Hello Friends:

Wow.  It's been a while since I read a title for a blog post that had me actually nauseous.  Here's the one that got me - "How is your love life related to your Mother?"  Oh.  Ewww.

Zoh, tell me about your muzher.

Remember that "Mom" is a real hot button topic for me in general.  I'm estranged from my parents, mostly because of my mother's unresolved and untreated mental illnesses.  Don't get me wrong - I have a great deal of sympathy for anyone suffers from mental illness; how could I not, given I am in that position myself?  But protecting my boundaries means only interacting with people who want to get better; who want to be treated.  My mother is not in that category.

So the idea that my past (or present) relationship with her reflects in my love life is utterly anathema.  Even though it has to be true, of course.  Our relationships with our parents form the basis for how we relate to almost every other person we meet.  But love life?  I reiterate.  Ewww.

The other blog post says, "If you felt you didn’t get enough from your mother, perhaps you also feel that you don’t get “enough” from your partner."  Fortunately I have a spouse who has been willing to work with me for many years, addressing both my issues and his, and we have a very good marriage.  It takes plenty of effort, but it has really paid off for us.  So I guess my first point is this - past (or present) events may have an influence, but they do not have to rule us.  We can make changes in our current lives, through therapy, meds, meditation, or whatever, as well as through working with others on relationships.  Difficulties are not a forgone conclusion.

The post goes on with a few other phrases that naturally get me going, but also get me thinking.  Here's one: "Rejecting our parents only brings us suffering."  I'll mention that rejecting them has brought me a lot of peace, and was the only way I was able to carve enough of a safe space to truly being healing.  But that isn't really what the poster means - they mean a deep sense of rejecting them on all levels, not just not being in their physical presence.  And I agree with that to some extent.  Not being able to accept our parents for what they are is very painful. 

The post goes on to say, "Even our bodies will feel some degree of unrest until our parents are experienced inside us in a loving way."  This is tough for me.  I will not actually be able to experience my 'real' parents inside me in a loving way.  That attachment was not made.  I can wish for loving parents, caring parents, real parents, outside of myself, but that is not a wish that will come true.  Instead, the parent I have is myself.  I am now responsible for being what I didn't have, and what I need, then and now.  So perhaps this idea of 'experiencing parents inside myself in a loving way' is something I can do with my own inner parent.  I can stop wishing for something that does not exist, stop wanting them to be what they are not, and instead look to myself for what I didn't have.

How do you relate to your parents?  Are you a parent to yourself?  How do you think that reflects in your primary relationships?

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info: photoxpress.com woman hides face 

Giving Grief Some Space

Hello Friends:

A question came up on a forum - what have you lost or missed out on in life because of your mental illness?  I usually avoid these questions, because I want to be 'positive' all the time.  Yet I know that some of that inclination stems from a dysfunctional need to avoid the past.  I do not like to allow myself to grieve.  I can't stand the sensation of loss, so I repress loss and grief mercilessly.  I know it would be a good idea to put down what I've lost to MI, and honor that grief.

So here are a few things.  Not all of them, but at least some that I can articulate at the moment:

-   I did not get to be a child.  I was scared every moment of my childhood that additional abuse would come my way.

-   I did not have parents.  There were ostensibly two people there, and they did give me a home and enough resources to survive.  But with my parents both having untreated MIs (esp my Mom) and addictions (esp my Dad) they were not really parents.  (And now, having fully estranged them, I certainly don't have parents.  But that's been a necessary part of setting boundaries.)

-   I missed out on having a good sense of self.  Other people don't hate themselves, and I do.

-   I missed out on more social events than I can count.  Weddings, parties, casual gatherings, everything.  So much.

-   I lost about five years of my life.  It wasn't all at once - it was about 3.5 years during one depressive episode and then another 1.5 in another.  During that time I did almost nothing at all.  Completely wasted time.  Five years, poof, gone.  I was so depressed that except for the pain I hardly even remember them at all.

-   I lost the career track I worked so hard to build.  It isn't impossible that I might get it back someday, but the loss stings.

I feel compelled, however, to mention what I didn't miss.  This might be me being dysfunctional again, already turning aside from the hurting place, but I can't help it.  I found a great spouse, and we've been married for almost 14 years.  I got my BS and then my PhD in the subject I really wanted.  I can't work in that field right now because of the MIs, but I do have the formal background to do it.  I've been able to do a lot of writing, and it's been very rewarding and fun.  I've gone on a lot of business trips to amazing places.  I have a small number of very good friends who are supportive when I need it.  I've been able to develop empathy and a deeper understanding for suffering than most of my peers.

Do you have something you feel you need to grieve, but that you haven't really given the space?

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info: Girl Young Woman from photoexpress.com

Trying to Keep the Past in the Past

Hello Friends:

So did you ever experience a time when you did something that should have come back to bite you, but it didn't?  (This really does have to do with the title, honestly.)

The time I'm thinking about is when I was in college.  I'd burn candles in my bedroom now and then.  I'd leave them for a few moments while I was in the kitchen or whatever, and then come back.  My favorite candle holder was a heavy, sturdy, thick glass votive holder that gave me a safe sort of feeling.  My OCDs were much worse back then, and so I was very, very careful about the sort of candle holder I used and where I put it.  It was on my dresser with nothing flammable anywhere near it.

You can see where this is going.  One day I forgot.  I just forgot - an OCD kind of nightmare.  I walked out with the candle burning in my bedroom, and didn't come back all day.  Makes me nauseous just typing those words.

Fortunately I had that nice thick candle holder, right?  Wrong.  While I was out, it apparently got so hot that it shattered.  Exploded, really, given that when my boyfriend and I got back there were pieces all over the dresser, all over the carpet, and splashes of dried wax everywhere.  I had two immediate reactions at the time.  The first was "OMG (except in those days we spelled it out like this - "Oh My God") I can't believe I left that candle burning!  The whole place could have burned down!"

The second reaction was "There is glass everywhere!"  So while boyfriend tried to get me to calm down, he had to clean up all the glass.  (He still has the job of cleaning up all the glass almost twenty years later.)   I sat and thought about how in spite of the fact that my room was now contaminated with bits of glass, I still had a room.  I'd done something dumb and hadn't had to pay for it.

Except ...

Right, first thing is what you'd expect from OCD.  It is a challenge for me to burn candles.  For years I couldn't do it at all.  And you can bet when I do light them, I check them like crazy.  Checking.  Checking.  It isn't worth it sometimes ... but sometimes it is, and I'll light them for dinner, but blow them right out afterwards.  My husband, who does not want to clean up more glass, is happy to help me keep tabs :)

At least with OCD I know how to push my limits - when I have the emotional resources to burn a candle and when I don't - how to insert positive cognitions, you know the drill.  I hate it and it hurts, but I feel like OCD is a beast I am in the process of taming.

The issue is the second thing, I suppose.  A beast I have not tamed - I have flashbacks about this candle thing.  It is so bizarre.  Nothing happened.  I flashback to a sort of mush of images all at once, all on top of each other - lighting the candle, not blowing it out, the candle holder shattering, seeing the pieces all over, and knowing I just dodged a bullet.  I didn't even see the actual moment of shattering, of course, and yet that is still part of the melange of pictures and feelings.  My flashbacks can be intense and instantaneous, one moment I'm making tea, and then next I'm reliving every image I just described, with all the associated feelings, all at once.  It is jarring, painful, and upsetting in a manner totally different from a panic attack, say.  I confused my flashbacks with anxiety and panic attacks for years, but I can often spot the differences, now.  That's assuming I'm not so thrown by having a flashback that I can think rationally at all.

If you don't suffer from CPTSD, it is hard to describe how time can bend.  I don't really experience time in a line, ever.  Time for me is fluid.  It wraps back on itself in a way that allows past events to unfold as if they were happening right now.  Sometimes multiple events start playing all at once, with all the associated sounds, smells, and emotions, but no visual.  That's my usual - and it is really scary.  So you can believe I'm trying hard to make sense of it.  Why is it that the past won't stay there?

