Croix Parler

[Croix]

I'd like to use this pace for miscellaneous matters that don't fit elsewhere

Thanks

Croix

[Eagle Ray]

Dear MK, Croix, Moon and All,

MK, I don't know if this will help in relation to engaging with the OT and getting to ask for what you prefer in terms of assistance, but a few years ago I went to a sound healing session. I would go quite regularly and they would have a weekly theme. This particular week it was tiger medicine. So along the lines of shamanic healing practices, they were basing the sound healing around the energy and qualities of the tiger - courage, energy, strength, confidence etc. At the time I was dealing with two friends who were quite exploitive and could be bullying at times (I've since moved away from those friendships). I really internalised those tiger qualities in the sound healing and even found an awesome photo of a tiger running in the snow and put it on my computer desktop. Basically, I began to embody those qualities and felt more confident in dealing with particular people in my life at the time.

Like you I had people putting me down, judging me etc as a child, and so I too can find it hard to speak up for myself and can also feel judged in the present based on experiences from the past. But I've found the idea of power animals or spirit animals quite helpful. Animals instinctively know how to be in situations and are intuitive in handling the present moment. I thought as you love cats, you can either imagine the spirit of LRC with you, or an awesome, powerful, confident tiger. Then you can feel calm and confident dealing with the OT, knowing that you have the wisdom and strength to do so.

Croix, I completely understand about the need for your magnificent dentitions to be gleaming in order to impress the lady walruses. I have to say that because of their tusks walruses look, dare I say it... cute! Yes, I know cute is probably not what a walrus wants to hear, but they really are the most delightful features that give a walrus character.

I was reading an article about two orphaned baby walruses and they sound so gorgeous. They love cuddles apparently. The article is called "Cuddle time! What it's like snuggling with a baby walrus". There is such a lovely quote in there that I thought I would share:

Snuggling with a baby walrus feels like being pinned under a warm, very chubby person who is wearing a damp velour jumpsuit that smells faintly, almost pleasantly, like low tide.

Awww!

And I wasn't meaning to compare you with a thirty ton pneumonia-ridden mega elephant! Walruses of course are not as big as elephant seals who can apparently grow to 4 tonnes!

[mmMekitty]

Heheh "the support prison", Croix, (from a couple days ago), Typo or Freudian slip, that's either funny or too close to the truth of how I'm feeling. 

Terry Pratchett had a few interesting things. I just discovered his Wow-wow Sauce is based on a real person's (Dr William Kitchener) invention, also called Wow-wow Sauce, Apparently, his did not contain the ingredients which prevents it from being, potentially, explosive.

But if you don't want to risk so much, just stick with Scumble. It's made with apples, mostly. (It's not your standard apple cider, okay, that's my final warning).

Hugzies

mmMekitty

[Croix]

Dear ER and All~

You are quite right, 'dignified' is the word, not 'cute'!

I think you have invented a new perfume to go along with such fragrances as Chanel No 5, it could be 'Essence of Low Tide'. Sounds like a winner in the nautical world.

Those people that pass comments are everywhere, I think, at least in my own case it is because they are remarking on something I have no control over that makes it worse. They are idiots, but it is the lack of control they remind me of that gets to me.

Mind you even well intentioned people can say exactly the wrong thing, "You've all these lovley things to be thankful for"  and "How are you feeling?" are typical

I'm not sure how a talent vanishing works, I do know memories can be resurrected, maybe talents can too. I basically could not read when my PTSD, depression etc was at its worst. No book could hold my interest for more than a line or less, and no motivation to try. Concentration about zero.

I'd been an avid reader of all-sorts before and it was all gone. However I was lucky in that someone gave me an adolescent fantasy which was deliberately written with puns and plays on words in just about every line. This prompted me to try to get to the next pun etc and that in turn helped refresh my ability. Now I'm back speed-reading as I did before.

I can't really presume to know your feelings or abilities in this area, however the idea of small (keyboard or vocal) steps does spring to mind. The version you saw has the lyrics, and I'd suspect sheet music including a guitar/piano version is available on the web.

Please excuse me if I seem to be pushing in an area I should leave alone, I basically wanted to share my recovery.

Croix

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Croix, and wave to MK and Moon,

Thank you for your comments. I think possibly you were meaning to post them as a reply in my thread in the Depression section but put them here, which is completely understandable as I was rambling about walruses in both that thread and here!

