbilly Elegy is up there.

Please be careful with that movie. But right down to the intrusive thoughts. I was / am so much like her and I didn’t even know it until I saw this movie. In some ways I’m just cracking through another layer of ice. All along my ego defenses need to shout how far along we are. I’m ready to give up that battle.

I too am trying to look like I have a normal life, be normal and safe and whatever else. And that does not work. I need to find who is really in here. All of it.

This writing class was a good beginning it shook a lot loose. For example I realized it’s not nothing to say as the freeze often suggests. A dirty dirty lie. I have “too much” to say that could be disturbing and Cheryl addressed this perfectly when she told the story of taking an amount of her dead mothers ashes into her body for keeping.

A gorgeous testament to her raw pain and her love for her mother. Her fierce love for her mother made me long that my children will ever feel that way about me. I’m not sure it’s ever in the cards. I know they love me, but it just doesn’t feel like our story.

I realized in my energy healing this past weekend that my head compensates for my feeling parts, and I realized that the wires are crossed on that. I thought that kept me safe. It did Christina, a long time ago. But now it just keeps me from the warmth of the fires of my own passion. Careful control. I don’t even believe in that, but it’s a subconscious default in so many ways.

I just wrote anyway, and then erased it 😉

Cheryl talked about how a reviewer of Wild had become disturbed by the ashes scene and said it’s just too much and threw the book in the trash. She said that person’s feeling and reaction was hers and as valid as the good reviews and that alone taught me so much.

She let go of her attachment to people understanding and allowed her own experience. Let go of control. See the work of David R Hawkins on letting go for some practical tools and lovely wisdom in this area. It’s one of my current sources.

I spent so much of my life letting people who didn’t even have my back get under my skin. Their review of me. Trapped in purgatory of what other people think, while not even knowing what I do.

That is my compelling why in exploring the depths of myself.

To do this I’ve been walking a lot lately. Once I’m off, one foot in front of another it’s meditative. My thoughts settle into sentences and become available to me.

My own thoughts available to me?! I take for granted at times the magnitude of my own healing. I could have easily spent my entire life a very different way, where the above does not exist.

I need to develop a healthy relationship with my self and my thoughts. Rather than viciously sort them into categories of good and bad. Be with them, understand them.

My deepest wound for a very long time is feeling misunderstood. It’s what much of my emdr centers around. When I deeply misunderstand myself, it’s much more likely I’ll do that with others as well and blow my life up. Or at the very least turn the possibility of a lot of gorgeous moments into a minefield of reactivity.

I’m quiet a lot more, and I want to be more quiet. To be with nature. I’ve been craving a morning hike lately. It’s been beach for a long time, maybe it’s time for some woods. Solitude doesn’t have to be some grand voyage, it can be a few hours a day.

For anyone reading this who is interested I recommend Julie my Angel. My energy medicine practitioner. She has changed my entire life, primarily by helping me ease my anger by the belief that we choose our paths for specific reasons. I do believe this. When I was particularly lost inside my pain, this thought was outrageous to me. But as the threads to the tapestry begin to reveal my path. That tingle is irreplaceable, I become a believer.

My mind is a skeptic, of course it is. It’s hyper vigilant to a fault. My special skill set to identify even the potential of threat in any given set of circumstances and have an itchy trigger finger.

The gun is down and these days I’m working on my own self.

I am loving and tending to my home, the physical one here and earth and my meat suit lol.

So look forward in the very near future to seeing some practice writing pieces, perhaps with prompts perhaps not. Poetry. Pieces that I feel and felt when I wrote them. Unedited and raw the way I like to live life. The way I aspire to allowing myself to live.

It’ll always be easier to talk the talk. I am a human who is committed to walking the walk.

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“The Pleasure is for Rent and So is The Pain.”

As captured on the cover of a journal at Barnes and Noble the other day. Love that place.

I’m sitting outside at Nate’s Plate’s, waiting for an egg and cheese sandwich. First time trying it here. Way to ruin your walk Christina. Ok we aren’t doing that. This is about enjoying life. The little things, and the big ones.

It’s a gorgeous pre fall day. I’ve been walking and occasionally jogging 2-3 miles most days. Sometimes only one, sometimes none, but usually some. Currently I’m listening to On My Own by Ross Lynch. It’s the first song of the day. It came on Spotify Taylor Swift radio. There is a fake plant, bright yellow in a wicker pot on the table, my water bottle a consistent comfort, and two bags of peanut butter chocolate energy bites.

From here I can see the playground, tennis courts, baseball field, that are behind the Milford Public Library. I love Milford. I’ve fallen more in love with it through the hard times and good of the last few years. Milford is a constant. And constants make my heart happy, despite my creative’s occasional rebellion against it. I always return if it’s safe to do so, and healthy for me.

I only cut off from sources of poison, and the bad thing was never me. I could cry writing this for all the confusion and suffering it’s caused in my life trying desperately to find “the right answer”, in those choices. Never know there was always a right for me.

I never knew my self. Never knew she was worth knowing. And that might make you sad to read, but don’t be sad for me, because I believe we each have a path that has meaning, even when the view hasn’t all come together. Unsewn threads causing doubts. Painful. It’s ok. Is it, my anxiety says?! Yes it is my higher self says. And I no longer shame myself for how long this conversation must be had.

The past few days I’ve been loving Greenlights on Audible written and narrated by Matthew McConaughey (so hard to spell this name sigh). Insightful, fun, quirky, a journey of sharing of self and thoughts. Of course I do. Bask in it. He just said a line, the pleasure is for rent, and so is the pain.” Meaning everything is temporary so be present essentially and don’t get too caught in being impressed, rather be more involved.

Engaged, present, involved, trying, learning.

Want to have a mad love affair with yourself.? Go someplace, order something, try something on, pick something up and feel it. What do you like, and what don’t you like. Pick up your head, put down your phone.

