Tag: #traumasurvivor

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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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I Feel it in My Fingers, I Feel it in my Bones…..

Love is all around….

I’m on a plane, crying in plain sight while reading part five of What my Bones Know. How her partner’s family treats her…. What it took on her part to receive. The fact she stayed. There’s a little girl across the row eating pretzel sticks and suddenly I’m transported back in time. To a life that could have been, to a precious memory.

I’m able to realize now my memories are not a betrayal of the present. I get to keep my whole story and my whole self. I get to waft in and out as I please and take what I want, and leave what I want.

Is this freedom?

A baby cries…. Not mine. There won’t be another.

One of the most unbelievable aspects of life is how much it can change, and how amazing those changes can turn out to be. And that my heart can still swell with love for all that ever was, because it’s all part of me.

My shoulders are sore, the gentleman at my favorite nail place wailed on me this time. Fresh pedicures and fresh bruises abound. There was some drama on the plane about the stowing of luggage as we set out. This is our second flight, we will land in West Palm.

A family I didn’t stay in will visit in a couple of Sundays. A former lover and friend who now has a lovely wife and baby, and one on the way. The kids will get to meet and bond with the little one. And all the adults will potentially have some forms of closure. There will be joy, and no hard feelings. That’s what happens when all people with good hearts are involved. When no one intended any harm, we were just young and immature and ill equipped in so many ways.

The plane is up in the air now. I no longer need Xanax to fly. My first years absolutely adventurous of spirit, until the intrusive thoughts and nightmares began, until I became afraid of my own shadow, body, and every possible thought.

The next years obfuscated by a lack of understanding or time or resources to obtain it. The next years trips inside myself and back out again recovering what I could from the rubble of my life.

A self has emerged. She wasn’t perfect, God knows she wasn’t.

But today I am flying to Florida with my kids. And in my mind I’m crafting letters to them for therapy acknowledging their experiences that have hurt, and hoping for a closeness I never thought possible. There’s a post it on my desk that says “it’s not too late”, and it isn’t.

At the end of this book it talks about estrangement, and how much more common than we know.

I’ve never met another person until Stephanie (the author) that describes so eloquently how although she was invited to things, how she couldn’t feel the things one is supposed to about it. I’ve never felt as seen as I do now, or attached to an author.

I hope that means I’m getting closer to my own. I’m not even sure that needs to be part of my story anymore, it’s just becoming so much better each day.

Eek a little turbulence. I should be well schooled in this from my life, but alas I am someone who wants to feel her feet on the ground even if her head is often in the clouds.

I’m a little nauseated, that’s what waking up at 2:15 am will do. I’ll be too excited to rest until it’s time, but this whole thing is about rest right ?! And bonding let’s not forget that. A wise friend would tell me to keep my weight back when it comes to expectations. He’s not wrong. Be careful with those things.

I’m ready to sip a beverage out of a coconut shell in a beach chair already, and to watch my kids, now nearly adults, enjoy some of the finer things in life. Like a vacation for example.

Hopefully going forward it’s a yearly occasion and there’s plenty more time for bonding, and I’ll be involved every step of the way.

God I love my kids…. Outside all the triggers and fears they wouldn’t learn what they need to be ok, when I see them, really see them, it’s almost blinding.

Kind, considerate, warm, bright, welcoming, loving, intelligent, curious, empathic, funny…. I could go on. It’s almost surreal at times.

Anyway that’s it for now. I hope to write plenty more during this trip.

All my love,

C

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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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The Tank is Full

What makes life worth living for me….

I cry for how long I’ve judged my process and my decisions and choices. I cry for how hard I’ve been on myself when I’ve been surviving my whole life. Just because no one could see it. Judged for the ways I chose to save myself. Because I’m a mother, these choices meant I was selfish. The worst part is I allowed myself to believe those criticisms and as a result pulled away from my children.

I pulled away because I didn’t want to infect them with my particular disease. Survival is a great burden, and it’s hardly understood, except by those who have had to. I didn’t want them to understand, and then to feel close I needed them to. And that too became and unrealistic demand. I judged myself so harshly, and held on tight to that.

