Hi Anita,

I’ve been taking the last couple of weeks to read back on these hurtful posts. It has not been an easy task. The anxiety in my mind truly resisted it but I managed to get through our entire thread. I found so many helpful things that did get me along at the time. Some things I still use today. I will not post everything that I pasted but I’ll share some things that stood out.

“Accept it that she had other priorities throughout your life with her and you were far from being the first priority. Accept that in the context of your relationship with her you were not the guilty one. She was. It is not you who failed her. She failed you. Her death doesn’t change this fact”

This is something I think I have worked on and although my brother triggered this wound I think I may have settled it again. Sometimes by rereading these posts and just by my knowledge of what happened. At the moment I am struggling with self blame in a bad way. Not necessarily for my mom just in general. I will tell you about this later in my post.

“Time  to admit defeat.  I have. My life too was lived for others, I too invested my  life trying to help my mother… my goodness,  it still amazes me: zero results,  defeat.”

I feel very defeated and especially lately as I realize that I have lived in survival mode but in a very serious way for the last 5 months. Making sure to be “ok” enough to find my way back to family. I still struggle with this even though I am on a self hate rampage for self sabotaging so bad. I don’t mean to say self hate because I love me but so hard to feel that right now.

“don’t evaluate how you are doing in life based  on how you feel, not at this point and  not  for a long  time to come. Like I wrote to you in my last post, distress will be  your companion for some time .

Focus on what you do/ how you function, not on how you feel. Evaluate a good day or a bad day  not by how you felt during the day, but by how you functioned that day.”

I absolutely love this advice! I clearly remember having a aha moment when reading this and until this day it has worked but I do need to encourage it more. My brain has been mush lately. I feel like two people. But not just in a distressing way in a very scary confusing feeling like I am crazy way. I am alone, I have a real bad stress response at the moment. I cannot really feel feelings much it is mainly terrible horrendous thoughts over and over and non stop memories. It is like the movie I told you about. It is very serious and makes me consider checking myself in at times. I did read some about you experiencing panic attacks after stopping Klonopin. Were they similar to what I am speaking of? This is what I was speaking of when asking if you understood me. It is not just normal anxiety like I felt before. It is horrendous thoughts back to back sometimes like 90% of my day is run by this and I have to constantly remind myself who I am and why I am here but sometimes I fade and I think I am becoming depressed which hurts!

“Hope is about a life where you are never  abused.  To find that  life,  you have to give up on and let  go of  the comfort mixed in that abuse that you had in your original home.”

I love this! I do believe there is hope out there but am still so focused on my family at time. Even despite reading all of these posts where we discuss the very abuse. I am understanding through studying why I go back to abusers. Not only do I sub consciously believe I deserve it but I often disassociate from the painful feelings and memories which causes me to forget the abuse and reach out for the love again. Codependency is an addiction after all. A love addiction.

“it happens all the time: our emotional experience of childhood gets activated in the present. Those early emotional experiences get well recorded in neuropathways in our brains, thoughts and emotions. As  time goes by, years and decades, we shed our skin but not our brain, it is the same brain, the same recorded experiences and these get reactivated.

Often we forget how we felt when we were children, trying  to remember… while all along we feel the same way as we did then. Notice how you feel now. This is how you felt then.”

This is what I am learning about in therapy. How this exact experience I am feeling is being replayed from childhood and does not have much to do with current circumstances. Besides that the current triggered the wound.  But it is relentless. And seems to only get worse. I have spent thousands of dollars and many many hours in different kinds of therapy for it to only get worse? That is upsetting!!! I am struggling to feel hope about that.

“Don’t panic, you are okay. You  will feel better soon. Function as if you are okay and sooner than later you will feel okay again. Endure the spikes in anxiety, calm yourself best you can when that happens, don’t panic, don’t catastrophize, function sensibly and life will be better.”

Sometimes I cannot function more than work like today when my anxiety is so bad that I am almost bedridden. I really hope you understand this is not an understatement. I am so strong and resilient and have been throughout this terrible time but lately I feel like withering away. How much more can I take. And honestly I don’t know what is next.

“Healing is not about repeating the same  old same old attempts. It is about giving up on what doesn’t work and attempting something new that has a chance to work.”

This is so deep Anita! I think I am leaning toward this. And that is why things are the way they are according to my somatic therapists. She said the racing thoughts are the brains attempt to get me to go back to what is familiar and in it’s eyes “safe”. She said it is just trying to protect us. But damn I fall asleep telling myself I am safe. I know I am not where I want to be meaning without savings, in an apartment I don’t love love and winter coming but the little girl inside is being awfully hard on herself. I feel bad for her. This is how she felt back then. Like she had to be perfect, never good enough. How sad!

“Visiting your older brother and his wife is a bad idea. A modest hotel room in the quite scenery of the desert is a better idea (if you can’t get a refund for the plane ticket). You can arrange to see your older brother’s child if you are there, spend some time with her, but with her only, then leave.”

Boy do I wish I would have listened to this along with many many other posts. Is there a way you can make me listen? lol

“Sometimes my boundaries are so good but I do get exhausted always basically having to wall up”- better for a person to not enter a war zone than enter it and defend oneself successfully.