Think

Try a new food, a new spot to sit, and feel and think about what it feels like. Presence is bliss. Still your mind. Just look, sense, write, dream, feel.

So I had therapy last night. I still go on average two times a week when I can. At one time I felt I’d accomplished something by going down to one, because who wants to need therapy two times a week. I do. I do! I do because it helps the hurts. That’s why.

*I wrote this post Monday I think. It’s Sunday now. Had our first fire in the fire place kind of Sunday. White bean and chicken soup kind of Sunday. Watched a great suspense movie Sunday. Had a nap Sunday. Stayed in sweats Sunday. Set boundaries Sunday. Shared chocolates Sunday. Enjoyed seasonal candles Sunday. Chip grocery and visit Sunday. Took a walk Sunday. Gave a special gift Sunday. Thought about time Sunday. Finished Hillbilly Elegy and Slaughterhouse Five Sunday. Watched Hocus Pocus 2 Sunday. How did so much fit into one day.

Soon maybe it’ll be started my book on a Sunday.

Soon…..

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Penetrating the Defense Mechanism…

I remember it all too well….

I wanted to say membrane for artistic quality, however it’s way to thin and tame a word for our subject matter.

Word salad, bread crumbs, generalities, banalities, poppy cock, and balderdash. That’s what the defense mechanism speaks. It wreaks of bullshit. Activated, deactivated. My friend calls it morphin time. Spoiler alert he’s a pink ranger fan.

The very fact he can speak about it as if it’s a choice shows the healing work that’s been done. The thing that brings hope and life to life.

I’m walk/run writing which means I’ll probably end up motion sick and nauseated. That’s old hat for me anyway. Are you kidding?! Stringing together beautiful words that never really say anything at all.

The water is low, very low. It smells that way. Peeeee ew. Blech. Death will eventually turn to life though…. And so it goes.

I hate lying and manipulation with a fiery passion these days. I somehow never seem to have less of it in my life. It seeps through. I can do all the work in the world and it still wafts through the air. I pick up on it like a bloodhound, get called crazy for my troubles, and become spun like a top.

Then it’s my reaction to the abuse that becomes criticized. How I save myself. Acts of violence even after all weapons have been put down.

A full surrender…..

Untangling myself from the mess of misperception. The very place I seek help from only becomes another source of misunderstanding. This I’m told is frequently peoples experiences in counseling.

Some counseling misunderstandings cost dearly. Those are the people meant to protect. We trust them more.

Thank God, the windows, the walls, whatever, that I finally learned that lesson. Those legs are still wobbly but they stand firm, shakes and all.

Listening to a counselor try to reason out why it’s difficult to apologize, rather than get a layer deeper to understanding. Don’t try and fix it, that’s ego, try and understand it and find the art to show the inhabitants of that magical safe space, the one space they are committed to listening, that’s safe enough.

Wouldn’t it just be easier to apologize?! What must it be like in a family without being able to do that?! Gee, you think?! Maybe first check what kind of family the person came from 101. Then add their experiences. These are not excuses they are understanding.

To help someone understand themselves by being understanding and compassionate. That borders on the miraculous.

Understanding is salve and balm. Cooling and soothing to the burning hot infected wounds. The disease has metastasized by now. I fall to my knees.

A human walking talking defense mechanism, who struggles inside her own life, and clears up misunderstandings for others, because of the knowledge she’s gathered. This process was not trivial.

A light warrior with a constant stream of dark thoughts about herself. That’s how I’ve kept my humility, it’s kept me. Trapped. Prisoner of war. I’m working on a different kind now. A kind with a wise guide rather than a harsh task master.

The war rages on.

A tear slowly drops down a child’s cheek. They know better. They know war can be replaced with love. But some people will always love war, more than peace. And some have a constant battle within. It’s those that know the value on peace. And there are those that never will.

One priest who couldn’t control himself all those years ago would ensure my abuse continued throughout the span of my life. One depraved religious crazy has had such an impact on my life. That’s what happens when you damage a child. You fucker. There’s a special place in hell for you.

I would never protect the adult over the child’s pain, it’s something I need to stay mindful of in my office because it’s easier to do than you think. We don’t want to be uncomfortable, don’t want to believe in monsters.

Counselors are constantly faced with the truth they are alive and well living right among us. The rest of the population would prefer to cover it’s eyes, and to create routine and distraction. Live your best life. Not everyone has that privilege.

I may serve the literary muse, but even a romantic heart knows, that’s the biggest ruse.

How can you damage a child? How can you break their trust and spirit before they even begin. The nausea turns to sickness. I can’t watch this shit because I’ve lived enough. Their spirit won’t be free again until death. When they can dream again.

Even I know some things break beyond repair and I’m in the healing business. And I’m not God or whomever. I’m just a person with a lot of knowledge that didn’t consent. It feels that way when I feel angry. But according to Julie I did exactly that, and those lost children did too?!

I don’t know.

I don’t care how much meaning can be made from suffering, breaking the spirit and trust in a child, watching the playful go out of them. It tastes metallic. I clench my jaw until my teeth press into my gums with the pain it being locked down inside somewhere and continuously misunderstood.

Because one human couldn’t control his cravings. Because he believed he was living as God intended. Incorrect belief systems in the hands of the wrong people keep the war waging. And hedging your bets is the biggest sin of all. Manipulating both sides. Agememnon.

I need an Achilles. With maybe a few less hair tosses lol. His destiny was his justification to fight mens wars, so perhaps not. He had to be arrogant. Does anyone have to be? One foot on earth, one with his mother. See, even Achilles has mommy issues.

When you’re locked down in a trauma mechanism it sure feels that way. Education, time, commitment, and determination help.

Can you break threads of destiny (would you want to) or are we all just deluded puppets after all.