Holding on and letting go. Figuring out what to hold on to and what to let go of. The stakes feeling so high. I’ve softened all of that. Mistakes are the portals of discovery. In fact some of my most recent joy had so many in the beginning and that is what has made it feel perfect. The imperfect.

Because it’s real. You know? 😉

This morning on my sacred Sunday I am reflecting and wafting through my life. I’m listening to Exile by Taylor Swift and Bon Iver. I am just overwhelmed by the abundance I’ve created in my life by the self-work I’ve done. I’ve done the impossible, changed my wiring in so many ways. People don’t do this, but I am. And I’m fucking proud.

I’m so emotional lately…. That is when I can stop holding my breath. I still do that. I hold on and wait for the bottom to drop out, but I know when I’m doing that, and when I’m not, and it makes such a difference and when I’m feeling safe, when I can reflect, the tears immediately come. The gratitude. The joy.

I made it out alive and I kept my self on ice, ready for exploration once safe. Now I’m here, and so often I’m overwhelmed that it feels like I won’t get the experience in some way. Even when I’m right here in it.

This is a journey not a destination. This journey is so beautiful it brings me to my knees with emotion. The good, the bad, and everything in between.

I ran so fast and so hard. I ran on empty so long, that it’s hard to know how to operate on a full tank, and not just keep watching the gauge. No matter how many times I check, it’s full, won’t stop me from trying. Some things are hard wired.

I’m operating this new soft self. My mind tries to drag me to every worst case scenario and exhaust me into that familiar irritability, but I’ve hedged my bets with all the support I’ve allowed myself permission to seek, and to accept it.

My authentic self is finally taking the lead…. Slow and steady wins the race. I am steady. I am a rock. I am reliable and trustworthy. I am consistent and nurturing and so loving. I can see myself and it’s overwhelming.

I spent most of my life overwhelmed by fear, and now I get the privilege of being overwhelmed by love.

I just took a deep breath. Whenever I’m overwhelmed now, that’s what I do. The restless settles into security and then the fruits of my labors shine and sparkle all around. I blink my eyes and try to bring them in and out of focus. Yes Christina this is real.

It isn’t any longer all or nothing. My life is piloted by self trust, not story telling. And I will not shame myself for what developed out of survival, for I have always lived the philosophy of Maya Angelou. Once you know better do better. And I always have.

And now after 41 years on this planet I’m in my body. Through hell and back so many times. Fighting myself, fighting every battle that crossed my path, permanently in fight and flight mode. The story protected the mechanism and as long as that was the case the pattern repeated.

Now I am broken free. Out of jail and purgatory. It’s like having to learn everything from the beginning again, so vulnerable and raw.

I’m so exhausted, prone, in a good way. Laying spent across the earth finally without all the thoughts of illness and death.

Everything is a first right now in so many ways. Out of the dark night. Reborn. Now when I don’t want something to be over rather than dissociation, I open wider and connect more. It’s never over, the moments, they become absorbed into my being.

Becoming solid, whole, and present.

I am present, alive, for the first time in this way. Overwhelmed by possibility….. life is beautiful. I know I always believed in that, but I never felt it, not like this.

Recovery is a long road, and it can be beautiful. It doesn’t have to be dark. Turn on the light. Allow the universe to have your back and shine its gifts on your pain. Everything is connected….

Stay tuned

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The Simple Things and On Writing

Hi. I can’t remember the last time I said hi and meant it in the way I’m thinking of now. Actually I can.

I just read a passage in Stephen King’s On Writing that has inspired this post. Page 56. When you write a story, you are telling yourself the story, he said. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.“ Gould said some thing else that was interesting on the day I turned in my first two pieces: “right with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out.”

I made a promise to myself that I will finish this book from cover to cover before the end of the year. It feels like a good goal. A few years back I read the first half, and it felt so sacred and emotional, that I could not bring myself to allow it to be over. Or at least that’s the story I tell. Also I couldn’t focus on one thing at a time or move slowly.

I am relieved these days that I can be still. I had a spiritual experience this morning. The weather is beautiful and I just sat in my living room looking around and the abundance I have created. I had everything I ever set out to do right under my nose the whole time. People tried to tell me this so bad often, but I wasn’t ready to let go of my pain. Or to let it let go of me.