I don't mean this strictly biologically.  I understand about the amygdala, how memories and emotions get stored, why trauma seems to be associated with certain memories in some people and not others, blah blah.  I mean this from the position of my daily life.  It is almost a spiritual question - why isn't the past, past?

So I think about this candle incident a lot.  I have plenty of flashbacks to nasty things that really did happen.  Why has this experience, of all things, become one of the experiences I flash back to again and again?  How did this non-trauma become a trauma?  I wonder if figuring this out might help me figure out other bizarre parts of my psychology.

Wait, wait.  I ... just got an idea.  I wonder if it isn't really so different after all, the OCDs and the flashbacks.  I was thinking of OCDs as a problem with "now" and the flashbacks as a problem with "then" but that's not true, is it?  They are both problems with bringing the past into the present.  Not the same way ... but every time I light a candle, it's like I'm lighting that same candle from back then.  The one that exploded.  Hmmm.

This needs more thought.  What are yours?

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info: Candles by Fotodawg on Flickr via Creative Commons, CC 2.0

Making the Choice to Keep on Going

Hello Friends:

Wow, I am pleased and happy - after four years of blogging I have received my very first blog award for Adventures in Anxiety Land!  The award is the "I Choose to Live" award, given by Jen Daisybee at Suicidal No More.

The text describing the award says "Awards will be given to bloggers who have lived through a period of suicidality, due to a mental illness or an addiction or eating disorder (or combination of the above), or other reason, yet chose to fight to stay alive, and combat their thoughts of suicide. The purpose of this is to spread awareness that there is hope for people living with mental health problems and feeling like they have no reason to go on. There is hope, and it's important to hold onto hope. Things do get better with time, and especially with appropriate treatment. The award recipients listed here have chosen, and continue to choose, to deal with their problems, whatever they may be, without giving up. They are resilient and determined."

Or in my case, just plain stubborn, but that works, too.

There was a time before I made this choice.  A time when there was still a "Plan B" for when things became unbearable.  But I have already borne so much over the years.  I finally came to realize that I could go on bearing it.  It would be hard.  It would suck.  But I could do it.

It feels strange to have given up on "Plan B."  I remember when having a "Plan B" gave me some relief, knowing I could just check out if things became ... well ... unbearable.  But now being determined and committed to living is a new, and better kind of relief.  This is a promise, a great vow you make with yourself, that you will not give up on yourself.  As I am fond of saying, as we live, options remain.  It hurts to live, much worse than those who do not suffer from MI will ever understand.  But I've made my promise to myself.  My sacred vow.  It makes me feel empowered.

And if you don't follow Suicidal No More, give it a look see.  Jen Daisybee is the kind of person who offers real, concrete hope for people with MI.  Here are some lines she wrote about herself, taken from a recent post.  (Go read the full thing, it's amazing.)

I was the young woman who drove her mother's car to the top of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge at top speed and rammed into a guardrail, trying to drive over the edge to die because the voices told her to do so. 
 
I was the young woman who thought she was a Manchurian Candidate with a microchip inside her body that the CIA was using to monitor her whereabouts and control her thoughts. I was the young woman who tried to cut the microchip out of her leg with a broken glass.
 
I was the young woman who lived in three different homeless shelters at three different times in three different years. 

I was the young woman who was hospitalized in psychiatric units more than 25 times in her life.

I was the young woman who thought she had no talents or anything to give to the world, who believed she was worthless, who cut her flesh out of the anger she had at herself.

And now........................

I am the woman who knows what reality is, who doesn't have delusional thoughts about being people she isn't, who knows who she is, and who remembers what it was like when life was not this good.

I am the woman who graduated with her A.A. degree with honors in 2010 from a college she first attended in 1993.

I am the woman who visits her psychiatrist each month, gets an injection of medication every two weeks, and goes to therapy regularly because she wants to be well and live.

I am the woman who speaks to the police every year during their Crisis Intervention Team trainings and tells them what it's like when the police come to take you away in handcuffs, so they can understand how to approach people in crises.

I am the woman who did an internship last year at the same crisis center where she was a patient seven years ago for months.

I am the woman who spoke at the Southeast Conference on Homelessness and Supportive Housing in 2010, the Directions for Mental Health training conference of 2010, Bayside High School during The Great American Teach-Ins of 2010 and 2011, and other community groups to open up a dialogue about mental illness, in the hopes that she could have a positive impact on at least one person's life.

I am the woman who loves to laugh.

I am the daisy that blossomed in spite of the cement that encased her.

How can these words not inspire us to keep on living!

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Dealing with Dark Waters

Hello Friends:

I mentioned in my last post that I had a whole dang list of things to write about and what with one thing and another, I hadn't manged to get my act together.  Far be it from me to suggest my act is actually coalescing, yet here is a post.

One of the reasons this winter has been so tough is something that happened early on, in December.  I'm feeling a little better about it, now, having had some time and some tdoc sessions to deal with it.  But I still feel a touch haunted, literally and figuratively.

We went on a cruise for the holidays, and overall it was a great experience.  We left on Christmas Eve, had dinner, did some partying, then went to bed.  We were not asleep.  I remember the moment when I felt something shift in the movement of the ship.  It was just after midnight, Christmas Day.  Then we heard an announcement in the hall using some kind of code.  The feeling was like a tingle of static energy, subtle, but my hands felt cold.  My feet numb.  Part of my mind recognized it immediately as a shock or panic reaction.  The other part said, clearly, to the rest of my mind, "Someone is overboard."

About ten minutes later, there was another announcement in the hall.  I know now that people who were asleep at the time didn't hear it at all.  But we were awake.  I was wide awake, in fact.  This announcement said clearly that there was a "man overboard situation" and the ship had moved into a search pattern.

We got up.  I went out onto the balcony, not because I thought I could see anything from ten stories up in a massive cruise ship at night.  I went out because I felt compelled.  The sea wasn't high, but neither was it calm.  We could see the lights of the coast maybe fifteen miles off, and another cruise ship searching in a wide circle, as we were.  It was hard to get your mind around.  Inside my head it said, "Someone is in that water."  I felt in my heart that the person had jumped intentionally.  It would have happened just at midnight.  The ship was not lurching.  I didn't think they had fallen by accident, although I had no proof or evidence either way.

I was so, so sad.  Am sad.  No matter how suicidal I have ever been, jumping into the sea has never been one of my options for offing myself.  Incredibly despairing and sad, to see a dark, yawning ocean and wonder at the mind of someone who leaped right into it.  I was in pain for that person, and for myself, knowing that feeling of empty grief.  All night long, the ship moved in a large circle.  It made the boat sway in a fashion I had not yet felt on a ship.  For the rest of the cruise, whenever the boat turned, it brought the feelings back up in an instant.

Nine hours later, there was another announcement.  It was at breakfast, and this was how most people learned that someone had gone over.  The Captain claimed that a staff member jumped overboard, and after nine hours, the Coast Guard had released the cruise ships from the search.  You could see helicopters still circling, but the ships were now moving away.  The Captain said that three orange life rings had been thrown over, and all three had been recovered.  But not the person in question.  And that was about it.

The way the incident was ignored on board for the rest of the trip was disturbing.  I was more disturbed by how hard it was to learn anything about it at all, even after we got back.  I ended up on some cruise watchdog sites before I even found the press releases about the incident.  I also found posts from family members of the woman who was lost.  Her family was absolutely certain she would not have jumped - she had a one year old child, was married, her husband was also a staff member on the same ship, they had just been shopping for presents, etc.  Her family was outraged at the 'accusation' that the woman had jumped.  The company was saying they had an 'eye witness.'  But no witness had come forth, and the company was apparently not releasing the tapes they have of everything that goes on everywhere on a ship.  I'm pretty convinced they must have caught it on tape.  The company would want it to be a suicide, since that would absolve them of any responsibility.  The family would want it to be an accident, for a million reasons, of course.