I’ll leave it to the great philosophers, for I am just a good enough mother down on her knees praying to be forgiven for what she didn’t know, and still doesn’t.

One more circle around the block, then my coffee, my reward. My journal, my oxygen. Then clients. Then a soft safe space to rest before it all begins again.

Green light…..

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At Home in a Heart that is Warm, and the Heart is Mine

Piece by piece she restores my faith that a person could be kind and stay ….. piece by piece she filled the holes that you burned in me at six years old…..

I woke up grumpy this morning. It’s a long day ahead, many bills to pay, many admin issues that need addressing. Ones that are intimidating. I’m tired. My b12 has been low, and I’m getting weekly injections. All of my therapies while deeply helpful, leave me gutted of energy by the end, and that leaves me fallen behind in other areas.

I’m mortal after all, not a God.

My tone inspired by the finishing of The Song of Achilles this morning.

Then as I’m in the bath attempting to rejuvenate my spirits and soak my sore body, I hear twin B singing of all things. I’m just a small town girl….. living in a lonely world…

It immediately lifts my spirits. I smiled from ear to ear. Then even more she texts requesting some time with me. I know it is backwards to need love from your children, (or is it just human all too human) but they are my only flesh and blood connections, and the only ones that have been my motivation to fight so hard against the dark experiences that marked my beginning.

I was waiting to enjoy them…. Wish I knew I didn’t have to wait. But I did. I had to connect with me first and that was nearly impossible.

We have had a turning point in family therapy. And even if it’s just a glimmer of hope (I think it’s more, that this is real), I am overjoyed with it.

Finally all being clamped down in our own story, corners, and pain…. It is relenting…. The icy grip releasing.

Could this thaw too?

It must Christina. You did. So how could it not? Remember what it took to get here.

The pool is getting fixed in the next couple of weeks. If nothing else to preserve the value of this home as improvements continue. A trip to a hot tub store in Milford last week ended in us getting the motivation to clean the thing out. I’ll have to post some before and after shots as I learn how to make the pictures blog sized and not make the whole post not work.

I can’t believe we cleaned that thing out. It has sat for four years and I thought there was no hope. That sounds familiar. Then you give a little time and attention and look what happens.

Look what a little presence does…..

Magic

Not a story, with intensity and a movie like script that must be followed or it can’t develop but everyday magic. These little moments….

I’m watching my kids become me in certain ways, and also them of course, but seeing my strength in them is exciting, and of course that I have not done every single thing wrong. The tale my mind so often weaved. Painful. Excruciating really.

Sometimes it really is all in your head. And that doesn’t make the difficulty any less or it any less real.

I spent my whole life running from my pain. Willing it away by just good ol’ elbow grease. I’d create a family. It’s just that easy. I was naive and foolish and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I had ideas, ran with them, then those ideas crashed and burned painfully. Being redirected was not my strong suit. I would stand defiantly arms crossed and be stubborn against my own behalf and not even know it.

It’s interesting to think now that all my rushing for self work was exactly what I needed to be doing because I could have missed out on connections with my kids. I think I just barely made the boat. On real live ones, not trying to figure it out cognitively, but feeling them in real time.

I have come back from the dead. I was dead inside. All the feeling parts. Maybe not fully dead, almost dead, almost lost, only a small part of human left in there. I had to fight myself, my mind, all while simultaneously figuring out how to support myself, to have healthy relationships, to choose a family for myself of people who show up for each other well.

I had to do the opposite of what I was… to slow down. To show the pain, so it could be seen, so I could be helped. Masking was suffocating me.

Last family therapy session I feel like I breathed for the first time ever. My first breath of oxygen as a flesh and blood human, not a robot who just works constantly and can’t feel.

It’s the most beautiful thing, but I’m also the most exhausted I’ve ever been and the most emotionally raw. And this of course coincides with a busy client schedule with some major shit (shifts) going on in the world, that people are feeling.

And some are not making it. Children taking their own lives, and how to hold space, but also not get trapped in the enormity of that reality.

To just smile at dinner or focus when earlier you sat in this pain with someone and your mind is beckoned to go there, and to the possibility of that happening to you.

I thought I knew what heart break was until I recognized how the very thing that saved me was keeping me emotionally distant from my children. That is heartbreak.

I just expected myself to exist without my story attached, without even speaking of it. I didn’t want it Or me, or my mother to hurt them, but It was always going to pass down to a degree. I held it back with everything that I have. Carried it really. Until I recognized the heaviness was crushing me, and that wasn’t serving anyone.

Now that I’ve set it down I don’t know that I’ll know what to do, how to be. I’ve been existing this way a long time. In reality I’ve been setting it down piece by piece and I’m getting to the part where I’m starting to feel naked without it. To shiver and shake with the new.

When it comes to new and trauma survivors, good or bad doesn’t matter, new has a high threat quotient.

Settle…. Stay…..ground

You’ve worked so hard to be here

Home in a heart that is warm despite the amount of cold it has felt….

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May You Have the Courage to Face Reality As Is

All of these lines across my face… tell me the story of who I am… so many stories….

I did EMDR last night. The first session I made all the way to an installation apparently. I didn’t know that. That all my talking and planning what I’ll say, and having things to say, could have sometimes been avoidance. I’m getting closer to acceptance within the grief process.

My intellectualizing, while quite functional and productive even, also an elaborate form of denial. Denial and avoidance are being confronted abundantly lately.

Within the many grief processes. It’s like once I began why not just keep piling them on. How did I get here? Well I didn’t get myself here alone. I know that.

Last night I focused on permitting myself to fully estrange myself from “my family”, those people I grew up around. How is it possible to spend time agonizing over what will happen when I get that call someone has died. The reality is to go there, to that place, even the thought of it gives me rapid and horrific physical symptoms.