When I slow down and comb through my life I have so many things I didn’t even pay attention to. I was amassing and moving more quickly than I could appreciate. Now I am slowing down and looking through the piles and boxes and dark corners and making new discoveries all the time.

Like this mornings which was a video by Esther Perel on listening. Esther Perel on Listening there were several gems in this. My favorite aspect of it is her owning mistakes as a counselor. I believe in this, but hadn’t yet found the courage to do so. She helps me. We learn more from our mistakes and it also helped me with some work I’ve done recently.

This afternoon between driving one of my twins to her job (we are down a vehicle currently) a pending ski trip motivated some closet cleaning. Amidst some of that were maternity clothes new and still in the bags, as well as many sentimental artifacts from 2019 until now.

The last time I did the first round of this cleaning I thought the emotions would kill me. It’s refreshing to see that this time I’m able to do it, feelings still in tow, but with a lot more acceptance.

The gift I have received from all of this darkness is presence. In the Esther video I referenced above she talks about languishing and about how the opposite is eroticism. Of course that caught my interest. The things that make us feel the most alive. The most present for the sensations. I recalled a time on the beach when I had met a lover I was quarreling with. We could not communicate or come to any understanding. So I requested we sit at the beach together, but not be allowed to say a word.

Now I can appreciate this creativity and effort so much different than I did then. I still remember that day fondly. Today as I was thinking of it I was thinking about eyes closed and just feeling what sand flowing through your fingers feels like. Whether it’s cool or hot, lumpy or smooth, moist or dry. The full sensory experience and how if you tune out the world and tune into the sensations, we are capable of the miraculous, without any cost, …. So simple.

I think of how my traumatized mind made simple things more complicated as my mind jumped to every possible scenario the very epitome of anxiety.

I think of how any trip I embarked upon was riddled with intrusive thoughts of bad things happening, and how I never understood why my mind did that, and worse, I felt defective, crazy, or bad. I shrank inside myself to try and make sure that didn’t infect anyone else.

I tried to protect others from even the possibility of becoming something “bad”, and I have a lot of appreciation for the things I did to adapt, and those that I faced.

I’m making a tender and soft self to operate from these days. Presence and intentionality. If I take a day or two to think about things I’ll usually see how I feel and what I need to do with so much more clarity than I ever was afforded before.

My ego runs the show so much less. It’s not nearly as fragile. I say I’m sorry and thank you for reminding me, and don’t have expectations for my children I couldn’t even keep up with when no one is looking. They truly are my greatest teachers. The work I’m most interested now is working on my listening and doing research around this.

After almost a year of horrible family therapy, now that I see what a good relationship really looks like, with a committed therapist, it’s a true game changer. I was so vulnerable I didn’t even know it shouldn’t have been like that. And I’m a therapist!!! We can’t see ourselves no matter how smart and aware, and vulnerability and grief changes the whole game. I wish I knew this sooner, but I’m glad I do now.

I appreciate Esther and Stephen’s company and guidance today. Fast friends. For now I’m going to listen to some old school Eminem and finish cleaning out my closet.

Merry Holidays Everyone. Life can be anything you want it to, if you’re committed and consistent.

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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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The invisibility of domestic violence ….

I was getting kind of used to being someone you loved

It’s Tree Day and Koenig Family Therapy is getting a facelift, a new front door. I’m sad to let the original one go, but it just didn’t fit right, cold air was coming in, and it wasn’t working. It’s bittersweet, what a metaphor.

I finished the limited Netflix series Maid last night. It was a show I wasn’t going to watch because I’m careful with my psyche and triggers, but as it turned out it’s something I needed to see. It’s so ironic that my initial training was in domestic violence. My first internship was at a shelter, and at that time I was so naive.

I was more caught up in work dramas and my own head to fully capture in my mind the importance of the work we were doing and the great minds I was around. That internship yielded a mistake that would teach me one of my greatest lessons. I was so green at that time. I made a lot of excuses for myself. I remember a supervisor there, not mine, helped point that out to me and coached me through a situation. She told me just to say I made a mistake and not all the reasons I felt I made it.

I took that lesson and kept it and cultivated it. It was a seed that’s still growing and still needs to be nurtured. It helped me learn at that time the significance of being with our mistakes. And if that isn’t what I’m having to do right now.