It is possible to be around people who do not intend to “get a rise out of (you)”, possible to relax when you eventually believe that the person with you will not turn against you.”

I long for the day this is in my life! A day where the people in my life are happy to see me and happy for me and I do not have to defend or be perfect. Lord please bless me with this. I deserve it.

“Look and you  will find a pocket of sanity in the world, a refuge, a place of kindness and respect. If you keep looking for it where it is not, of course you  will not find it. Look elsewhere, where you didn’t look yet. We don’t have to keep our focus on the family we were born to, we are not owned by our parents or siblings, or by anyone. No need to keep your focus on this one man in Florida. There are other men you didn’t meet yet”

But yet I continue looking for what is familiar? So strange how our systems work. For instance the man I had befriended for 3 months during this struggle I would have never given the time or day. We actually met back in December for dinner. An old friend of mine. I knew at that dinner that I did not want to be with him. I strictly told him I was uninterested. I reached out because I needed somewhere to stay when my carpets were getting done and didn’t want to dish out hotel money again so he offered and I stayed. It was only a friendship but I felt like he wanted more. Months in and recently a few weeks ago I went no contact with him. It was as if I woke up and was like what am I doing? Why am I entertaining this. We have no like interests. Just those same few moments of joy and laughter like family but no common goals or dreams or even perceptions of life. He is bitter and dark and truly was mocking my situation after a while and I did not notice. We would make jokes and I was going along with this. It was funny and I don’t mind laughing at my struggle sometimes but all in all it is not a joke what I have been through. And I am trying to tattoo it in my brain that although a lot of others have been abandoned by family doesn’t make my pain any less!!

Thanks Anita, for months of hanging in there with me and also for my bad grammar in this post.

There is so much more. And I will have to post it in another post. I am tired. I am drained. My body hurts from anxiety. Please pray I wake up sane tomorrow. I never know what another day will bring up. Seriously. Every day this month has been a new feeling. And you did tell me to embrace this and I was but I have never felt this scared, dreadful and anxious. It is hard to hold on to myself in times like this. I am considering meds again because I truly believe no one should ever have to feel like this. Hard to focus on what to do next. Hard to feel feelings. It is pure survival mode. Just make it to another day. I think I have always lived like this but after experiencing some joy in my healing times. And by joy I mean joy alone and acceptance it is hard to come back to this state.

Anita, the way you put that is hard to accept but it is true. Before this happened I was totally fine with my alone time. I was leaning toward florida. I was excited to be on my own. But the wound my family triggered is deep. It has brung that little girl begging for love out of me. Can you understand this? Have you ever related? My somatic therapist says this is normal. This happens when we are triggered in PTSD and then old programs take over.  My new ones are still there just harder to get to. The ones I made about loving myself, forgiving myself and trusting myself. The new programming on boundaries and not being codependent.

But to answer your question, no I do not like how that sounds. I like how Florida sounds. Away from everything. No cold. More peaceful. A new routine. New people. Steady therapy. Maybe swimming class. Possibly zumba or some dance, maybe boxing for the anger. I boxed my pillow last night. The rage and anger is coming out!!! I have been allowing this and it is hard.

Ok, so this I am working on. In my new relationships I do not beg for love. I am impressed with boundaries as far as expectations and even with myself. Due to recent situations and depression I have opened to alot of people and probably should not be doing that. I over share way too much. It is my default. I do have to see who is worth hearing my story. I watched a youtube from Oprah regarding this. And by sharing my pain so openly I opened myself up to plenty of invalidation that could have been avoided. I struggle with this because I do feel like a little girl sometimes. Sad and lonely trying to figure life out. So when I meet with someone I spill all my beans, I guess in hope for love? But really just in hope for some support. My family truly is harsh in that area. And I never realized how much no support hurt! After my break up and moms death I had support so it was nice to accept this. What a good feeling.

Also watched such an amazing You Tube video on CPTSD. Diane Langburd. It is quite sad. Since a young age I was sexually abused, I totally dissociated to escape the pain. So I have never been a “self” so to speak. She explains how these clients can not explain some of their pain and cannot explain what they need or like and I feel just that sometimes. How do I build this. Especially with a constant fear lurking around with me?

I guess when I think of leaving family it feels so permanent. It does not have to be does it? I can get well and come back to them? I have a niece who is my heart. And  I honestly hate the thought of leaving my elder grandparents. My mothers parents arent too nice but my other grandmother is the one person who I relate to the most. She understands the dysfunction. And she is brittle.

Hi Anita

would love to respond to that message but am in a 3 day spiral of pure anxiety. The worst thoughts yet or maybe not the worst thoughts but the worst feelings and just depression. It’s always been anxiety but now leading to depression. I feel debilitated. And also terrified that cptsd is sometimes incurable? I don’t deserve to feel this way forever. I don’t deserve any of this no one does. My mind is mush lately. I can’t focus on what I need to do. I cannot remember what is even going on. My body is so stressed I feel like I want to jump out of it. And I find myself dying for any support once again. This is so scary to go through alone. I’m heartbroken.