This is my reality.

How would I feel if they didn’t call me? Abandoned all over again? Not belonging. Without any mindfulness of if I want to belong there, and why or why not.

Radical acceptance …. Any acceptance, perhaps radical sets the bar really high.

Another reality is that so much in life I have used a copy paste technique to make big decisions in my one precious life. Never having learned trusting myself or anyone else, why not just default to a faulty system. It felt sound at the time. This works over here, let’s try it in my life. I don’t know what I feel anyway. Why not. Plus look how great it looks.

I’m paralyzed, where are my feelings, I no longer feel things I know I should.

I’m on an NF and Brandy Carlisle kick right now. I want to read her memoir and Matthew McConaughey Greenlights I started on Audible last night. His voice is something other worldly soothing. In a fantasy he could have been my father. Just like Elizabeth Gilbert could have been my mother.

My reality is so much better than fantasy…. And yet the dissociative patterns of old run deep.

I just keep challenging stories, that are just that. The kind my mind creates. I would rather keep it busy reading others subjective truths about their lives as they recall it. Than ricocheting between certainty and doubt in my own mind as a means to keep myself sharp and honed for any impending disaster.

The ever present dread. The illusion of safety it creates. That soothing bastard.

The reality is my want to be in attendance of a funeral for a connection I never had would be one again to prove some worthiness to some unknown diety. I see others do this or that with their grief and wish to emulate rather than trust what I need.

What I need……

(Selfish) you’re selfish. It’s all about you)

Last night in emdr I scratched the surface on the truth of what I need. It was introduced. Progress. Because normally that wouldn’t have even been in the program. It would have been what I need to do. And the why is always to be accepted or belong. (This is why my parent focus is what the kids need to do, rather than on an emotional connection, that breaks my heart. I’m inside of here (her) trying to get out. I’m right here in the upside down.

The proverbial carrot always being dangled over my face. (belonging)

I don’t have to live that way anymore. I accept and belong to myself, and if you know how hard won those words are to be uttered authentically, then you know.

In Emdr I made parallels between families and not feeling understood or wanted. Mine and my ex husband’s. The two starter families. I combatted the story that I abandoned them, and was able to realistically list the ways I was the abandoned. Not in a victim sense. In the way that one must do to confront reality as it happened and not how we wished it to happen.

I wish when I got that call it would be different. That it’s not something that would make me sick. That’s not the reality. The reality is people will judge and hold their own reality when I cut myself off.

Other people stay. Look their family’s are together. Look they go and attend the funeral. But at what cost to them?! If it’s a scrabble toward worthiness, that battle is already lost.

(May I only stay where I am nurtured and valued consistently. May I nurture and value consistently those I love and have responsibility for and to.

These are my vows

May I recognize and have my eyes open to a relationship being abandoned and not nurtured or engaged in so I may never have to be so cold to myself again.

May I notice if I have grown cold or abandoned. And have the courage I need to breath life back in, if the cause is worthy. )

Maybe it doesn’t have to cost for them, but it does for me. I must permit myself my own truth, rather than dissociate from it for anesthetic value.

Trust and Permission

The only way to feel a sense of wholeness and worthiness, especially if the roots weren’t naturally provided, is to be understanding and accepting of yourself. So others can do the same. Or that’s what I’m finding anyway.

Want to be understood? Take the time to be understanding to yourself, of yourself, for yourself. She, they, her, him, must be included.

Must belong

I was never loyal to myself. I was loyal to even an idea of a healthy family. I kept trying to see what ingredients would create one and kept trying. Like a mad scientist, only to be misunderstood further.

Mirages

Until my vulnerabilities got used so thoroughly against me I became forced to learn how to have a relationship with myself.

I was staring the abuse and neglect in the face until I dis identified and realized it was not my self. The self was preserved on ice.

Heart throbs, heart melts…. Heart beat easily 120 bpm on so many days. I didn’t even know my own post traumatic stress. I didn’t know that’s what it was. It was my fault like everything else.

It was tricky at first…. A clumsy dance. This relationship with me….

This is how scattered and shattered my brain is. It blanks and grasps at a memory or a thought, even as a trap door lies right beneath my feet. Or a panther lies in wait guarding the memory. Can’t get the good without the bad Christina. Evil laughter.

What if it’s not real….

What if it is…

This is what the work looks like for me

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No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

“And you call me up again just to break me like a promise
So casually cruel in the name of being honest
I’m a crumpled up piece of paper lying here
‘Cause I remember it all, all, all”

Let’s just see what comes. It’s time….I always think. And then I get busy and don’t let the wings of inspiration take me to that special place. Home.

Speaking of home…. I bought one. Mine. A redo of sorts. There will be a house warming, why not, really because it’s already a warm home. This time death or any other death will not cloud my accomplishment or my joy.

I often just marvel and awe at the fact I am able to own a home like this just in my name. I can’t tell you how much work it has taken to get a healthy relationship with money, or anything really. I could just cry thinking about it.

I am finishing books, the most recent of which is Momma and The Meaning of Life by Yalom of course. And I’ll post some excerpts from it that I love! Prior to that was the Honey Bus, I related to that one so much, and found parts of myself that may have never been recovered without it. I’m also working on Hillbilly Elegy, The Tender Bar, and East of Eden.

East of Eden I could take a lifetime to read as one page is so delicious I’m description, metaphor, and insight…. That it’s too good not to savor slowly. It’s the kind of book that you drink in every word, and pray it lasts, because you never want it to be over.

I am blissfully present most of the time these days. My brain no longer on fire. Sure the spirals occasionally threaten, the over thinking my brain is so naturally programmed for, but it’s not natural for me any longer. Peace has taken over.