I’ve told so many stories about what was going on. They matched my ability to tolerate discomfort about myself. It doesn’t leave you much to trust when you know you can lie to yourself to feel better, but that won’t get you very far. Most of this isn’t conscious unless you do the work for it to be.

Sometimes I’m ashamed of the work, it feels heavy and too serious and the bullies of the world would tell me just don’t think so much. I’ve been told that my whole life, but what wasn’t happening was people having the understanding of why I was so serious. They just didn’t get it, so I for sure couldn’t and didn’t. More low self esteem just got internalized. The walls of the shame house got reinforced until I was inside a cel.

My trauma has been a solitary confinement I was longing to be out of, but I’d reinforced my survival mechanisms so much that it felt (it feels) impossible sometimes. Until my therapist reminds me I’m already out of the cel I just don’t have any program for this new life.

Stockholm syndrome is real and so is domestic violence. The worst part about it is that often no one can see the mental prison: I’ve been in a mental prison, for so long, that freedom feels like a heavier burden than captivity. I longed for my captor and my mistake. I longed for rage and contempt and mercurial torture, and then I shamed myself for that too.

In an episode of Maid yesterday which I sat and watched by myself…. you watch her lose herself inside the abuse, and it cried hard. It punched me in the face. It punched me in the gut, it beat me raw with the truth.

When she goes to the shelter again and she just rests for days, and can’t tolerate anything. When she doesn’t remember her favorite color, it slapped me across the face hard. It hurt so much I couldn’t breathe. How she walked away from the healthy person who loved her well and ended up back with her abuser because he’s the one who understood her mother and what she came from. It’s excruciating.

She went back for herself….. I went back for myself. When I stood there that day refusing to give up my ground it was about ME. I didn’t have any relationship with me. I didn’t even have a favorite color. I didn’t know what I liked, It was anything goes.

Everything I set out in the world to do was to not ever choose an abusive relationship. I’d abuse myself first and that’s what I did. I held myself to the fire to become someone worthy, all of these years. I squeezed every drop of me that ever emerged to make sure and stay on task. To make something of myself.

I held myself together for my kids, and every person who has ever judged me for my behavior has never seen what I was trying to do. Holding a River of shame that roared beneath the surface constantly at bay. I’ve been fighting for my life. I was holding back all of these memories that felt like they would kill me. I just tried to get away from them.

I used my whole will to try and make the nightmares stop, to walk away from fucked up love, to leave my mother. And even when I watch something like Maid I feel guilty and bad for leaving abuse. I feel guilty and bad for getting out alive. No matter how sick I got in the situation.

I’ve been fighting for my life. I was fighting for my life when you met me, and in that way I did put my kids first, even though I’ve been consistently called selfish. You have no idea what burdens I’ve been carrying inside. I separated myself from them so I could function all these years, but what I didn’t realize is I couldn’t have a self either.

I’ve been going back into the burning building and collecting her one piece at a time. I’m not a hero, I’ve made so many mistakes, but I am a warrior. And I’ll never give up the fight.

This is an excerpt from my morning pages. It’s been a tear filled morning. “Set the bed on fire…. Teddy. I had a rough wake up. Talked to Jen and didn’t even know how bad I was feeling. What about for the people who have choices as far as domestic violence. I chose to stay. The less visible something is the harder it is to get out. I felt empowered by choosing despite being the target of a rage that dialed right into the stream of shame that always ran just beneath the surface. Think the pink goo from the original Ghostbusters. I kept trying to dam it up, rather than drain it. Hustle for my worthy…. Thinking of Beene. That’s the only love I’ve known, the hustle. A narcissist demands loyalty without actually providing anything except rage and contempt. I cry for the little girl in me that thought that was love. I’m living with the consequences and the growth. I was always going to have to go back for me. I put it off until my kids were 20 and almost 18…. I patched holes in a sinking ship furiously. And now I’m a variety of tired I can’t even describe and a loneliness that’s like I’ve been hollowed out. I creak and rock. My bones call to you from their separate skin. I make myself translucent to let you in…. In the absence of fear, a Jewel lyric, I’ve loved a long time. This doesn’t make me any kind of hero, a warrior maybe, but I sure don’t look like one to all of the people I’ve tried to do love with, and since I could only view myself externally I just internalized more shame.