This was the point at which I was finally able to get together with my tdoc (recall I was really sick with a combined ear/sinus infection for weeks).  I still do not know what has come of this situation.  My tdoc helped me to see that obsessing over it, when it was unlikely to ever come to a resolution, was not a really good use of my time, or of my sanity.  But I remain distressed.  First, by the idea that a person drowned on Christmas Day.  Second, and more tangled, is this idea that justice has not been done.  Or found.  Or achieved.  Or something.  Why can't the family get some kind of closure from the cruise company, one way or another?  Why can't I?  How frustrating.

Frustrating that the chance we will ever know what happened is about zero.  And still haunting, that sight of an ocean - dark, abyssal, open caverns of arching waves.  It's another in so many kinds of incidents that ask me to accept and move on.  No answers.  No formula.  No meaning or reason. 

I am really tired of these sorts of lessons.

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info: Waves by Mados on Flikr via Creative Commons, CC 2.0

Even More Sane Than Ever

Hello Friends:

As you know by now I love online quizzes, and I love talking about the crazies.  So pretty much nothing can beat an online quiz about the crazies.  My favorite for the last two years has been The Sanity Score at PsychCentral.  I've mentioned before that I don't think it is terribly diagnostic, but given that I've taken this exact same test five times now over the last two years, it has proven an interesting way to track my perception of my own mental health.

And has given me data.  Which I also love.  'Cause you can graph it.  Like so.

I left off some of the points I had on the last time because now there are five lines, and the whole thing can get to be a little difficult to read.  Many points haven't changed at all, and as I mentioned before, the scores for things like Mania and Dissociation do not seem to really work well.

To recap, lower scores mean better mental health.  Overall Score is from 0 to 288, while all the other subscores are from 0 to 100.  For the Overall Score, I think anything below 50 is probably pretty normal, assuming nobody is perfect.  For subscores, anything below ten or so is probably just 'normal life' and not something most people would seek treatment for.  An issue at 25 needs help, and something at 50 needs lots of help.  Over that, the situation is probably pretty dire.

So my analysis of myself.  The general good news is that almost everything has improved, if only a very little bit, since the last time I took the test six months ago (I hadn't blogged about that.  My last blog post on this topic was a year ago.)  This heartening to see.  I'm especially happy to see that General Coping continues its slow improving trend, including amazingly (if more subtly) Self Esteem. 

About 3.5 years ago, I went into a bad depressive episode.  Too depressed to even do online quizzes.  It wasn't until I had started getting additional help to get out of it that I found The Sanity Score and started tracking.  By that time, my depression was down to simply 'bad' with a score of about 50.  The next six months saw it drop markedly, and it has been slowly improving since then.  My depression is now at a level where it still bothers me, but isn't ruling my life. 

PTSD also went down in severity the first six months, but then didn't move for a year.  Now finally after 1.5 years, it has moved down a tiny bit.  It is still too high, probably because of questions that ask about recurrent nightmares and intrusive thoughts about past events.  These still bother me a great deal, but perhaps not to the extent the score would suggest.

Anxiety took an extra six months to make a steep drop, and then has held steady for a whole year at about 25.  OCD also dropped a lot in that first year, but now isn't going anywhere, and is up around 35.

So what does it all mean?  Overall good, but there are indications that I'm not making much progress in some areas that really need to improve.  I think this might be an indication of a need to bump up the meds, but I'm not sure.  I know my pdoc is thinking we might go up a little, but I've been hoping that my other techniques like yoga, meditation, exercise, and better food would close the gap for me, here. 

Of course, I'm not doing those things like I should.  I talk a good talk, but I need to actually get into real habits before I'm going to see if they will be enough, or not.  Stay tuned ...

Have you tried the Sanity Score? 
 
Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info: Happy Flowers by rkrichardson from Flikr via Creative Commons, CC 2.0

Words Through the Walls

Hello Friends:

I am, this very moment, hearing my neighbors arguing.  I live in a townhouse with reasonably thick walls, but yelling, loud music, and such can be heard pretty clearly.

This couple has a loud argument about once a month.  They have done this for the last three years.  Usually I immediately play music to drown it out, leave the house, or start up with an engaging video game until they are done.  Usually lasts 15 minutes to half an hour, and then they seem to wind down.  I try to avoid hearing them because (1) I really don't have any interest in knowing what my neighbors are doing, I am not nosy or gossipy by nature, but more importantly (2) hearing the sound of yelling in an argument makes me really, really uncomfortable.  Scared.  Angry.  Sad.  Confused.  Then scared again.  These arguments really, really upset me.  I get a sensation that I'm going to freak out, and can't move fast enough to find a way to drown it out.

This is hardly a huge shock, given how I grew up.  The yelling at us kids for stupid things.  And worse, the yelling between my parents that would always be turned on us once they got tired of yelling at each other.  I was raised in a chaotic environment where verbal abuse, loud and otherwise, was commonplace.  And having been raised that way, it is again no surprise that I repeated this pattern of self-abuse by living with an emotionally and occasionally physically abusive boyfriend for five years.  So I am understandably very touchy when it comes to couples yelling at each other.

The thing that makes this argument different is that I am intentionally not tuning it out.  I've chosen to practice my mindfulness in this really uncomfortable situation.  I'm going to sit here and listen to this.  I'm going to feel what I feel.  I'm not going to judge myself or try to keep from feeling unhappy.  I'm just going to sit with this discomfort.  I'm going to think thoughts, ask questions, but I'm not going to avoid anything.  No avoidance.  This is really hard.  There is a rock in my stomach.  My palms are sweaty.

And it is still going over there.  Loud and scary.  I can hear, actually hear, the sound of my parents arguing in my head.  I feel like I am being yelled at, personally.  This is a bad one even for the neighbors.  It has already been a half hour.  Why does a woman stand there and let a man call her a *uk#ing idiot?  Why does a man stand there and let a woman call him a lazy bastard?  These are somewhat rhetorical questions, since as I said I was in an abusive relationship, and at the time I thought I deserved the abuse.  That I wasn't worth anything better.  That I could never find anything better.  I was also afraid to leave.  I was afraid he would stalk me, hurt me.  So yes, I get why people might do it.  But ... but really.  Now that I'm out of it, no, I don't get it.

Good grief, he is actually mocking her now.  Mocking.  A sing song voice.  The tone makes me want to tear someone's eyes out.  Wait.  Now they are yelling about who is at fault that each one of them no longer has friends.  Their words through the walls are loud and perfectly clear.  I'm choking down pained laughter.  If they would actually listen to themselves, the 'lack of friends' would be less of a mystery.  I sure have no interest in them.

My husband and I never yell at one another.  Not now, not ever.  Not once.  We've had a few heated arguments in the 17 or so years we've been together, but never yelling.  Part of the reason, of course, is that I can't abide it.  He is much less sensitive to it, given the normal volume of conversation in his house growing up was yelling, even when people were perfectly happy.  But even so, he agrees it is much more pleasant without the constant noise.

Okay, now it is so loud it is garbled.  Um.  He's saying "You are an a$$hole to me.  You haven't changed at all."  She is too shrill to be understood.  I realize I am actually afraid of ... of him doing something like ... well ... firing a gun.  I have this image of a gun going off, and a bullet flying through the wall and killing me.  How ... bizarre.  I ... you know, I have that thought every time they yell over there.  Somehow ... somehow I see their arguing as a direct threat to me.  A threat to my life.  Well, of course I do.  But now that I think about it, that's me doing ...

Oh, for heaven's sake, I'm having a flashback.  Of course I am.  I don't mean to say I've been shot at.  It's not that literal.  I have Chronic PTSD, not trauma from a single event.  When I flashback, I find myself caught in an amalgam of events; a mix of memories, some clear, some vague.  So it takes me 45 minutes to realize I'm in the middle of a flashback.  It does usually take a while since I don't have any visual symptoms.  I don't 'see' the past.  But I can hear it, smell it, even feel it.  My eyes see 'now.'  The rest of me is perceiving a blur of events from long ago.  My heart is pounding, I can hear my parents yelling, at each other, at me.  I am ... I am a little girl hiding in a corner.