I lived as a walking talking trauma response for almost 40 years before I became aware of how severe my own was. It’s like working with clients was always walking me towards that truth gently at a pace I could tolerate. Funny as I would often see myself as not gentle with others, because my style is very direct and protective and I’m sometimes too full with knowledge. Who knew there could be such a thing.

Sometimes it isn’t knowledge that does the most healing, those words are hard for me to say without choking on the resistance. I have learned the heart had the most healing power, once you can figure out how to get the guards to stand down.

We are all in this together, my defense mechanisms and me. I thank them for their service daily and also let them enjoy their retirement to a degree. They will likely always carry and always watch carefully, but peace is their main objective.

I have learned peace is just another way to protect oneself. Peace of mind is a powerful ally.

Being so disconnected with myself and keeping away from my children while focusing on providing has taken its toll and given me a fair amount of regrets. Fear is a great thief. So much pain is caused with it being the guiding force. I wade through it daily in my work, and as I process my life and the meaning of it.

My mind is an interesting force some days it can remember everything and some days it can’t even catch a thought. I used to become so disturbed by these inconsistencies and now I attempt to embrace them and it with compassion.

The truth of the matter is I live daily with a lot of psychological pain. It’s a fact. I asked Melissa (my therapist) the other day how sick am I? She worries it was self deprecation I’m sure, and I assure her I need it for understanding and validation of my pain. We explore for curiosity at first because she can’t answer without context. We can’t answer without context, could be disastrous.

Later she concedes that I am very traumatized. It’s a fact at this point. It’s a fact that I lived without the knowledge or language for my entire life. Just stumbling through it in excruciating disconnection from myself, and being able to access stable logic to balance me…. Keep me floating steady.

I use my trauma daily in my practice, to inform my care that I give, and to help others like me connect dots to understanding themselves. And while I’m working the pain eases. It returns white hot in almost all other times, but while I’m using my pain to help it all but disappears. This is the point in Man’s Search for Meaning. The light that shines out of the darkness. To be a light in someone’s dark, lights my way as well. You cannot share light without also being in its glow.

This is how I survive my painful mind, that looks for threat everywhere. That causes so many triggers and flashbacks that I must manage daily. I must manage myself and not turn that into a negative view about myself. That’s a lot of managing. Never mind the raising of children, the keeping of a home, and owning a successful practice.

I have so many triggers. It’s so easy to distort reality and it’s taken a lifetime to admit that which feels like defeat or failure, when it is actually a very real disability.

It is brain damage. All of those times I was teased or insulted for not being able to concentrate, or why I can’t remember how to get somewhere even after twenty times of driving there. The worst of which is that my kids feel like I don’t care when my mind drifts when they wanted so much to talk to me about their day. My mind was thinking about our next meal, money, how I was going to feel any acceptance or belonging, but for them I was just absent during all those times.

It never was a lack of caring. That misunderstanding cuts so deep. The misunderstanding of myself as bad, wrong, deeply flawed has been my dark passenger all of my life.

This is the first time I’ve ever lived without it as much as humanly possible. There will always be a tendency, but I’ve gained control of my own mind using awareness. and tons of trauma work.

Melissa decodes me to myself each session when my mind attempts to twist things into a narrative that makes sense, a battle. She helps my mind make a peace treaty before the troops are even on the field. Their uniforms are getting dusty, they are getting out of shape and playing cards, but they will always be waiting if I need them. Security.

If I don’t get a dose, my mind starts to become cluttered with intrusive thoughts and I start to fall back into triggers. After two years I moved to one time weekly and sometimes I’m barely breathing with the rally of the troops just before Friday mornings. I have held on so tightly until I can understand myself and others in a better light.

I breathe with relief after a session…. Even the heaviest of sighs are with so much lightness Of being. It burns off, the anxiety eventually burns off with enough exposure. It’s walking through the fire that’s tricky.

Anyway I promised some Yalom, we are almost there. Some details before…. Twin B also has Crohns disease and is on Humira. Not the thing I wanted to pass to my kids. It’s heartbreaking. 🙁 it’s interesting watching her navigating this and everyone just says she’s lucky to have me, and that’s still hard to accept as true, though I’m much further on that journey.

My girls are days away from high school graduation. They are strong, kind, insightful, warm, and I could not be more proud, and my son as well. He’s sensitive in the best way, though that also sometimes turns against him. I hope I’ll be able to help with that, just by showing up. I am finally able to enjoy my children without being terrified of fucking them up, since I already have of course.

But finally I can see more good, than the bad. More good in me and from me, and not hold myself in contempt for the ways I learned to survive. For how my mind became programmed. It truly wasn’t my fault, and I truly have always taken responsibility for my own healing. It’s just been a very long road.

I am tired. I am so far beyond tired. Yesterday I walked almost 7 miles working on being healthy and today I woke up sore in all my joints, and aching. Every attempt I make seems to end in punishment, but I don’t choose to keep that narrative. I take deep breaths, pauses, ask for what I need, and keep showing up.

I stretch. I cry when I need. I say how I feel. I am learning and teaching and living. I appreciate life as a gift, even amidst pain. The pain comes and goes and there are moments in life so sweet that all can be forgotten and I’m blessed with so many of those.

I didn’t realize how shaped I am by the theories that resonate. Yalom is in so many ways my guiding force. “Dr. Whitehorn genuinely wanted to be taught. He was a collector and had in this manner accumulated an astounding treasure trove of factual curios over the years. You and your patients both win he would say, if you let them teach you enough about their lives and interests. Learn about their lives; you will not only be edified but you will ultimately learn all you need to know about their Illness.”

“By allowing the patient to teach him Dr. Whitehorn related to the person, rather than the pathology, of that patient. His strategy invariable enhanced both the patient’s self regard and his or her willingness to be self revealing.