It has been vicious this pain and abuse. I’ve been fighting for my life. In my own head where I was banished to live…..

Knowledge is power, once someone gets their story clear, healing can happen. This is a cause I can get behind with my whole being. It’s what I do, and as I live out my own story with courage I become more and more capable to do this.

Clarity and Connection has resonated a lot with me this year. Yung Pueblo. It will hopefully be named poetry book of the year.

The fog lifts and I emerge and that’s almost the heaviest burden of all. When the wires are so crossed that possibility feels like a heavier burden than limitations.

Scarcity is a cruel master…. I have to actually learn how to accept abundance. ….

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“What Does it Feel Like to Be Loved Like That?”

I can’t sleep. My schedule has flipped. Night owl and sleeping in later. I guess that’s the difference between sadness and happiness. I don’t know what this is.

Watching Maid furiously….. having a fire in the fireplace. Smelling like fire. Those are my comforts right now. This show is my life in so many ways….. Andie McDowell as her mother is downright chilling. So close to my own, the eccentricities…. Except mine wasn’t often fun crazy. She was just crazy crazy.

But what really gets me is how she feels not good enough for something good…. At least up to the point I’ve watched. That’s what really gets me.

I’m in love with this show. That’s not something that happens very often. In fact the last time was Six Feet Under and Dexter.

I’m in pain. It feels like it will never be different. What is changing each day is me. I’m changing rapidly. My heart and my mind. The core stays the same. My thinking, my speed of living / thinking. It’s all different.

I’m getting moments these days with my kids, that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Glimmers. Brilliant, dazzling, moments, where I can literally watch the meaning of my existence and able to see what I’m doing in a new way.

My therapist helps me see the ways I am parenting now that I wasn’t before and how hard I’ve worked for that. That is what keeps me going. I’m literally programmed for scarcity. I said that to her this morning. She said to me last week all the details of my success etc and it’s like I’m hearing about someone else’s life. I don’t feel successful. I feel scared most of the time, that something bad will happen at any moment.

At least I no longer fear that bad thing is me. There’s that.

In the absence of everything I’ve always centered my life around, love, I am learning To appreciate every tiny thing. Every time I pet the dog, a sip of coffee, someone being nice. These days when someone touches me, even just a pat on the back or just a small thing I nearly burst into tears.

I’m scarcely breathing most days, but somehow life is becoming more beautiful. It’s a new kind of love, mostly gratitude based. I watch this show where this woman is struggling, and I’ve known struggle, and I have all of these choices. And I almost don’t want them, it’s so foreign.

Like I don’t know what to do with this.

In this show I believe I’m on episode 9, and her mother has an episode and it chills me to the bone. The way she reacts almost catatonic. I remember feeling like that. And I was a little girl, and then I wasn’t, and the things happening were more disturbing and I just expected myself to get on with my life ? What was I thinking ? What were they thinking ?

The crackle and smell of the fire. I just hold on tight, curl up for my mostly lucid dreaming these days, stories all night, mostly benign, but sometimes intense. The sun will wake me up, and my coffee will bring me somewhat back to life.

Everything is different now.

I’m listening to Conversations in the Dark. 🙁 I’ve heard it thousands of times. It’s absolutely bizarre to not be able to change these things. To be in surrender and somehow ok with that, while not even the least bit ok at all.

I love my newest tattoo, my prince. He’s my favorite piece so far. My saniderm came half way off again. So I smell A and D ointment and the fresh afterglow of Dial Soap. I smell wood and ash and myself, my perfume…..

I ordered an Ironman Avengers Lego set on a flash deal for cyber Monday and I’m excited for that to come and to put it together. I just feel the need to do simple things. To play. Things I was never able to do.

What if I get lost in this dark wood ?

We will get our tree this weekend. Nothing fancy, just from a lot. At least I’ll enjoy and be coherent for putting it up. Last year I was completely numb and could barely function.

I’m functional currently, however the anesthetic has worn off and there’s no pain medication. I’m just learning to live this way.