And as soon as I started writing the above paragraph, I started feeling more normal.  Realizing it wasn't 'real,' wasn't 'now' helped it go away.  I have no evidence that things next door have ever gotten physical.  Just yelling.  There is no indication or evidence that any kind of violence has or will happen over there.  My fear of being hurt is completely unfounded in the 'now'.  It is entirely the past.  I'm there, living it as if it were the present.

It's been an hour.  They are finally done.

That sucked.

Was it worth it?  Hmm.  I'm an experimentalist, so it's hard to say an experiment was useless.  Even a null result is a result.  I didn't actually freak out.  I had a flashback.  I probably always do and never realized it before, even when I turn up the music, since I am always rattled for hours after they shut up.  Running from it did not make the fear stop.  I can't say confronting it made the fear stop, since I feel like total crap right now.

But if nothing else, I did just prove to myself that I can live through an argument.  The yelling alone can't kill me.  I did not 'freak out' any more than usual.  And I also have some more proof about how tough it can be to tell the difference between a PTSD flashback and a nasty GAD anxiety attack.  They seem so similar on the surface, but a flashback is more insidious.  Darker.  Deeper.  Tangled.

Whatever.  I deserve a reward.  Chocolates.  I know I shouldn't use food.  Too bad. 

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info:  The Sun Goes Down, gideon_wright on Flikr via Creative Commons, CC 2.0

Continuing Improvements in Sanity

Hello Friends:

When you don't know what to blog about, time to head on over to The Sanity Score and see what your latest numbers are. As I've mentioned before (see post in April, Apparently I'm Getting More Sane) I occasionally take the sanity test at PsychCentral just for jollies. Okay, not just for jollies. I take it because even though it isn't a terribly scientific instrument, it does provide something of a benchmark for changes over time. And because I love online quizzes.

And because now that I've taken the quiz three times over the last year, I now have enough data to make a graph. God I love data.

So I took the test the first time in December of last year, then about 4 months later, and then another seven months after that. The data is pretty interesting to me. It would suggest I feel better overall since December '09. And I do feel better - maybe not quite as much as this shows here, but still, it is consistent. (Remember, low numbers are good. And again, not all the subscores are on my graph, just the ones that I thought were most interesting.)

So my Depression score didn't move much, not a surprise, since it dropped a lot in April. But my Anxiety score plummeted from 48 (reflecting a major problem) to 27 (reflecting a moderate to minor problem). I don't think this is really shows how I feel. I feel less anxious, but not quite this much. So I predict the next time I take the test it won't move, or maybe will even be higher. Still, it is an improvement.

I left the Dissociation score in to bring up another point about the test. Just like the Phobia questions, the Dissociation questions don't seem to be written very well. I definitely suffer dissociation whenever I have a flashback triggered, and it is bizarre and uncomfortable. But that symptom does not seem to be captured here very well. I'll note my PTSD score hasn't moved, and still indicates one of my major issues. So perhaps some of the dissociation is represented there. Hard to say.

So my average overall score is now 55.  Fifty-five is definitely a sane person (a person with issues, but still a sane person).  As I said before, this is starting to look like I have the "resilience, skills, and resources to cope and manage." Odd. But I do almost feel like that. Almost. I do feel more capable, more in control, and less overwhelmed. I hate myself a little less, as reflected by the Self Esteem score, yet self esteem is still one of my major problems. And it is one of the areas which there as been the least amount of change. I will hazard to say that many of the other areas for sub-scores relate to symptoms, and that Self Esteem is more of a core issue. If I can see some improvement there, I might actually believe this isn't just an interim period between major depressions, but instead a real change in my worldview.

As I said in my previous post, "I continue to bemoan the fact that I did not take the test when I was at my worst." Naturally, I hope I never feel that way again. But if I do, I will try to see the bright side of it - that'll be some really good data.

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info:  Wishing by pinksherbert on Flikr via Creative Commons, CC2.0

Self Parenting Part II of III - A Closer Look

Hello Friends:

Okay, I am posting Part II. Now. I've procrastinated so long that I wrote a post on procrastination.

My Part I of Self Parenting took a look at the model for a good parent, since I wanted to avoid making any assumptions, there. In Part II, right here, I'm going to look specifically at suggestions from books and sites about the model for parenting one's own inner child. Some of these ideas look similar to the list in the last post, and others don't. Then in Part III I will (hopefully) tie these and a few other ideas together in a possible practical approach to self-parenting.

And no, I don't understand why my theme for pictures on this is cats. Stress Cat is a little jealous, actually.

I realize I didn't post a clear goal for the process of learning how to self-parent in part one of this series.  On Recovery View I found some text I liked. "In this process the client is reminded that they are not the same as their thoughts and memories.  That to be an adult is to understand and to embrace that there are thoughts and memories that take us back to an earlier time, but remembering is simply that, remembering. Remembering is a momentary process, one that requires compassion for the child that they were. Remembering does not have to be the same as reliving, if we can learn to intervene with our adult at this point. This is the premise of Self-Parenting."

Here are some tips, then, that specifically address adult behaviors towards your own inner self. Note that there really isn't a process discussed here.  There are so many approaches.  Some self-parenting programs are exactly like AA, with twelve specific steps.  Some approaches emphasize mindfulness, while others use art therapy to reach into your inner self.  There is not a "best" way, but many of the approaches have a few of these tips or points in common.

1. Think about what sort of parents you wish you had and be that parent to yourself. "If you wish you had parents that took you to Disneyland and took photos of you having fun and bought you Mickey Mouse ears, seriously consider planning a trip to Disneyland for yourself with a couple of good friends who would take pictures of you, and wear Mickey Mouse ears with you as well." (drmarlo)

2. Learn Who You Are. "Commit to learn who you really are and what your values are – on a deep level. For example, ask yourself: In my favorite type of conversation, what do I talk about and with whom? What activities bring me joy? What’s most important for me in a love relationship? What does s/he say and do, and how does s/he behave? What are my most important priorities as a parent? What makes me happy? What are my passions and talents?" (theresident)  

3. Rescue Yourself. "When you are in a bad situation, don’t ignore yourself. Pay attention to the fact that you’re unhappy and do something about it. Rescue yourself from bad situations like you wish your parents would have rescued you when you were a child." (drmarlo)

4. Comfort Yourself. "If you wish you had parents who would hold and hug and comfort you when you are sad, you need to allow yourself to experience being held and hugged and comforted when you are sad now. If your romantic partner cannot or will not do this for you, be a good parent to yourself and re-evaluate your choice of romantic partners. Not involved in a romantic relationship? Check out your friends. If you don’t have a friend who could hug you and hold you if you needed to cry, figure out why you don’t have any good friends and make a point to meet some higher quality people than the folks you’ve surrounded yourself with."(drmarlo)

5. Affirm Yourself.  "Recognize your abilities and recite them to yourself with pride." (relationshipmatters) Encourage your spouse/SO/family to highlight your achievements, abilities, and positive behaviors.  

6. Choose Strong Supporters.  "Marry a supportive and admiring spouse." (relationshipmatters) Choose friends who value and support you and your efforts. Surround yourself with people who provide genuine love and friendship. Stay away from work/career situations that are repetitions of earlier family abusive/stressful patterns.