Yalom is honest with patients in a way that at times makes me cringe with imagining. We are not supposed to say something that will hurt them, and god forbid it’s not socially appropriate. One of the vignettes is about a client of his who hears his honest thoughts about her accidentally on a recorded tape he gave her. She never reveals this to him, but finds ways to make it as if she’s found out other people have said this and asks him if he feels she’s this or that.

He is never dishonest with her, and so even with that level of a breach the work becomes successful because her anger at his words motivated her to truly look at herself. The truth itself is what motivated her, when nothing else had budged.

An honest look is worth its weight in gold as far as transformation, and it’s one of the hardest things to do.

All this time later I can finally hold space for the ways my trauma has hurt my children and me. I can operate from a softer space, and from this place worlds open up to me.

I can feel in real time, not only think about how I should feel. That is something that I’m still only getting glimmers of, but it’s a beginning and it will grow.

I have a patience I never had before, mostly with myself, and It has given me a new world to explore within myself and how I see others.

I guess I had (have a lot to say) no surprise there. Where do I start, where do I stop, what goes where? Finally that’s not so overwhelming that I don’t move. For now I’ll just speak, the work will organize itself once I trust it enough.

Once I trust myself ……

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“Deprivation Runs Deep, it Creates Blank Spots in Us”

And longing ….

It’s late for me to be writing a blog post. Only one or two times have I ever attempted this feat. As if we are talking about extreme sports or something. Kind of.

I put on K.D Lang’s Constant Craving, it mimics how I feel right now. But what?! Could be so many things. Presence? Warmth? Food? It goes along with the title of my Memoir: Starved.

Am I doomed to be restless forever? Even as so many things are so good in my life?

I’ve been working hard. Harder than I ever imagined. I’ve become more me than I ever thought possible. A self, a real self. I’ve been working to make amends with my children, and building trust in myself has everything to do with it. As outside changes take place can I maintain those stabilities? Yes.

I watched The Tender Bar the other day and also have Hillbilly Elegy on the radar. I purchased both memoirs and have been researching the authors. Better at purchasing books than reading them. Another addiction? Maybe…..

I’m reading Beyond Codependency, and a line today struck me. “Deprivation runs deep, it creates blank spots in us.” That line alone could release grief, torrents. I read the passage during several sessions today. My people. The walking wounded. The brave.

I guess that’s why I feel starved no matter what I do.

Listening to Exile by Taylor Swift and Bon Iver, on repeat. The piano. Haunted. JR Moehringer writes about the ache of hearing his father’s voice while never having a relationship with him, and how being at the bar was at least something: his uncle Charlie teaching him the man sciences.

The ache …..

No story or obsession can protect me any longer. I live as a real human now. Sometimes I wish I could go back. No, I wasn’t better off. My mind spun. I was in a frenzy. My mind burned. Now it’s so quiet that sometimes the silence is deafening. It’s so still.

Peace is still so foreign and yet I’m better. Better to and for others, better with myself. Softer somehow. Grief has softened me. Every where. :p I struggle with my relationship with my body. Without my all or nothing and my addictions I can’t command myself into whatever is needed, because there is no longer a compelling why.

The last being the anxiety of being good enough. I know I am. So have I lost my edge, or Just my ability to torture myself into performance. I could go numb before and just obey. I know you know what I mean. I gave that up. The dark gift (passenger). The ability to swiftly disconnect. I traded my safety, for a real human life.

I guess I know why the Buddha is round ha. He’s so happy though. I too am happy. I scarcely know if I’m allowed, but my toe is in the water.

My mind is so still, if you saw the difference you would cite demon possession. Perhaps I had a lobotomy in my sleep. So now where is my story in here? Who am I without my coping mechanisms, without the guards. Most of the time I’m too guarded to even trust emdr I have found. But I grieve ….oh do I grieve.

I grieve that chaotic frantic woman ….. she was my constant. I don’t know what to do, as this new self. I’m quiet sometimes because it’s hard to trust new, even when it’s better.

And I love…. As hard as I ever have….. and I get up after getting knocked down….

My whole heart on the line. This is a gift the way that I live. With every fiber of my being. People crave this existence and a touch that makes all the difficult worthwhile. And I have it all, and I give it all.

Every day I live a year long. I’m so fulfilled at the end of each day, even when I’m restless. I fall asleep hard and fast and sleep deeply. Movie reels playing all night long, safely far enough from consciousness, but they are there. My dreams. Body slack. Not waiting for a pin to drop.

Mostly I am humbled daily by the work. Asking for forgiveness, learning, gently having my own back. Self supportive. What even is this….?!

Honing in on what to learn next. Realizing that while I lost a dream there are so many I didn’t realize I was already in. I’ll have grandkids, and I’ll be there every step of the way consistently engaged because I can and want to. Simple. Like how Charlie loved JR.

Sometimes the simplicity of love is startling. What is even more unsettling is how natural for me it is to complicate everything.

The kids and I are going on vacation soon…. West Palm bound. We sat around the table tonight playing skip Bo and talking about the different things we want during that trip. There was no tension or fighting. After all this time, we get to relax together. And the relaxation doesn’t have too high of a cost like it would have before. Stress somewhere else.

If you asked me if I would have been able to afford this vacation by myself or any of the other things we have I would have laughed. The life I live now is one that I saw as out of reach not that long ago. Impossible.

Even better I am rich in the knowing that my children have emotional safety. It was touch and go there for a minute, but I was never a lost soul. I’m too much of an advocate for that.

Sometimes arriving begins with breaking the silence without a plan in mind. This is a jumble of many potential blog posts I never chose to write. It’s tempting to feel it’s less good in its jumble but maybe the habit is the most important part. Just putting words to the page. Say anything…..

One post that’s rattling in my brain is “time will tell….” I think I’ll make that my next. I’ve said plenty here.

