new person

[ecomama]

Hi everyone
not sure what parts to disclose here, feeling very uneasy posting. I feel like a lot of people here, know that I'm socially isolated but feel it's safer this way. I have a lot of mixed feelings due to covid19; feeling freer or even happier that movements were restricted as I have had little choice but to live this way for a long time. Then I realised how odd this reaction is, opposite to what I was hearing at work. Simultaneously I felt huge grief for the world. I'm experiencing compassion fatigue from all of this.

my life has been wrought with trauma & grief, tremendous violence & loss. I desperately sought help from authorities to stop things over many decades. I have fought so hard through courts etc, I know it has cost me a lot of mental stability a lot of the time. At least my children and I are safe atm. Feeling safe is another thing entirely!

happiness eludes me. I strive for the happiness of my children. I don't know how to attain personal happiness, so have strived for contentment. I work hard physically but feel far more exhausted by my mind. flashbacks and memories often come back relentlessly in my waking hours and in my dreams. Working hard physically helps me sleep better 🙂

I used to be very sociable, quite athletic and had a large family. The abuse has taken its toll. My relationships were undermined by the abuser, so they are lost. My physical health was severely impacted by the abuse also. I have a counsellor but I was advised by a close friend who is studying psychology to seek a more intensive type of therapy. I have completed countless hours in therapy through books, online and in person over decades. My counsellor is very impressed by my persistence, resilience and recovery but I feel awful most of the time.

I have no relationships with extended family anymore which is very sad for me. I have basically given up trying since doors are constantly closed on that front.
Soon I plan to take leave from my work to support my children all struggling in their learning from home programs. I will have to take leave on far less pay, so this presents obvious issues to an already stretched financial situation.

I know there is no magic cure for all the issues I have at hand but I still have hope that things will improve and that I can feel happy one day. I pray there are answers within this forum for me.

Thanks for reading.

[ecomama]

Dearest Mara

Thankyou so much for your kind and strong words of support re: my psych. It really helps me alot that I know you've "been there and done that" for years...

I wanted to be able to "let my armour down" with her, and have of sorts. But I will find out how many more medicare supported sessions I have left... (maybe 4) and then space them right out.
When they're done, I'll reassess whether she's helping me at that stage.

My psych friend said not to "lose my sh**" at her lol. I don't ACTUALLY do that. Never have. It's more like what my psych friend wants to do lol!

I WORK with one of my psych's colleagues. Today work psych asked me ALL about my sessions, as we have designated our relationship as "friends" - both our words. She also said "ahhh that's not right" about a number of things. soooooo yah, that's that.

I won't throw the baby out with the bath water... not yet. Level 2 lol, crikeys it's been more like going through 2022 levels to get to HERE lol. For me anyway!

I am SO GLAD to hear that DH has redeemed himself! It's superfragilistically easy for me to understand YOU and for you to understand ME, but really we have to be absolutely honest with ourselves, it's not possible for anyone else to truly "get it".

I'm happy DH has the integrity and steadfastness to hold on for the ride with you Mara. It's a wild ride sometimes, that's for sure. Not saying you're wild lol, even if we used to be a bit wild in our younger days lol. I mean the world of PTSD for us. It's wild. So those around us just have to hold on for that ride. If they want to.
DH clearly WANTS to! You are SO WORTH it all to him. And me. And everyone in your life.

I'm grateful bf does for me. When I thank him for being so patient with me, he says, "Ofcourse darling! I love you". Then he thanks me too which almost brings me to my knees with gratitude. There is a God and she loves us is one of our funny sayings together.

OMG WOW for you being cheery with those we probably can name sometimes lol! W-O-W.
HUGE high five to you Mara! I'm so proud of you and I'm absolutely certain that DH felt that huge offering and warmth. It must have made his heart sing. Mine too. Leaps and bounds sister! So proud.

Love you lots, good luck with psych tomorrow!

EM

[Croix]

Dear EM and Mara~

First off I think you, EM, are quite capable of taking any useful parts out of one particular psych's conduct and discarding the rest -you are the expert on you. Your psych seems to attach an awful lot of importance to specific diagnoses and levels etc. - um.

As for work, some is therapy, as it has been for me, some is poison. I guess it depends. It is your call

Being back with the distant bf, maybe that break-up will help.

Mara, EMDR seems to have a good reputation, or at least those I've spoken with have said that (I don't mean here on the Forum, though here are some positive stories here too. I also think the trust factor comes into it.