I’ve decided to become adopted at the ripe old age of 41. I’ve wanted rings, and names and other peoples family and a place to belong and none are ever mine and I never felt worthy. I don’t feel that way anymore. The unconditional love I experienced the most was from The Jenkins. My first loves parents.

So as things roll out for me in the near future I have asked permission to have their name. Lots to do to make that happen, and perhaps a Christmas visit is in order, though I don’t know if I can get myself to move right now. I’m very hibernating, sticking to routines that are comforting and not expecting anything of myself right now.

Christina Jenkins. I think we should normalize adoption at any age. 💜 That’s a silver lining right now.

It’s injection day. I’ve been sleeping on the couch. My bedroom is a tomb right now. I can’t get the energy to get up there and the silence in there is deafening.

Eventually I’ll get up and breathe some life into it…. Make some changes etc. I’m just not there yet. Hibernation Nation. My feelings often lie and tell me it will never feel better. I know that isn’t true. I just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

And to keep finding the beauty in the simple things……

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Writing is my Discovery, Deep inside are the Richest Wells of Recovery

Isaw a friend’s post this morning about asking for donations for groups that have supported her due to the loss of her spouse. I have known this woman socially on the surface since we were both young, right before each becoming mothers. We shared in common being military wives and living in military housing near each other.

She and her husband shared four children prior to his passing from a military on the job related accident. The organizations she is asking to be recognized as they have received such amazing support as having her mortgage paid off. And many other things and the name for children who have lost a parent to death in the military is a gold star child.

Now I honor her experience. I’ve thought about them and what they must be going through so deeply. What I want to share is how much it makes me recognize the stigmatization of so many other varieties or grief. If you’re valid and someone can validate the loss socially you get support. If the pain is invisible or deemed inappropriate you get judged and can lack support.

It does depend on your choices. Earlier I wrote cast aside and then I didn’t like the victim voice of that. So I am working the re-frame. I use the Karpman Drama Triangle a lot with this. I just feel hurt that my trauma has been invisible for so much of my life and that it’s often felt I’m solely responsible to fix this and fast, but I suppose the reason it’s such a rush is that I rushed, and I rushed because of trauma mechanisms. It truly is a vicious cycle, and then you’re supposed to make tenderness out of this wild beast.

Realistic expectations are something I’m often talking about lately. So hard when you became trapped in a magical thinking phase and used story to soothe and regulate. Those patterns are laid down deeply. I will forever be a firm believer if you want something bad enough and are committed enough and follow through you can achieve it, but you must be flexible to the parts you cannot control, and adjust accordingly.

Acceptance is a dish served cold at the beginning, and one that warms as you go along.

I’m not sure what to do with this conflict about what is worth of support and by whom just yet. I don’t want to be bitter or judge someone else. I just want the same support someone else gets. It’s hard to be with my feelings on this. The things I’ve tried to do to survive have cast me as less valid and certainly less emotionally stable as others. If I don’t acknowledge the latter of those as true I can’t grow. So it’s a must.

Compassion is such a necessary ingredient of recovery and yet how does someone who has scratched and clawed their way through existence with very little support to cultivate that.?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this today. Perhaps it will become a part of my personal mission / branding that I’m working on. I’m not as far away from it as I thought. It’s still The Emotional Alchemist, even in a therapeutic capacity it fits. Now to take the time and consistent effort to continue to foster this development in myself and stay grounded rather than flying into flight mode in a coping mechanism induced flurry.

To be aware of these things now is such a gift. Better than any I’ll find under the tree. Though Santa Christina was pretty good to me this year. I have a lot of room freed up these days and I intend to keep it that way until a worthy investor arises, and by worthy I mean someone as dedicated to “the right things for the right reasons, and primarily consistent awareness coupled with follow through.” The pace is less important than the impact. What a hard earned lesson.

Currently I’m inspired by my son who had made some choices in the stock market that didn’t have the result he wanted. He was fearful awhile I think about embarking again, his loss equalling his tail between his legs. However it’s not that you make mistakes it’s what you do with them. Having the courage to try again. Here he is building back up from the ground. He doesn’t know how much he inspires me.