Goodnight 💜

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Healing Can Bring About Some of the Most Brilliant Light

This feels like a nice moment to blog. I finished Saturday sessions. Hadn’t eaten so I made some chicken, rice, and broccoli. Had to throw in a veggie for good measure. Chicken and rice is universally my favorite dish I think or with mashed potatoes etc. the most likely to be digested properly meal for me. Simple and I love it.

It’s a dreary day. I see these as more external encouragement for relaxation. Last night I hung out with a couple of good friends and watched 10 Things I Hate about you. Collectively we are all going through heartbreak and helping one another. I never expected to find that, but here it is: everyone doing a part in easing the others burden, caring for one another. I never imagined to find all these sources scattered about it in moderation versus all or nothing.

Basically that’s what all of my work right now is about. Battling addiction I suppose. Also coming to terms with how we tell stories to ourselves to be able to deal with things, and I think that’s why I developed the habit of trying to throw as many true words out of me as possible so I would be forced to stay in the truth even when scared, because I prefer to live that way, even when it’s hard.

I suppose I learned that from the writing of Paulo Coehlo first, or at least to notice and value it. I remember reading his works and listening to them while stocking produce at Trader Joe’s.

What I’m overwhelmed about the most these days is something I referred to as “the crushing weight of possibility”, in my energy healing yesterday. Shifting from a scarcity program to an abundance mindset, as it turns out, is not for the faint of heart.

My energy healer Julie worked on my kidney Meridian, which unsurprisingly corresponds to fear, anxiety, feeling inadequate, etc. she said it was very blocked the first pass over, the second moved nicely. She asked me about my experience with the healing, and my first feedback was that I can receive so much more readily. And sure enough there are people seeing me, thinking of me, sending me things, helping my own work of seeing myself as worthy and deserving.

I feel comforted, held, seen, and am now willing to accept that expecting that entirely from one primary partner was not only unrealistic, but not good for either person involved. I’m learning.

This does not mean I’m not lonely or have hard days. I do often. It does however mean that doesn’t send me in a panic upon which I feel I’ll never recover, and dear God I deserve that break from my own pained mind.

I have long stood in my own way and made life way harder than it ever had to be. Takes one to know one, because that’s what I knew, what I felt I deserved, and was mirroring the relationship I had with myself.

I have clients who have put in five plus years of work and I’m watching them transform before my very eyes. For complex ptsd there’s no such thing as solution focused therapy in my opinion. That would grossly underestimate the level of suffering they have endured. That doesn’t mean good therapy can’t work quickly, but it takes a lot of repetition to lay down habits, and to pull the old ones up. Challenging long held beliefs is tricky business, especially when life is already so demanding on its own.

I’m getting sleepy. I anticipate more writing in the coming days as theories and thoughts keep circling back around to see if I’m ready to contract a creative process with them.

In my energy healing what she heard was The mind is not God. Separating myself from my thinking realizing they are different. Not needing to rely on my mind or fear my scattered mind. And that because I’ve been working at such a deep level such a long time that’s how rich essentially my life will be. It has enriched my work, my relationships with others, and my day to day life, and for that I am tremendously grateful.

Some things I’m grateful for: helping new friends make their new lonely spaces feel homey and less alone, bonding with people who I share trauma with, good food, people thinking of things I would like or that make me happy or comfortable, my Christmas Tree, cozy things, having enough money to buy the people I love gifts, having enough money to do improvements on my home. My continuing efforts at reducing overwhelm and fear based thinking. And for most of all, beginning to believe once again in my power to create the life I want, that that isn’t over, and perhaps was even just beginning.

Hopefully yours,

C

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Stubbornly Stuck in Love with Everyone Except Me

I am stubborn when I love. This may just be my greatest downfall, and my most grace filled salvation all wrapped into one. I am stubborn in love, for love, about love. I am stuck in love with everyone but myself, the constant agitating wool sweater of my current existence.

The necessity for self love and identity has not only entered the race, but it’s pulling just a millisecond in front ….

Is it winning the race ? Do I even want to be in it!? Sometimes winning is not playing at all. I’m not playing very often these days, but I’m trying to learn how.

Today is a nausea day, a pit in my stomach day. Then the pressure and shame of another beautiful day wasted and struggling in these chains of feeling I’m responsible for this or it’s my fault or I could understand it, or if I could understand it….

That’s what not letting go looks like. Did I mention that I’m stubborn and fierce and relentless, much like my grief right now, they are identical twins fighting for some aspect of separate identity.

Everything is uphill. Breathing is a battle. I’m am survived by the love of my friends and people who see me. That’s the only thing keeping me afloat at the moment. They help piece together the losses and remind me why I’m feeling this way.

I’m starting to scare myself, and them too I know. It feels like it won’t end, and certainly like it won’t end well. An important person in my life had a parent who was loving and good and she had a stroke. That person begged for it to be over, for “the end”, and I would so often tell them they won’t know how they will feel when it actually ends, it may not be what they expect, and to try and be present.

I feel like a fraud thinking about that now. The privileged one who has not endured such a thing sharing well meaning comforts so I can feel meaningful.

Is any of it meaningful? Is any of it “made a difference to that one” starfish stories ? Does any of it really matter at all. The prince, the rose, the fox? Or is everything just whatever story we tell in a moment and nothing more.

Faithless and unfaithful and lost…..

Nothing stops this pain. There is no fantasy to rely on no knight in shining armor. I am tasked with saving myself over and over, and I thought that would be over by now. I had expectations.

I had a dream, lots of them. And now those are dead and I’m petulant about making any new dreams. Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face Christina, that’s not who you are. You know better and you know why.

My knowing is in tact. It might be the only part of me that is.

The rest of me is just a bag of bones right now. (My favorite Stephen King novel)….. I rattle and haunt the halls of my broken home carrying around my bleeding heart. Maybe they will make a museum out of this house, a funhouse of terror, the place of a future tragedy….