Ages ago I did a long course in hypnotherapy, as you know I have PTSD, bouts of depression and ongoing anxiety. Well I tried very hard to have an open mind, and tried very hard in the sessions. At the end of each session as I walked out into the street the world reverted, not much use -back then.

Now, years later, I find that when combined with a specific medication, it can help at night -a bit. Better than nothing.

If I have counted right tomorrow you get your results -flippers crossed

Croix

[blondguy]

Hey EM

Good on you for being such a proactive legend with your counsellor/doc person 🙂

Just for your info..It took me 13 years to eventually bawl my eyes out to a therapist...I have never felt so awkward in my life! I was actually more concerned about what the people in the waiting room would think of me..lol...The next day I felt brand new...and had so much weight taken off my shoulders....ahhhhhhhhhhh

Adult Daughter update..(from my 27 year old expert daughter!)....."Covid-19 is just government hype"....I didnt even have the energy to reply as there was no point as she knows more than everyone on the forums combined!

Have a really good night EM....

Paul

[Mara56]

Dear Croix,

EMDR has been a godsend for me. I have tried so many things and nothing really gave me long term relief from the flashbacks. My psych suggested EMDR earlier this year because I was having such a hard time with all the flashbacks, they were literally crippling me. We have done about 6 sessions so far, I would have done more by now except for the fact that I always seem to have other stuff going on as well that I need to talk about. If we do EMDR it pretty much takes up the whole session, so there's not much time for talking. It is 45 years since I was raped and up till the EMDR the flashbacks were so bad I was continually re-experiencing it. Thanks to the EMDR that has stopped. I can't tell you what relief that is for me. I know that have had good results with EMDR with ex-servicemen. I personally can't speak highly enough of it. The trust factor would come into it. I certainly trust my psych. I tried hypnotherapy that didn't work for me. My trust issues were definitely the problem there. That said, I learnt enough and I have gone back to using some of the techniques at night when I can't sleep and it seems to be helping me.

I am so glad you found a medication that works for you. I've never had any success in that department. I'm just glad I have a psych that I can trust and I feel safe with.

Thank you for crossing your flippers. My blood test results are back and there are no cancer markers YEAH! I still have to have the issue monitored but thankfully it's not cancer. Can't tell you how relieved I am at the minute.

Take care Croix, it's lovely hearing from you.

Mara

[Mara56]

Dear Em,

You are so right I have 'been there and done that' when it comes to psychs. I have had more than my share of bad experiences. The one thing I have learnt is that you must feel safe & there needs to be a mutual respect. I've had that a few times along the way & I'm so blessed to have that with my current psych. He is just so affirming of me. I know I can come across as confident but that is not how I feel I am often shaky as. Having him affirming me & my journey well it helps me heaps. Re: Medicare you know you can transfer those sessions to another psych. I did that years ago. That said, you are one of the wisest people I know & I also know that your commitment to your journey is such that you will do whatever you feel you need to do. I just feel that when someone has been through the trauma we've been through we need to be supported when it comes to processing it. We shouldn't have to justify where we're at or satisfy the therapists that we're telling the truth in MHO. It certainly sounds like your psych friend & your work psych colleague have got alarm bells going off about your psych.

I told DH we have an appt with the psych for the 8/8 & he's fine with it. Lol. Don't know why I angst so much about doing these things Lol.

Yes we do understand each other well Em & you're right, how can anyone else understand what we have been through & how it has impacted us. I just hope the session with DH goes well, keep your fingers crossed for me.

Well the saga of the house continues. We had a home open last weekend & a private viewing Sun. We got an offer out of Sun viewing it's $65,000 less than the current offer we have & $99,000 less than the top end of our range. You can guess what we told them to do with their offer. Lol.

By now if you've read my thread you'll know that the blood test came back and I don't have any cancer markers. YEAH! Huge relief this end.

Lol I don't know about the being wild when we were younger bit. I missed that stage, I was a goody two shoes. Lol. Boring maybe I need to go back and redo it Lol.

I am so glad you hung in there with your BF. He sounds lovely and you deserve to be loved.

Much love

Mara

[ecomama]

Dear Croix, HAPPY DAYS your crossed flippers worked! 😂🤣 I'm so happy for Mara that I could burst.

I'm doing REALLY well, so surprisingly well that I can barely believe it tbh. Things have "triggered" me but.... like what would probably trigger anyone (an outburst from mine and blondguy's identical twin daughters lol - we are counselling ourselves through 'raising' them lol. We just have EXTREMELY similar daughters and woah boy they are challenging at times). Not much else.