In my case, the loss of connection with playing music, writing songs etc was not so much the loss of an ability, but the loss of any impetus to do it. It suddenly had no meaning. I'd become not only more dissociated than I'd ever been in my life, but I also experienced depersonalisation. The latter is positively terrifying, where you completely lose all sense of an "I" or "me". I was in black outer space with nothing to connect to at all, but I couldn't even say the sentence "I was in black outer space..." because "I" did not exist. I'd been traumatised to the point of losing all sense of self. But I did slowly regain a sense of self over time. But the part of my identity that had been growing and developing around music remained largely inaccessible. I am probably still somewhat dissociated from that part of myself, hence my inability to fully reconnect. It's something I could try working on with my psychologist.

Thank you for sharing your experiences of recovery. I understand about the reading. PTSD is such an odd beast, isn't it. I have had some single-incident PTSD and complex PTSD. The former has been easier to shift, the latter is more of a challenge. It's like we have to re-integrate ourselves because we became temporarily fragmented. I'm all for viewing PTSD not as a disorder but as a glitch that has understandably occurred in the circumstances. It is possible to rebalance and regain homeostasis, or in the case of complex C-PTSD to perhaps recalibrate to find a peace that was absent from birth due to the trauma starting so early.

Sorry, this is all getting a bit heavy for this thread. So I will return to your comments about the puns in the fantasy book you read. It is curiosity and humour that so often get us through, and it's so wonderful that those things helped bring you back to reading. I've read that curiosity shuts down the trauma circuits in the brain, that the brain cannot do trauma and curiosity simultaneously. So it makes so much sense that experiencing curiosity and humour in the book you were reading was helpful.

Sleep well in the igloo tonight!

Best wishes, ER

[Moonstruck]

Dear Croix.....just checking in to tell you I am almost across the finish line in the current big tournament thing.....yes, I am pretty good as usual....how I have managed to deliver I don't know, being buried in worry and constant thoughts of my son's heavy luggage of his marriage breakdown traumas;   I carry his pain with me every minute of the day....and even I can see I must try and take a step back now.....I can't immerse myself with this obsessive anxiety about the horrible things that are happening to him....let alone the Cost!!     I just have to cross the finish line of this event of mine now.. it has been so so hard, and under other circumstances I would be on top of the world....Love Moonstruck....x

[Croix]

Dear Moon~

if it was me I'd find it a comfort being able to do something at which you are so good, and that something being a means of entering another world. I hope it is the same for you.

I"m not surprised your son's problems do weight on you heavily, I just hope you can find enough distraction to at least make your life a bit enjoyable.

A couple of years ago I had a spot on a lung and thought it was the big C. Turns out 3 months later it was benign, however in the meantime it did get me to think what was important - and what my responsibilities in life actually were.

I found I was not crediting others with as much strenght and ability to shoulder responsibility as I should have and took too much on myself. While one would never abandon a loved one one can try too hard and not allow them to do all they might.

Between you and your son I'd be pretty sure things will work out - he knows he has you.

Croix

[mmMekitty]

Hi Croix, Moon, ER & everyone

About talent disappearing, I still don't know why I had half my singing range disintegrate so now my high range is tight, thin & weak & unreliable.  I"m lowering my voice to a deeper range all the time now. I simply cannot sing Kate-Bush-like anymore, (You may well be pleased to know). I still want to sing all the songs I used to sing using an upper range, like the original performers had, but cannot.

If I keep trying, I may sing like Paul Robeson. [Grinning LRC]

Hi Moon, Well done, achieving wat you are, especially given your heart & mind are with your son. I know it is hard to step back, when you recognise how your anxiety is heightened by what your son is going through. You love him & want to help - that's very understandable. It's the boundaries again, having to have some so we are able to look after our own mental health. Whatever you choose, it won't be an easy choice.

Hi ER, While I was growing up, I tended to withdraw & try to be as an observer, & I also separated places & people, including sort of turning one person into two in order to cope. Coping with everything, all at once, was simply too much to cope with. When I try to make a timeline, I get mixed up & can't figure how much of it fits into a handful of years.

& then I a;so put memories away, far into the back of my mind, 'shelving' them, as if into shelves in a room where they could stay forever, or so I had hoped. I put many of my feelings there too.