Speaking of building back from the ground we are trying a new family therapist. The sessions are grueling (well I’ve only had one with all of us but still). Sitting with and seeing the anger or hurt, lack of trust, and being with those feelings, and not doing anything about it except consistent follow through on self work. I think the most grueling part for me is needing to be still and just hold space, what even is that?! Ugh

Watching people in my office make earnest attempts at working on themselves while not being irresponsible with another’s feelings is also inspiring.

You can find inspiration in anything, and it’s most effective when calibrated and applied consistently to your own life.

I am creating. I am creating with the way I’m living right now, with my choices, and I am so very alone. It’s so quiet. I’ve slept on the couch the past few nights, after watching Maid, and again I continue to go back and understand old stuff through this lens. It’s another wave: my bedroom is so lonely sometimes it’s a tomb that houses so many of my dead dreams.

Then there are waves of time when I’m so in alignment with myself that it’s a home of comfort. It’s still so empty and I realize now I don’t want to rush that process. I can wait until I’m ready to fill it with myself and my love. I’m not there yet.

I have a dream still… and it doesn’t have to die, but it may on its own. This is making me think of the movie Serendipity, a movie that years ago helped me leave a relationship that wasn’t for me. I still love the movie. It’s not so much in my present as my past. I believe in it, but not to the exclusion of it being with someone who would be healthy and fair. And right now that someone needs to be me consistently.

My whole life I’ve gotten overwhelmed by trying to fix everything that happened at once. I tried to rush into making a family, and boy do I have lots of hard lessons. Sometimes as a parent I scarcely know what to do.

I find in times when I don’t know what to do, finding what I do know to lean on is helpful. I do know that I’ll never give up striving to do better. In my life currently that includes deep listening and total and utter presence where I am at in the moment, and that all else will sort itself out.

This is my recovery…. This is hard, and it’s gorgeous 💜

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Food is love, and real love sets us free…..

Food is love. Wednesday night and last night my neighbor and her son fed me such nice dinners and we watched movies together. I felt loved and part of a family. I realized that I can have that without being in a relationship with someone. Go figure.

I had a dream last night I was pregnant and it was lucid I felt all the nuances of pregnancy. This isn’t the first dream like this. In this one my water broke and the cramping begun. I swore I’d wake up and have wet the bed it felt so real, thankfully I did not. I never got to hold or see the baby. When life brings you to your knees …..

I’ve always gone hard at everything I do. There was never an in between. But what I wasn’t able to do was see the good in me, this. Last night I saw it in the portrayal of a character in a movie. We watched Freedom Writers. My neighbor’s son’s recommendation. How have I not seen this movie. It’s akin to Dangerous Minds. I have long lurked and noticed it but never committed.

I teared up often during the movie and the fact I was cuddled by dogs and fed such a nice meal. I saw the scarcity, and I saw the abundance of that moment. As I watched them have a banter you only do from a lifetime of affection. Their affection for one another, each knowing the others quirks and flaws and being able to acknowledge and make light of them.

There was no threat. They relayed a story of being at the other son’s for the holiday and a tense moment at the table and immediately I thought that could have been my table. I have been so tense with fear and anxiety and loss and all the things I never had. So full of fear.

This belonging even for an evening made me feel so warm and loved. An older version of me would have been too preoccupied with only achieving one main goal I desire and then emptied and having to start again. The way I am able to appreciate now is priceless.

Her son made a comment about he was glad he could show me something new. And it struck me as interesting how he sees me from saying that. I suppose as someone who is worldly and has lots of knowledge. I only ever peek out from the frightened child’s gaze. Split. I became split from my authentic self when I needed to perform and protect any tender being inside. I kept her on ice, and now as I forgive myself my transgressions and sit with my dark side, I am thawing. This thawing is the product of years of grief and acknowledgment. If you had any idea.

Last night I was thinking of who I am, at my core, the things I’ve always been. I remember reading the star fish story as a child, and how I wanted to read it to everyone and be brave enough to suggest we use it in a work meeting later in life. I was always bullied, called corny, torn down one way or another and I just instantly internalized more shame. I would always rather take it on than anyone else be hurting.

I had a therapist last October or so tell me I am a warrior. I am no man left behind at any cost. That is me. And with the right tools and a person equally as committed to seeing the unseen and understanding it will be a lasting partnership.