My not throwing baby out with bathwater psych lol or STP has done mountain ranges of good for me.
I have no idea what "Level 2" is about but you know, arrogance in STP is a strong suit lol. One thing she showed me and I've only had to use this once since she taught me was how to do my own exposure therapy by myself.

She aims for independence which is another thing I really like about her.

Pretty soon I'll have around 11 psychs around me. The ones in my circle are just REAL and pretty beautiful human beings.

I'm like Mara in that medications don't work for me, I'm so happy to hear they help others though, including our Wise Walrus friend with magical flippers lol.

Powerful things that have worked miracles (along with STP stuff) is more self-care, self-compassion, the marvellous Joe Dispenza materials which are bringing so much light, love and happiness to me and my children. Plus BOUNDARIES lol. I've set some and repeated them. Kids got it now.

So I set some at work! lol. Boss was pretty surprised but heard the adjustments I needed to do my work better, took them on and ran with it! Woah! She said "You are so valued. We need you so much lol. Your replacement did an ok job but we only gave her a fifth of what you do (lol omg)" then her multiple offers. THEN she said "Thankyou for speaking up for the staff in yesterday's workshops. They were afraid to speak up, so was I, (lol) so I'm really glad you were there and did that for all of us".

Mmmm. ok.
I must be getting my inner strength back because it's coming out noticeably to my colleagues, bosses, clients, family.

I may not need EMDR now. Hypnotherapy was VERY successful for me 30y ago and I've used the things I learnt alot since. It's for other things mostly.

Love EM

[ecomama]

blondguy said:

Hey EM

Good on you for being such a proactive legend with your counsellor/doc person 🙂

Just for your info..It took me 13 years to eventually bawl my eyes out to a therapist...I have never felt so awkward in my life! I was actually more concerned about what the people in the waiting room would think of me..lol...The next day I felt brand new...and had so much weight taken off my shoulders....ahhhhhhhhhhh

Adult Daughter update..(from my 27 year old expert daughter!)....."Covid-19 is just government hype"....I didnt even have the energy to reply as there was no point as she knows more than everyone on the forums combined!

Have a really good night EM....

Paul

Oh dear Paul HUGS! I think it's pretty awful that men have such a hard time crying (some women too). It does bring relief, all the hormones upon that release are just what we need sometimes!

It's really unfair lol.

And indeed we share identical daughters lol. Mine said that to me AGES ago.

I do take one of her points on though which was SHOCKING to me.... that the increased rates of death by own hand is higher than what Covid has taken in Australia. I'm so sad for any untimely deaths. Such a horrible waste of human life.

Yep! Your reaction which is to listen then not react lol, is the best policy alot of the time with our daughters.

They are POWERFUL young women, so we can be very proud of them too, from our hiding place! lol.

My one has spoken about changes in her. She fought becoming an adult and said so this week. Then as she spoke of each thing she was doing / achieving I replied "That's adult".... then she said "Actually I kinda like being an adult but I still want to crawl into bed with you for hugs when I'm feeling down". I urged her to do just that. WHENEVER she wants or needs to.

Still my baby girl lol.

Cheers Paul. Thankyou for the update. Can't wait for the next one lol.

Love EM

[ecomama]

Dearest Mara, SO HAPPY about the results today! Just so happy.🧡💛💚💙💜

Yep you've seen the lot in the psych world probably. lol. I'll be honest with you - I just want to know about this mysterious "Level 2", like it's an Area 51 lol! I actually flew over this with bf once and he had to explain it.
So aren't you curious? I am.

ALL WILL BE REVEALED ON THURSDAY - off come the camouflage and the Level 2 will be known lol. I'm good to stay for now. Sure it's a pity my psychological boundaries are up for the questioning about "truth" and my work competency blagh. My offer of her to have ANY AND ALL paperwork from ANYWHERE should have shown my willingness for 110% transparency but whatevs.

My psych friend wondered if she was trying to "tip" me. IE trying make me react and to see what my reactions would be. Could be.....
The weird thing she asked next was "Would you know if someone was gaslighting you?" LOL
I answered honestly with "I don't know, I hope so but really don't know".

SO if she asks me ONE more questions about my honesty OR makes one more comment about my inability to work then I'm going to say "Are you trying to gaslight me?"

It could be a test.
Just like my lawyers for 6 months - questioned me from all angles about the SAME 5 points. THEN told me that they did that to test my honesty. And said I passed with flying colours. No matter from which angles thay came at me from, I still gave them the same or more descriptions of events etc.
I WAS BEING 100% HONEST.