It must be nearing October with all this Halloween talk.

My dreams have turned to nightmares. I don’t sleep. It’s fitful and violent. EMDR is brutal.

I am lost and ironically reading All is Not Lost. Leslie Charles, one of the first author speakers that I looked up to. Two of my favorite pieces of art work that are now in my only office, were made my students at West Conn for the survivors of homicide conference. If that isn’t dark ….

What about the survivors whose souls were stolen in childhood, due to repeated terror and an utter lack of capability. Survivors whose were sentenced to a lifetime of extreme struggle without their consent, and then shamed for the bizarre ways they choose to save themselves and self destruct over and over.

Purgatory is a place the living inhabit, not anything to fear in death.

Death would be peaceful compared to this. Don’t worry I’ll always return to the All is Not Lost camp….. for right now however I’m Six Feet Under.

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Having your reality denied as a child/adult…..

“How a parent figure treated you is not a reflection of who you are. You do not need to be a reflection of their unprocessed trauma.” “Trauma occurred when we consistently betrayed ourselves for love, were consistently treated in a way that made us feel unworthy or unacceptable resulting in a severed connection to our authentic self.” “Trauma creates the fundamental belief that we must betray who we are in order to survive.” – How to do the Work by Dr. Nicole Lepera.

This book is my life raft this morning. I’m in a state of discomfort. I experienced a profound trigger yesterday on top of an already profound loss. Any situation that does not leave room for my feelings to exist is so similar to my childhood. A mother whose constant mood shifts, suicide threats and attempts, contempt and jealousy for and of me, and a variety of other things. Her overall lack of maturity, insight, awareness, and any variety of nurturing left me in a constant state of hyper vigilance.

The way I ended up coping with this was by having the capability to soothe and rescue her emotionally. Whether I was always innately good at this or whether that was developed as a necessity I may never know. But I was only able to feel good about my self by how useful I was at being useful. It never freely existed because of who I was and who she was. What every child deserves. In addition to my mother I assumed this role with my grandparents who put their hands up in helplessness. Parented my brother, not well I might add, and then felt guilty about that. I raised me, and him, and my mother, for them. I became a mind reader, a mood reader, a soother. So I feel alive when I am doing these things, they are as natural as breathing for me.

Thus paving my career as a psychotherapist. The seer is rarely seen, until they see themselves properly enough to know what is deserved. At least at work I get paid for it, and I’m beginning to refuse to do this with my precious time that is mine. Becoming protective of my time, peace, self.

The only thing saving me lately while mucking around in all my old stuff are the friends that show up for me. Getting myself out of that triggered state by talking through it, feeling my feelings and employing various self care strategies. Yesterday’s event landed me with a severe migraine and having to cancel my evening. I went to bed at six pm. Medicated and miserable. The toll on my body and heart is tremendous.

Abandoning a loved one in need to save myself from manipulation leaves me feeling distraught on so many levels. I end up feeling bad for the manipulator and that’s not an option. Particularly when my needs always get twisted into something going on with them. In a secure and safe relationship the need would have been met naturally. Asked for in a productive and healthy way, and my needs would have already been being met. Safe and secure. Clear and direct.

“Trauma creates the fundamental belief that we must betray who we are in order to survive.”

My attachment system can betray me at every turn. Obsessive checking/hope for closeness with an unsafe source, regardless of logic. It’s so frustrating. Perhaps a review of what love is and what it is not is in order. A continuous inventory of this and then checked out against the list. Attachment is my proverbial Achilles heal. Once I have attached it’s set in stone, unless that attachment is neglected and then as we have seen I can fly out of it real quick. I am all in or all out, and I’m working on the in between and deciding with much more agency what and whom to be attached to. This is the most important part.

https://www.raptitude.com/2012/11/what-love-is-not/. This article is really good. It highlights the difference between desiring something and truly what love is about.

“Anyone with their own level of unresolved feelings will generally feel uncomfortable with a child’s expression of feelings and may cope by attempting to dismiss them. The child’s experience may activate similarly painful past memories for the parent-figure (these are often unconscious) who tends to push the child to repress or ignore the feelings that are coming up. The problem is that the child was having a legitimate feeling and looking to be comforted and supported; instead they were told the pain was inconsequential. Through repeated similar experiences, a child is taught that their perception of reality and related emotional experiences are not trustworthy.” Page 49. How to do the work.

Love is not being dismissed, redirected, a lack of transparency, manipulation, gaslighting. Regardless of how much the person wants you.

Love shows up consistently and safely always. Love is able to work through things because a solid foundation of honest and healthy boundaries makes that so. Let it be so. Love does not avoid a partners needs for the other partners comfort or avoidance of their discomfort. Love is selfless not selfish.

I vow to have the courage to walk away from love that is not founded in the things I want and need. To remember my ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) and how high that number is. How I’m lucky to be alive and I will not forfeit that gift and all of mine for anything. How capable I am to share my healing with the world, and how important that work is.

I felt to be legitimate I must be chosen and belong to a human and their family. That feeling is like heroin for me. However I was never choosing myself enough to be choosy about that decision. Abundance over scarcity. I intend to live with an abundance mindset and attitude for the rest of my life. I watched a friends wedding video the other day, and no wonder I romanticized this. Such a belonging. And I had fallen into such scarcity that my last wedding was done in secret with none of those ingredients. I am still trying to sort out why that was a thing. What I need and want and how to stay that course……

The result of this work is a presence in my daily life that can rarely be stolen by preoccupation these days. It’s an absolute work in progress but most days I am loving it. Even the ones where I have to nurse myself back to health and acknowledge without catastrophizing, the lasting and major effects trauma has had on my body. Rather than doom and gloom this I’ll decide to keep it a motivator to steer me away from unhealthy things and continuously towards the horizons of my dreams.