I often minimize my accomplishments and self so much that when I’m backed into a corner I try to spew my worth and I’m acutely aware of how I look in that moment without anyones understanding of my scarcity. I needed my own understanding, not just a harsh iron will and drive, moving at warp speed. To be fair I do have a mission, but I never had me on board so I had to keep going back and getting her.

The star fish story is about a man walking on a beach when the tide is going out, he comes across another man picking up all the stranded star fish and tossing them back into the water. The man says what are you doing, this is happening all over on beaches everywhere, you cannot possibly make a difference.

The man picks up a star fish tosses it back into the water, and says to him “made a difference to that one.”

I think of how never enough I’ve been to myself. How I rarely actually acknowledge what I do and that I’m impacting generations through deep individual healing. A ripple in the water. And that I’m dedicated and what I have sacrificed to stay committed to my own work. All while being my harshest critic and immediately taking those hurt by me opinion straight to my heart and halting my own joy and progress in life.

I thought I needed to do more. What I’ve really needed to do is see what I’m doing and who I am now. I thought of the domestic violence survivors I see in my office that begin with shattered minds and selves, so anxious their eyes dart all over during session and they stare off into the distance because they are too ashamed to be seen. I’ve thought of their transformation as they realize what’s happened to them, and that it isn’t their fault, and that there are explanations and tools to heal and help them in their grief.

I’ve watched people afraid of their own shadow, riddled by anxiety, transform right before my very eyes. I’ve watched them stop relying on their own abusive tactics with themselves and their children and start to claim their own right to exist. I’ve watched the rewire and the rise. I’ve watched the sparkle return to their gaze and them hold themselves confidently. I’ve watched them get careers they feel fulfilled in and treat their bodies and minds with a respect they had never known.

I have warriors in my office and it’s the greatest honor. I don’t need to write a book or post videos or be discovered or seen for what I can do. I know the difference it has made in a life. To be seen and understand for what has happened to them and how it impacts their life now.

I was thinking of my authentic self. My capacity to learn and apply what I have and what a gift that is, to be able to lift myself out of my story and my suffering. To have that ability, not everyone can. I was remembering one of the only handful of memories of my mom speaking about who I am. She always said even as a toddler once I was told no, I never did the thing again.

I sit here and think how interesting that is for the person I am today how stubborn and persistent and I realize that was born out of trauma, not being heard or seen. Before that I was extremely responsive and had such a desire to please my loved ones. And as an adult when I returned to that it ended up being used against me in so many ways.

So then I had to return to the adolescent who shouted to be seen and got into fights…. I became at war with myself. When I watched Freedom fighters I realize that war wasn’t started by me and I cry for that little girl. The battles were unyielding and all the time I spent trying to make sense of what happened to me, without any support, in fact the opposite.

The world telling me I was too serious, just relax. Are you kidding me? That was not the answer.

Later after the movie we all talked about passion, and her son said something about it being my real life story, and I didn’t even share anything really. How did he see me? You mean people can see me? I’m always shocked to this day when someone thinks anything good about me. That’s how painful and deeply ingrained abuse is. It doesn’t matter how many people tell you you’re marvelous, if you’re split from yourself it’s the loneliest existence imaginable.

You run around begging and scrambling for a crumb. These days I’m fed whole meals. I got brought flowers on thanksgiving when I spent the day alone, from my found father. These days I cry over a shared meal and an ounce of warmth, being invited in from the cold.

I could never get warm before, nothing worked, and then I got accused of never enough. It wasn’t enough of the right stuff. I didn’t have enough information about my trauma and my needs and wants. I lived to please and love, just to catch a glow, but I couldn’t rest for even two seconds, or it would go away.

Losing it all and myself along with it, has allowed me to rebuild to my specifications, and while it’s a challenge to even identify what those are, my recovery is delicious even when it’s hard.

I can’t wait to watch this movie with my kids and anyone who will watch it with me. Through their stories being seen they transformed. For me that is something to believe in, and now rather than automatically believe in anyone else above me, I am learning to believe in myself.

I was never asking for too much, ever. For food, and love, and belonging. I wasn’t exploitive, I was adaptive. I shamed myself for the things I did to protect my children until I could figure out how to not repeat.

Always