I Pray to a far higher "Judge" than earthly ones lol, and earthly psychs lol. It would be me denying my very essence to lie.
And I can lay straight in bed at night.

I'm glad I stuck with my Counsellor through all this. Giving psych credit, she DID say "Okay, you can talk to your Counsellor about that"... then powers on to the meaty parts of her work with me.

OH YEAH to DH agreeing to the 8/8 counselling session. I hope it's not your birthday. It's close to mine.
He's a gem.

House sale: I really hope the Estate Agent isn't putting out to potential buyers "Hey they're pretty desperate to sell so if you put in a lower offer, they may take it" or such? I'd draw down $10k super to tie me over and sit pretty for the right price tbh. I was going to do that now for us - going to 3 days per week - but decided to focus on prosperity and it's working. It would probably adversely affect other payments so we'll be fine.
Maybe a word with the agent might come in handy right about now.

Love EM

[ecomama]

Update:

IDK how to put this update. It's very sad. Today our work found out that a mum died by suicide on the weekend. Her beautiful babies will grow up without their mama now and I can't imagine what they're going through. Apparently her husband didn't know and she didn't tell anybody. No note. Nothing.

Our Community is reeling. We support around 3000 people and this number will vastly increase now.

I feel totally unprepared in how to support people through this, so started a thread on it. Kind of. More of a preventative thread. I considered calling a helpline and think I will to ask what I can do and say for those suffering most from this shocking loss. Ok I called a helpline and got the Grief helpline number that opens at 6am.

In my workplace I'm a "go to" person when any of the many people want / need emotional support.
THIS is what concerns me. I won't get any of it "right" but I'd LIKE to!

The helpline I called asked me to ask our psychologists at work to hold a meeting for the staff about how to respond. I hope this helps the people it needs to most, including us.

This didn't create a PTSD response within me, that I'm aware of, but ofcourse made me feel very sad.
It did trigger some 'deeper' response re: food safety which I could recognise afterwards. This is from childhood, so could be a very mild PTSD response. IDK.

I guess I can be mindful of this possibly occurring in future and keep it in check.

STP today for Level 2 - whatever that is.
GP for IDK why but he asked me to make the appt straight after the psych.

Better get more sleep.

EM

[ecomama]

Update: STP Session 7

Interesting day. Level 2 was not a "spectacular reveal". Just the next "thing" to deal with through exposure therapy.... the thing is / was that way back in the beginning sessions, STP gave me instructions on HOW to do "exposure therapy" on my own.

These were her instructions:
1. Pinpoint the trigger. Rewind to the activity that day that triggered me (like the whitegoods store) & WHO it was about from my past trauma eg mother, exH etc.
2. Journal this, label the person.
3. Voice record myself going through the activity again (not the initial trauma event but the present activity).
4. Listen to the recordings up to 3 x per day & score my reactions each time.
5. Go through the activity again.

I only needed to do this once so far. It disappeared like the 1st one after STP pushed me through the ET on that one.

I've been AWARE of feeling "hmmm" about an activity but around 95% of the full on PTSD reaction has vanished.
It seems the STP "programming" lol has worked.
I've used Dr Joe Dispenza materials more than daily which works at POSITIVELY programming my mind - body.

I could feel a real DANGER time moving from the mind body habits of PTSD & anxiety into an interim "airy" time it felt without foundation.
I had terrible nightmares during this time - my waking mind body was healing but those habits were holding on in my dream state.
I had to really push through this & Joe Dispenza's work buoyed me, I couldn't have sealed that past time off without a disciplined approach.
It truly felt psychologically dangerous for me.
Nightmares have stopped now.

There may be more 'triggers' in the future. If I need to utilise the full ET alone I'll do that.

My test was the sudden loss of the mother this week. I reacted from a deep seated childhood fear but recognised it & got help. I think this is the first time I've been able to recognise it in this way. It was "sealed up" in a few hours.

I have to "watch my enmeshment" was psych friend's advice.

A funny thing she said to me was "Your GP won't give you a copy of the psych's report.." Confidence is funny - it's easily faked lol. I casually asked my GP for a copy of it whilst discussing other health concerns and he just printed it out for me! It was AMAZING.

My blood pressure is down again. It went up in the 'dangerous' time.
Stomach issues settling. Hospital later in the year.

Feeling calm.

Now for Victim's Services paperwork again.

Prayer for your healing.
EM