It amazes me how kids can find some way or other to protect themselves. That's what I was doing, so I could cope. But, no, I didn't comme out of it whole. I didn't really finish growing up, didn't know who I was, what I wanted, what I could hope for, caring nothing for myself, thinking not much of myself at all - only that I could sing & no-ne could take that from me. & I only believed I could sing well enough was because a music teacher at school was happy to have me join the choir. Singing was an outlet for me, but like a emotional roleplay where I could indirectly express some of the feelings I usually kept hidden.

It's been 50 years & counting since those days.  

Hugzzies

mmMekitty

[quirkywords]

Moon,

I know that we feel our child’s pain no matter how old they are. 
One child was involved,in an accident. They were ok but I felt my mind full of what ifs for a time.

Croix believes his close ones should be credited with more strength. 
Sometimes I feel others pain and feel weak but in retrospect  I find I did find strength. 
Thanks moon for your honesty. 

[Eagle Ray]

Dear MK, Thank you for sharing your experiences in relation to singing and memories. I love the juxtaposition of Kate Bush and Paul Robeson (GFC finds this funny in imagining a Bush/Robeson duet of the extreme highs and extreme lows).

 I feel our voice is an important part of our identity and can be an expression of how we are going in our inner world. It’s wonderful you could sing and you had the support of your music teacher. Those outlets are so important.

 I understand about the shelving of memories and the fragmenting of self in the way those memories are stored. They don’t get processed and integrated at the time. I’ve managed to integrate a number of memories now working with my psychologist, but some are still not integrated yet and ones relating to the loss of singing and playing music could be worth working on.

 I think singing connects to our spirit and the freedom of that spirit. I love that it was empowering for you and something you could connect with. I feel like it brings things within us back into alignment.

I’d had no confidence in singing but as I was growing within myself I wanted to develop it. In my early 30s I joined a singing group, then a choir, then two songwriting groups. I couldn’t stop writing songs. It was so therapeutic. Then what happened to me broke it all because what happened was connected with the inner growth I’d been doing. It’s too much to explain here. But something in me got so badly injured I’m not sure how to find that part of myself again. There is a choir in a nearby town and that could be a starting point. I’m having a lot of trouble with my lungs again at the moment, but singing may well help that too.

I like what you say about the emotional role play of what usually wasn’t expressed. Music provides that medium for emotions we may not usually have an outlet for, especially in the context of our family of origin. Like you I had no idea of what I was going to be in the world in that transition to adulthood. I lacked guidance, role models and a roadmap. But music like nature was a link to something meaningful and nurturing. It’s like plants and animals were (and still are) my family and music is the guiding spirit.

[mmMekitty]

Hi ER Croix & everyone,

When I sing now, it's simply spontaneous, because singing was something I had done since I was little & became a vital part of me. It's as spontaneous as having a thought or some image popping into my mind. Words & phrases I hear often recall a song or two., or maybe just a line of the song, but I might not remember how the song started.

For some years after my voice was faltering, & had become so unreliable, I wasn't singing. I avoided hearing songs I knew I'd want to sing, too. I was very self-conscious & frustrated. It was very troubling to me, but I never thought anyone would understand just how important my singing was & then to feel I was losing that part of me, seemingly without any reason or cause.

Now I am glad I am feeling relaxed about it again, so I am singing more again, even though I don't remember all the words.

I think I'd like to join a choir, just for fun, but I am aware I'd find it very difficult to learn new songs. I'd have to learn them by heart, because I can't read the lyrics writtn out for me, even brailled (I read braille far too slowly). Being able to participate & have fun, that's what I want, but fear my not remembering the words would be frustrating & irritating for everyone else & make me feel self-conscious again.

My exercises, especially the aerobic, are helping my voice, I think... my nose is another story. I can also imagine having to pause mid-song to blow my nose.

I think singing could also help boost lung capacity, encourage deep breathing, remembering the diaphragm & controlling the breath too, as when bearing in mind where it's appropriate to breathe to sing the lyric phrases, holding notes, etc.

I'm going to try to be mindful of my breathing when I'm singing, just to see if I feel I'm controlling it, if I am breathing deeply, if I am feeling I can sing long phrases & hold long notes without feeling I am running out of breath too soon. I admit, I aven't been paying attention, & thinking of it now, while thinking of you & joining a choir, I realise, I'm taking my singing again albeit lowering to a deeper range, for granted & not really listening or appreciating what I can still do, & if I am beginning to sing better again, since doing all my exercises for getting my body fit & healthy.

Thanks ER. This is another perspective to look into.

Hugzies everyone

mmMekitty