7. Refocus On Now.  At some point we have to abandon debilitating feelings of pity for ourselves about how we were neglected and abused. Otherwise, we can allow ourselves to remain trapped in the time when the inner child was "in charge" of all our reactions and decision-making. We need to place our adult self in charge, taking responsibility for making the positive changes necessary to move forward.  (livestrong)

8. Identify Needs and Fill Them.  Needs can be a simple (or as complex) as food, air, and sleep. Once you have "learned who you really are" it will be easier to understand your unique needs. When you know them, start filling them. (reparenting)

9. Set and Maintain Boundaries.  Know what it feels like when your personal boundaries are being violated, then react to maintain your integrity and self-trust. "I usually feel my chest tighten, my breathing stop and my face flush. That's anger. Then the voice(s) in my head begin their chatter. 'How dare he talk to me like that?' Sometimes I simply feel numb, paralyzed and my brain goes blank. I identify this state as shock. I usually retreat in silence in these situations. So my job has been to quickly notice when these body/mind reactions occur. Hopefully the boundary trespasser is still in front of me. If so, I can take a deep breath and then I say, 'I believe differently' or 'That's not true for me' or "I don't accept that.' Then I excuse myself and walk away. Sometimes I have to do this a couple of times before the boundary breaker backs off. This is self care in action." (reparenting)

Righto. Enough for now. Let me know what you think, and I'll post Part III soon. Right. Really I will.

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/spyndle/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Self Parenting Part I of III - Learning From Good Parents

Hello Friends:

Part of my healing investigations include learning about how to self-parent. For those of us who did not have a nurturing childhood, learning how to self-parent your own inner child can be a key to developing needed skills for life. Or at least that's what they tell me.

I've done a lot of poking around for resources and ideas, and figured I'd put them up in a series of posts here on the blog. Note, that some of the places I link to here are not big favorites with me - they might be religious sites or have an agenda to sell something. But I want to give credit where it is due, and not just claim ideas that are not mine. But don't assume that I'm endorsing any of these places. There be weirdness out on the intarwebs.

The first thing I thought to investigate was ideas of a 'good parent.' I didn't want to rely on my own dubious internal models for such a thing, so I went digging around and created the following (long) list of what a good parent is/does. It is combined from Buzzle, Cutekid, eHow, and Myyoungchild. It is hardly comprehensive, but it gives a good idea of what a 'good parent' might be.

Tops on most every list is Unconditional Love. I think I'm going to have that be a topic for another entire post, but will put it here along with the rest for now. The first category is what a 'good parent' would do. In parenthesis is my 'translation' for a good self-parent.

1. Love your children unconditionally (Love your inner child unconditionally.) For children, this means saying it to them, hugging them, kissing them, telling them how much they mean to you and how unique and wonderful they are. Words have to be backed up by actions to be believed however, and everything else on this list is how to back it up. The same is true for dealing with our inner children. We have to tell ourselves we have our own unconditional love, be there with 'hugs' for ourselves, and tell ourselves we are unique, wonderful, and valued. We may just start to believe it when those 'words' are backed up by the actions.

2. Make your children a high priority (Make your inner child a high priority.)  We have to make caring for our inner children a priority. It can be easy to ignore them or turn away, so we have to make a commitment to keep them in a high priority position.

3. Understand how your children grow (Understand the development and needs of your inner child.)  We need to understand how our inner child came to be, what it needs, and how it will change over time. That way we know what to provide for ourselves, and what are realistic expectations.

4. Provide Encouragement/Never Criticize (No translation needed.) Every child needs to feel like their parents are their best cheerleaders and biggest fans. Inner children also need encouragement, not criticism. Learn as you can from mistakes, and then move on to the next item that you can use to encourage your inner child.

5. Spend time with your children (Spend Time on your Inner Child.) Your inner child needs you to spend some time with it, learning and playing, as well as comforting and nurturing. At times, set aside the constant need to judge, weigh, and analyze, and let your inner child have some simple fun. Spending time builds trust and love.

6. Listen to your children (Listen to what your inner child says and thinks.) Your inner child probably has a lot to say, strong opinions, and some very clear ideas about things. Your inner child might also have questions. Listen to what that person is saying, and respond with straightforward and genuine answers or the care that is needed.

7. Accept and acknowledge your child's feelings and desires (No translation, again.) It is okay to feel sad, scared, angry, jealous, or confused. Acknowledge the feelings of your inner child, don't dismiss them or judge them. Ask the inner child to find out why it is reacting the way it is.

8. Give safety to your children (Create safety for your inner child.) Everyone needs to feel a different level of safety, and this changes with time. Find out what your inner child needs to feel safe. It might be something surprising, like a stuffed animal, a separate room, or a pet. Or less surprising, like a better lock on the front door or an investment in better tires for the car. Find out what your inner child needs, and then explain to the inner child how you are meeting (or will meet) that need.

9. Model Good Behavior (Show, Don't Just Tell.) Children watch, listen, and learn. They do not do what they are told, they do what they have had modeled for them. If you want your inner child to believe you, to trust you, you can't say "I'll take care of you" and then eat pizza every night. Your inner child sees you are not sincere about care. This goes the same for proper expressions of emotions, standing up for yourself, and meeting daily needs for food, sleep, health, etc. Nurture yourself in adult ways, and when you go to nurture your inner child, the inner child will believe your good intentions.

10. Set reasonable expectations and express them clearly (Know what to expect from your inner child.) You can't expect your inner child to respond like an adult, to be perfect, or not to have needs. You have to be realistic based on what you learn about the development of the inner child, and by listening to yourself. Be ready to counter unacceptable behavior when your inner child pushes you to act out, "I know you are angry and sad, but you can't self harm by punching walls or not eating for three days. Is there something else you can do for relief? A distraction, a bath, a nap?"

11. Keep a regular schedule for your children (Keep a schedule for your inner child.) Schedules help to develop discipline and responsibility, as well as create an environment with less confusion and more straightforward expectations. As an adult, you can easily bend your schedule, eat poorly, stay up all night, and do as you please. But your inner child might not be up to all that. Each day does not have to be totally planned out, but try to do some things consistently (other than work schedule).

12. Create togetherness through routines. (Engage the inner child in meaningful rituals and routines, alone and with others.) Daily, weekly, or even yearly family rituals create a bond between family members. It may be as simple as reading a book together every night or taking a yearly trip to the beach. Let your inner child get involved with family rituals now the way you did as a kid, even if (especially if) you are alone. Put up holiday decorations, go on a yearly vacation to a spot you love and watch a holiday parade. If you are separated from family, you can also engage in rituals with friends; like movie nights on Thursdays or a game every Sunday.

13. Create a consistent set of rules (Be consistent with your inner child.) Like a specific schedule and regular routines and rituals, consistent rules are necessary for structure. Don't change things on yourself after you have set a boundary or a limit. This is a part of understanding and meeting expectations for yourself and your inner child. The same goes for 'discipline.' After you have set the limits, rules and expectations, try to enforce them every time. Again, this builds trust and shows your inner child that you can build and respect boundaries.

14. Reward your children (Reward your inner child.) Give your inner child good things any time they 'do right' or for no reason at all. Rewards are the only real way to change adult behavior, and your child is stuck inside your adult body.

15. Don't spank your children (Don't hurt your inner child.) Spanking achieves nothing but fear. If you feel frustrated or angry take a break. This goes the same for that inner child. You might be very frustrated with yourself at times, and think some kind of punishment is in order. Punishment does not change the behavior of adults (or inner children). Learn from mistakes, disappointments, and failures, and then move on. Do not punish, harm, or self-sabotage.

16. Strengthen your team (Keep everyone on the same page.) Go ahead and share your plans for self-parenting with your spouse, therapist, or whoever. Let them know what you are doing, and how they can assist. They should also know about ways you are trying to develop more structure or routine for your inner child, so they don't end up making things more difficult.

17. Teach your children what you value (Not sure how to translate this ... but it was cool so I didn't delete it.) "It is crucial to show and teach your children the values that you hold dear. Discuss with your children the importance of being honest, of being fair, of being respectful, of caring for others, and of being patient and understanding. Model these values for them, as children are astute in watching how adults behave and imitating that behavior. Whatever your spiritual beliefs may be, teach them to your children in a way they can understand. By doing these things, you are laying an important foundation that will guide your children throughout their lives."

18. Parents need recharge time (Don't spend every moment obsessing about the inner child.) Parents need to take some time for themselves, or they risk being no good for their children or themselves. Avoid sleep deprivation, isolation and self-neglect. You are more than your inner child. You are a complex adult. Nurture all of yourself, not just the inner child part. Make caring for your inner child a habit or reflex, and your time being you, the adult, in a newly comfortable and nurtured way.

Now if that doesn't seem like a tall order ...

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info: "Teardrop and Her Kittens" from http://www.flickr.com/photos/kim_carpenter_nj/ / CC BY 2.0

A Successful Visit to the Doc for that Pesky Exam

Hello Friends:

I had my annual physical exam yesterday, and it actually went pretty well. This is in contrast to my physical last year, which ended up being something of a disaster. That situation was what motivated me to try harder to express my needs and get advocates for health care. I have too many CPTSD flashback triggers in doctor's offices and hospital settings. The environments are too threatening. And as you know I recently geared myself up to visit the obgyn for the first time in years. I used a lot of my tips and ideas (from post I and post II) to make that visit go better, and it worked pretty well.

So I went into my yearly physical a bit more prepared. I took my Ativan the night before to ensure a good night's sleep. And since it isn't fully out of the system in twelve hours, I had some left to help buffer the visit itself. I had my husband come with me, so that he could listen to the advice I was given, and make sure I didn't forget to mention anything important. He also gets to sign all the forms so I don't have to touch any contaminated pens and clipboards. Ewww. I wore comfortable, loose fitting clothes and a tank top. This turned out to be a big bonus since they didn't have to remove it to do the standard EKG test. (Having to take off clothes makes me feel shaky and vulnerable.)

Let's see ... I brought a food bar to scarf after the blood test, and asked right up front for juice. Last time I spent the visit in a state we call, "gone a$$hole from hunger induced madness of the brain." This time I got my blood sugar right back up. I also had made sure to drink lots and lots of water the night before and day of, so the tests were easier. Nothing like performance anxiety when you are trying to pee in a cup.

I told the nice nurse I wanted her to take my blood. She says the same thing every time, "There are others better at it than me.  It might hurt more if I do it." She still does not quite understand that it isn't about pain, it is about personal trust. The pain of the stick is not what bothers me, it is the feeling of helplessness, the loss of control, the sense of violation (along with the fear of contamination.) All of these things are much less of a problem if I know that the person I am working with sees me as a real person, respects my limits and boundaries, and will take me seriously when I say "There is one vein. One. Only one that will work. It is right here." And she does, and did. We hit it on the first try, and the rest was cake.

But most importantly, my doctor is finally catching on to what it means to have a patient with PTSD and very bad anxiety. I asked specifically for continuity with the staff. This is a trick in that practice since people are always coming and going. But she is going to try. She made of point of having me introduced to the new nurse I'll be working with (when the old nice nurse retires, boo hoo) and introduced me to the manager of the front office. I've also been told to ask specifically for the manager any time I have an issue. This "permission" will make it easier for me to feel like I have a right to stand up for myself. Even if they forget, and they often do, I'll remember.

And even if I get the run-around for something in the future, just having gone through this will make me feel better. I felt respected. I felt like people cared about my individual needs. They still don't really understand. For example, my doctor still has me on five different supplements (I do need them, I do have all the deficiencies they are supposed to fill.) But when I told her I couldn't take them consistently, there were just too many, she couldn't understand that. No matter how many times I tell her that every single pill is a struggle, vitamin or not, she doesn't get it. So I will probably remain semi-compliant with my meds. I will always try, but there is only so much of me.

However, they are trying. And I am trying. It all feels much better. Still very scary, but it has become something that can be managed, something that can be coped with.  I didn't dissociate once during the whole visit, even during the blood test. I was present in the moment, and had only a few episodes of hyper-aware anxiety. And then I got a french-toast breakfast. Oh yeah.

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info: Photoxpress

Grief and Mourning Part III of III - Starting to Move Forward

Hello Friends:

In my first post, I talked about how I had done some grieving of my losses in the past, but still felt there was more to do. And I didn't want to do it. In the second post, I put up a few reasons why we might resist grief and mourning, and what I thought my own hang-ups might be. So here's the third post, where I'm going to talk about the process of grief, and how I'm starting my plan to mourn and move on. Right. I'm sure it'll be just that easy ...

Anyway, we are all familiar with the canonical five stages of grief, which some people say are more like seven, or twelve, or whatever. The wisdom on stages of grief these days is that there do appear to be "places" one finds oneself, like denial, or anger. We seem to move through these places in one way or another as we grieve, but it is never the same. Some people visit one or two stages, and then are done. Others visit the stages in a random order, back and forth, then around again, up and down, with no apparent pattern. Eventually, they also are done. So there is no real predicting.

For myself, I find the idea of stages of grief a little frustrating, since I want to do things "right," and there is no right. Still, I found a site here that talks about these stages in a way that was actually helpful to me. This page lists seven stages; shock, denial, anger, guilt, sorrow and depression, acceptance, and then engaging with life. I found it most useful for the inclusion of "shock." Interestingly, because of the CPTSD, I sometimes find myself still there, still in shock, feeling as if something terrible has just happened. Creepy. I can imagine how that can be keeping me from moving forward with my grief, although I'm not exactly certain how to move it from "now" to the past.

One of the more useful things I found was an excerpt from a book about how to help someone else with grief. You realize quickly that these are the things you need to be doing for yourself. Rewording, some of the advice might look like this; grieve at your own pace, seek company, seek emotionally safe environments, don't judge what you say or feel, be patient with yourself, try to find some humor in life, honor losses with memorials/rituals, and seek others going through something similar. I find myself finding humor right here, since all this sounds like the whole reason I started blogging in the first place.

I'll admit that sites with any overtly religious content make me wary. But there is a site on 'devozine' that I thought very interesting. This is actually targeted to teens dealing with trauma (9/11) but I read some very useful stuff on their site describing trauma and grief. I thought the description of trauma, below, was insightful.

"What is a trauma? Loss occurs any time we feel restricted or diminished. Trauma is a loss that is outside our world view, an experience that brings up feelings of terror, horror and being out of control. An experience will be traumatic for us if it involves injury or death in ways that do not seem to be a natural part of living. Also, events that have a deep personal meaning for us or experiencing a number of losses may move us into feeling overwhelmed."

This site made a suggestion about the nature of grieving, what it does, and how to use it to honor our losses, and then move on. I've taken just some of the sentences here to shorten the piece. "The way we heal our experience of loss is called the grieving process. The feelings and issues of grief help us to understand what the loss means to us and what we need to be healed. Because we don't just grieve for the fact of a loss, but for the meanings and implications of that loss, spiritual issues always arise in grief. Find a symbol. A symbol is an object, word, place vision etc. that stands for a meaning other than its obvious or usual one. Choose a symbol to help your grieving. It could be a color, a piece of clothing, an object you carry in your pocket or anything that will provide comfort."

I really resonate with this idea. I've decided to go ahead and do it. I'm going to choose a symbol that gives me 'permission' to grieve, but that does not require it. I'm going to try to use this symbol to make sure my subconscious knows I'm allowed to grieve, to mourn, but it can do it on it's own time table and in its own way. So this symbol will now be my compromise. I can be sad if I want to, or not, as necessary. Meanwhile I can move on with other aspects of healing.

The symbol I've chosen is the "weeping seraph," above. I'm not entirely sure what it is about crying angels that appeal to me. There is something both sad and soothing about them. One of the things about losing someone that always bothered me was people saying things like, "you shouldn't be sad, they are with God/Jesus/Buddha/in the place with infinite beer/with the angels/etc." I had this idea that heaven was dancing and happy that so-and-so had died. I did not like that image at all. Seeing weeping angels actually makes me feel better. I think the angels do mourn, they don't go straight to the dancing. There is the sad part first. The despairing part. The part of utter despondency, when even the knowledge of future happiness cannot take away the pain. This seems right. Not that I want them to be stuck there, or to be stuck there, myself. But it seems proper to honor the loss. And this image makes me feel more like a loss is being appropriately honored.

I might even buy a small version of this statue to keep around as a reminder. The message is that grief is good and okay, whenever necessary. But it is also okay to keep moving forward.

That at least is the plan for the moment. How do you grieve your losses? How do you honor them? How do you move on?

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info: http://www.flickr.com/photos/uitdragerij/ / CC BY 2.0

Grief and Mourning Part II of III - Some Reasons Why It's So Hard

Hello Friends:

The canonical wisdom about healing trauma is that a person needs to complete the full, natural grieving process, or the symptoms of trauma will keep reappearing, demanding our attention. Back to Judith Lewis Harris' book "Trauma and Recovery" that says, "Survivors of chronic childhood abuse face the task of grieving not only what they lost but also what was never theirs to lose. The childhood that was stolen from them is irreplaceable."

Seems like a tall order ... and as I said in my last post, I don't really want to do this.  Part of it, I'm sure, is that I have in fact grieved some losses from my past, and don't actually need to grieve them again.  But another part comes from resistance of some kind.  Or many kinds.

Harris' book gives some more insight into why we might have difficulty with the process of mourning. The quotes below are from her book. Anything not quoted is my commentary or synthesis of MANY ideas; including her ideas, things I've gleaned elsewhere, and my own experience. Again, I'm no therapist, so some of this is nothing more than my own understanding and opinion of how this all works. Anyway, a person might experience all, none, or some of the conditions below while they are attempting to heal.  And these conditions can get in between you and your full grief process.

Clinging to Symptoms 

The Issue: "The patient may be reluctant to give up symptoms such as nightmares and flashbacks because they have acquired important meanings. The symptoms may be symbolic means for keeping faith with the lost person, a substitute for mourning, or an expression of unresolved guilt."

What To Do: Recognize what it is in the symptoms that might actually be appealing to you, in spite of how horrible they are. Are you trying to punish yourself? Are you trying to remember someone or something through the symptoms? Are you looking at them as a protection or wall between yourself and other kinds of pain?

My Experience: This one is really hard for me. I didn't realize it, but for me the symptoms have become a reliable source of information. When I am in pain, I know something is wrong, and I can act. What am I without the pain? I have no model for a universe that is not defined by pain. I need to generate a new model, a universe defined by all sorts of sensations, where pain is just one kind. I need to tell myself it is okay to get information from good sensations, too.

Revenge Fantasy 

The Issue: The 'patient' may harbor a fantasy of "revenge on the perpetrator(s)" of their trauma, hoping to find some way to 'get even'.

What to Do: It is important to realize that getting even isn't actually possible, since even if one visits the exact same trauma on the perpetrator, it does not take ours away. And in the end, perpetuating the cycle of pain is damaging to ourselves, and simply lets the perpetrator win by keeping their maladapted ways of interacting with the world alive and well.

My Experience: I didn't have a lot of issues with wanting revenge on anyone who caused my trauma. I still have a few dark fantasies of doling out a couple of swift kicks in the shins, but this was never a big issue for me. I don't really have any desire to hurt anyone, not even these f#&%ers.

Miraculous Forgiveness 

The Issue: The traumatized person may have a 'forgiveness fantasy' where they believe they can "transcend their rage through a willful, defiant act of love."

What to Do: This one is difficult for people who believe that having bad feelings about someone, even someone who hurt them, is wrong. It seems like it would be ideal to simply and suddenly love the people who hurt us. In reality, this can be damaging, since it short-circuits our own natural coping processes. We are by no means called on to hate people, but we are called on to honor our own needs, and what was taken from us by the trauma. The rage in our hearts has to be dealt with gently and respectfully, not ignored. "A goal is to transform anger into righteous indignation." Not sure what that means, exactly.

My Experience: Well, I never really thought I was going to just forgive everyone outright. I thought I was supposed to, and felt bad that I couldn't conjure up any feelings of forgiveness. Maybe I never will. I've decided that forgiveness will happen when I'm ready, and that trying to force it isn't showing myself much courtesy.

Demanding Compensation 

The Issue: A "prolonged, fruitless struggle to wrest compensation from the perpetrator or from others." Note that phrase "or from others." One of the problems with looking for compensation is that, once it is clear it cannot be gained from the perpetrator, the 'patient' concsiously or unconsciously starts looking for it elsewhere. From family, the government, the medical establishment, or what have you. This need "may represent a defense against facing the full reality of what was lost."

What to Do: "Mourning is the only way to give due honor to loss; there is no fair compensation. The wish for compensation ties the survivor's fate to the perpetrator's and she is then held hostage." This seems more clear to me. I understand this theory that by constantly looking for compensation, a person makes it so they can't move on until something happens to or with those associated with inflicting the trauma.

My Experience: At first I didn't think I had a problem here. And now I see that in some ways, I do. My continued rage at my parents ties me to them. More importantly, it ties my healing to them. I want them to admit they blew it. I want them to see what they did wrong and apologize. And then I want them to get therapy. These things are not going to happen. Waiting on the actions of those who hurt me puts me at their mercy, still.  I need to find healing without this.

Trauma Memorial

The Issue: "The survivor may wonder how she can possibly give her due respect to the horror she has endured if she no longer devotes her life to remembrance and mourning." In this scenario, the person who was traumatized continues to live a life of mourning, remembering, anniversaries of trauma, and more. This isn't a case of focusing on specific symptoms, like flashbacks, but instead focusing on behaviors and actions. Shaping our lives to be a constant, living memorial stops us from completing the grief process, and instead stalls us there indefinitely.

What to Do: "She will never forget. But the time comes when the trauma no longer commands the central place in her life." We have to take that step back and realize, just like the desire for compensation, that there is no way we can create a memorial with our lives that actually evens up the score. At some point we need to allow that we've given due honor. Give ourselves permission to go live now. As life goes on, some trauma will resurface, and old issues will be revisited. But again, we need to allow ourselves to create new centers for our lives.

My Experience: In many ways, my trauma still defines me. I identify with it, and shape my life around it. My symptoms of PTSD, OCD, GAD and others are still so strong that dealing with them is a day to day struggle. I don't feel stuck in mourning. I think I might not be far enough along to get stuck there. Still, I can see how I could create a 'center' for myself that was all about trauma, instead of about actual life.

And there you go. A few ideas for what might be causing difficulty with moving completely through the grief process, and maybe a thought or two for how to address them. If any of it rings true for you (or not) drop a comment.

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info: "Arcadia Child" D. Sharon Pruitt CC 2.0 

Grief and Mourning Part I of III - Taking Another Look at Recovering from CPTSD

Hello Friends:

I've been thinking about mourning, lately.  I have this idea that I should be mourning more, even though I don't want to.  I've only really mentioned grief and mourning once in this blog.  And since it is such an important issue for healing, I figured it was time to put a little more of my oh-so-coherent thoughts down on 'paper'.

If you can help me sort through them, that'd be cool.

The book "Trauma and Recovery" by Judith Lewis Herman (that I've mentioned in previous posts i.e. here) says that the second stage of recovery is "remembrance and mourning."  I want to recover, and so I'm looking for what I have or have not mourned from my past.  It feels strange, and it is by no means obvious to me what I've mourned.  I'm also secretly hoping I don't find anything since I don't want to "waste my time" mourning.

Mourning to me has always meant feeling bad, crying, lamenting, saying "why me," "poor me," "life is so unfair," and things like that.  I don't have any time for those emotions.  It seems outrageously self indulgent and a waste of energy.

But I also know I have been programmed to think that way.  When I was a kid, I never knew if I would come home from school and find things changed or missing.  Often, I'd show up and find my room completely rearranged, all my stuff sorted through, and a bunch of it thrown out.  I didn't mind so much when too-small clothes were pitched, but it would often be toys, old school work, souvenirs from trips or cheesy carnivals.  You know, the sort of general items kids collect as they are growing up.  Except that our collections were routinely decimated.

At first, I expressed sadness and anger when I found things missing, but this was so early in my childhood I only remember it vaguely.  When I expressed these feelings, they were shot down in one way or another, "You are too old for that toy,"  "You don't need that anymore," "Why are you upset, it's just a 'fill in blank," "Don't be upset with me, if you had put that away I wouldn't have thrown it out," "If you knew how to take care of things you could keep them."  And the classic, "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about."

So developing attachments to anything was a bad idea.  I ended up not attaching to much stuff at all if I could help it, and the few things that really mattered to me caused me pain, since I was never certain I would be allowed to keep them.

This has had some positive coping effects.  I don't have a strong materialistic streak.  If a cup breaks, even a nice one, I'm likely to spend just a few seconds feeling sad I lost it, and then I'll shrug and think, "Well, better to use them than stare at them in a china cabinet.  And if you use them they break.  That's okay,"  I'm rarely so bound up in things that I can't see beyond to what is really important - the people.  So this is good.

What is bad is that, as I said, I am now programmed not to really mourn losses.  You lose something, you just move on.  Doesn't matter what it is, really.  With small things, as I said, that is a functional attitude.  But with big things, even medium things, you can't simply ignore it.  In my life, what I am experiencing is that if losses are not mourned in the usual course of events, my need to mourn sort of waits around to break out at a bad time, to transmute to something that does not look like mourning, or to go into my body and cause pain.

So in spite of the fact that I feel like I haven't mourned a lot of major losses in my past, as I look back, I realize I have mourned quite a bit.  I just didn't do it in good ways, for the most part.  One example is this.  After my hubby and I left a friend's house one time, I realized I'd left my favorite jacket behind.  We were on a road trip and were already two hours away.  Going back was not an option.

I was already feeling a little depressed on that trip, anyway, so I wasn't surprised that I started crying.  What surprised me was how hard I cried.  I was utterly inconsolable for an hour.  I could hardly breathe.  My hubby had to pull off the road at a restaurant and let me sit in a booth with my tea and get it out.  He was as surprised as I was, since he knew I never got that upset about losing something.  But I was devastated.

It was half way through dinner before I realized what I was actually mourning were all those lost things from my childhood.  And more, I was mourning the fact that my childhood was built of loss.  That I could never hang on to anything.  Took a while and we were able to get back on the road.  I tried to put it behind me.

Three days later I get a package - our friends had found the jacket and mailed it.  I was ecstatic.  And again, it wasn't merely because I had my jacket.  It was because this act of kindness was in such contrast to my past.  And it was an act that gave the lie to the idea that you always lost; that nothing was retrievable.  Some things do come back.  And there are some people who care about your losses.

This was almost seven years ago, and it is only now that I'm beginning to see how profound that experience was.  I have no desire at all to feel that incredible devastation again, about anything.  I certainly won't call it up intentionally.  But my eyes are open enough to realize that if I do experience it, I'm probably not upset about the present.  

So with those thoughts in mind, I'm going to take a couple more posts and consider some of the barriers to mourning, what the process can look like, and ways to help it along and keep healing.

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info: photoxpress

Shattered Girl and The Sound of Breaking Glass

Hello Friends:

The inevitable preamble to this post is this; I had a rough day today.  The kind where I'm in bed and not really functional.  It was rough enough that I couldn't find anything to eat, since my OCDs were running too high to open the fridge.  So I was not only depressed, but low blood sugar, not enough sleep depressed.

This is a very bad state for the Morpho, let me tell you.

When spouse came home he found me in bed, still in jammies, working on my computer.  And the fact I was actually working on the computer was a big plus.  I felt useless and worthless and blah blah, you know it yourself.  He agreed to make emergency oatmeal just to get something in me.  He brought it up, and then went back downstairs.

And now the post ...

Just as I was finishing my oatmeal, I heard a crash.  Not a super loud crash.  Not a dangerous crash plus yelp of pain.  Not a multi-smash that might indicate the dropping of a tray or the failure of tables or cabinets.  Just a smash like the shattering of a single ceramic dish.

I was instantly out of bed, panicked.  I was not thinking at all.  Only reacting.  I crept downstairs in my nightgown slowly, looking over the railing.  I was terrified, arms wrapped around myself like you'd imagine a cold child would do.  I stopped a few steps up, looking into the kitchen where I could see my husband shaking his head and picking up the pieces of a broken tea cup.

He looked up and saw me, and realized immediately that Something Was Wrong.  He tried to be reassuring, "I have all the pieces.  It broke cleanly.  Sorry I busted one of the tea cups."  This made absolutely no sense to me.  And yet, part of me processed it, and thought, "Good.  No small pieces of glass hiding around.  Check."  But OCD was apparently not the issue.

I shot out, "I don't care.  Are you okay?  Are you mad at me?  Was it my fault?"  He looked at me strangely, "I'm fine.  No, I'm not mad."  He walked over to the bottom of the stairs and held up the pieces, "See, they fit together.  I have them all.  There's no problem."

I was shaking a little, "I don't care.  Are you mad?  Did I do something wrong?"  He tipped his head and took two steps up to stand next to me, and said, "Are you reacting to something?  Something else?"  I thought that this was his bizarre sense of humor in action again until I realized what he was really saying was, "Are you having a flashback?"

It took a few seconds, standing there and breathing, to realize I could hear someone screaming.  A woman yelling hysterically.  It was a 'real' sound.  I knew it was in my head, but I could hear it for 'real.'  I tried to articulate, "I ... if she broke something, it was never her fault.  It was my fault.  Our fault.  You would be in your room playing, or more likely hiding, and then a smash.  You would hear it and then the yelling would start."  He nodded, being all nice the way he is, and letting me talk.

I closed my eyes and spoke the words I was hearing, words from many, many incidents all overlapping, "Get down here right now!  Who put this cup here?  This doesn't go here!  Who was supposed to clean the kitchen?  What is all this mess doing here?  I told you never to leave these on the counter!  Why are you wasting time?  What are you doing?  You should have been down here!  Now clean this mess up!  This is your fault!  Do I have to do everything around here?  You're old enough to see when something needs to be done!  If this had been put away it wouldn't have broken!  You never listen!  You aren't cleaning that up right, get down on your knees.  That had better be cleaned properly; if I find one piece of glass on this floor ..."

I stopped and opened my eyes.  He was nodding.  I felt shakier, but better.  I couldn't hear the voice for 'real' anymore.  I sat on the stairs because I was feeling light headed.  He said, "You don't think that any of that is rational, do you?  You realize she was crazy, right?"  I said, "Yes, I do.  She was wrong.  She treated us badly.  If someone did that now I'd be angry, I'd get them out of my life."  He said, "You don't really expect I'd feel that way, say those things, do you?"  I thought about it, "No.  I don't.  But I'm still afraid you will.  But if you did, I would get mad.  I'd see you were acting badly.  I would get really, really pissed off at you.  It is just a cup for crying out loud, getting as bent about it as she did is completely irrational."

Then he said, "Did it help to talk about it?"  I nodded, "Yes.  I'm freaked out, but I do sort of feel better."  Then I said, "You and I, we don't want to be the kind of people who care so much about a broken cup that we'll get upset over it.  What's one cup, more or less?  And yet I know sometimes you break things because you are not thinking ahead.  You always try to carry too much.  You just ... don't think."

But then I said, "Of course, the other option is to be afraid of breaking cups, and then spending extra time thinking about the process of getting them out and filling them and carrying them.  I'm always doing that kind of thing.  Over and over and over."  He said, "So you make a choice, break more cups and do less thinking, or fewer cups and more thinking."

So we agreed that we are both the kind of people who would rather not do so much thinking about cups.  He succeeds, and occasionally breaks one.  I still ruminate over cups, and break them less often.  Still, they break.  And I would rather, much rather, stop worrying about it.

And then I went back upstairs and he brought me tea.

Observations from me:
1) Dear God, I love my husband.  Marriage choice = 100% mission success.
2) When will her voice ever shut the $#&% up, anyway?
3) Once again blindsided by flashback because mine are almost never visual.  This one was auditory.  Hubby spotted it before I did.
4) Can I just get over my childhood, please?

Observations from you?

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/valeriebb/ / CC BY-SA 2.0