Not feeling ok at the moment

[Eagle Ray]

I just need to write down how I’m feeling.

I’m exhausted and in pain. I have overwhelming grief recurring that I thought I’d begun to heal from. I’m very dissociated. I know that’s my body trying to protect me from overwhelm.

Was seeing someone this week about starting voluntary work (possibly a stepping stone back into workforce). But feel like my body is screaming at me that it’s not ok and can only rest. It’s like I was oversaturated with stress for too many years and I have nothing left. It take’s phenomenal energy to use the small part of me that’s still functioning to interact with others. I manage to convey outwardly that I’m fine and come across as positive and competent even though internally I’m breaking at the moment.

 I cannot tolerate abusive or exploitative relationships anymore. Putting boundaries up to protect myself, but somehow that triggers more grief linked to past issues even though it’s necessary to establish those boundaries.

 I had side effects from a med badly flaring one of the autoimmune conditions I have, so came off it. This has triggered other undesirable effects that are potentially serious so have gone back on it. I’ve spent decades now, since childhood, managing chronic pain and health conditions. I’ve always been relentlessly positive, but that is starting to fail.

Angry too about denial of abuse in my extended family - the way perpetrators were protected and the reality and impact of abuse denied. This continues. I can’t stand it anymore.

Although thoughts of death are there for me almost daily at the moment, I think a will to live in me is stronger. The thoughts are just my mind-body not wanting to struggle anymore.

[Croix]

Dear Eagle Ray

I'm glad you wrote down how you are feeling. Trying to put a mask on it for everyone is exhausting and in fact I've found it to be harmful to myself in the long run. It seems to emphasize the difference between me and others, and at the same time I'm thinking if I have to hide myself what does that say about me?

Putting up barriers can be the cause of great grief, the fact you have to put them up may come with a feeling of loss, and at the same times reminds you why you are doing it - past events and also cowardly family who will not try to acknowledge abuse - It's so much easier for them to pretend even if it does betray.

That book by Janina Fisher is quite expensive I'm afraid, I had a look around but around $34 was the best I could find. Perhaps it may be in a library, even if not in your state/territory non-fiction can normally be borrowed from interstate. She sounds a very sensible person.

That's one thing about pain and suicidal thoughts, they tend to focus down to a small world full of overwhelming hopeless ideas and block out a wider world, one with Janina Fisher and all sorts of things in it - some of them very pleasant.

You do a lot of good here, your posts are sensitive and offer real aid.

Although there are so many impediments I hope you do get to volunteer (other than here of course:) at some stage, it helped me.

Croix

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Croix

Thank you so much for your thoughtful, kind reply.

Everything just got on top of me the last couple of days. Sometimes there’s just a strong feeling of wanting a way out. But I am feeling a bit better now.

The mask I put on of being always fine comes from my childhood. It was a necessary survival mechanism from the environment I grew up in. It wasn’t safe to be not ok, at least outwardly, so I learned to always be cheerful and focused on the needs of others (also conditioning from the beginning).

I’m breaking familiar patterns with other people in my life now. It can upset them but I have to do it to protect myself. There are some people I may have to break with all together, but I’m trying to work out where the boundary lines should be.

I’m very angry about the treatment of an extended family member sexually abused for years as a child then blamed for the abuse and excommunicated from her family. There are still family members now denying her existence. The key perpetrators I have nothing to do with, but there are others who never had the courage to support her thus protecting the perpetrators. This all happened by the time I was still small but I learned a lot of it later.

I’m also angry about abuse I’ve experienced myself. I think I’m finally learning to stick up for my inner child.

Yes the Janina Fisher book is expensive. I’m thinking of trying to get it via inter-library loan. But I’ve learned a lot already watching interviews with her.

Yes I think the volunteering will help. I was just struggling so much this week to act like a normal functioning person when internally I was so not ok.

Thanks again 🙏

[therising]

Hi Eagle Ray

I feel so deeply for you as you face life under such pressure. To be such a hard worker in the ways of reforming yourself and life (in relation to mind, body and soul), you are so deserving in the ways of greater relief and joy.

Do you find physical flare ups correspond with mental flare ups? Kind of like mental energy in motion corresponding with physical energy in motion, the kind of combined emotion where you can feel the side effects when they collide. Also wondering whether there's a chronic fatigue factor involved. When I hear experts say 'It's not exactly known what causes chronic fatigue in some cases' it kind of triggers me. The name itself tends to point to there being reason. When certain systems in the body are being constantly fatigued, at some point this is going to be felt. Being in fight or flight mode almost constantly for years will pretty much do it. Regularly or chronically (through stress) exhausting the nervous system, the endocrine system and a whole stack of other energetic systems would be enough to deplete energy levels over time. 'Running on empty' has a definite feel to it.

The body's so telling. With that boundary setting for example, I can be thinking 'It's all good, I'm feeling powerful setting boundaries', my left leg can tell me it's not all good. Sounds weird, the leg thing, but due to my own stupidity in being a smoker the veins in my left leg don't function the way they're designed to. When more blood than usual flows through them (like with exercise or stress), I can literally feel a change in my blood pressure. So, I can be standing there doing some boundary setting when all of a sudden I feel my leg start to ache. Then I realise this boundary setting exercise is not so stress free. My leg tells me 1) 'You need to calm down, you're feeling pressure' and 2) 'You seriously need to stop smoking you fool!' In both cases, the truth 😁

How anger triggers the immune system could be something worth researching. Completely understandable as to why you'd be feeling so enraged.

[Eagle Ray]

Thanks so much Rising

Yes physical flare ups definitely correspond with mental/emotional ones. Although the med I’m on is causing problems, a boundary issue that tested me happened just before the flare and I’m sure is a factor. I recently read When the Body Says No by Gabor Mate and that book is spot on.

 I’m diagnosed with fibromyalgia plus couple of autoimmune diseases but I suspect chronic fatigue as well. I’ve had points of literal collapse where my body folds onto the ground and I lose the capacity to speak. If I try to speak my speech is slurred, so from the outside looks like a stroke. In chronic fatigue there’s often no anaerobic energy (mitochondrial dysfunction) so once you’ve used your aerobic energy you’ve got nothing to draw on and the body collapses. Happened to me in an airport once. It’s distressing and your brain shuts down too.

At the moment I wake up and cry from distress each morning. I’m feeling so much anger about abusive behaviour towards myself and others. I think there’s a kind of purging going on as I truly admit how hideous and selfish the abuse was. I liken it to pulling out a splinter - it hurts while it’s coming out but feels better afterwards. I’m hoping to feel better but there is so much to come out. One disease I have attacks the bile ducts. When you think about the relationship between bile and anger that makes sense. Anger that should have been directed outwards to defend myself or escape perpetrators (fight-or-flight) was directed inwards because it had nowhere to go (freeze response).

Now I’m breaking out of that freeze but it’s agony. But it’s also necessary. I can feel a lot of distress and rage. I’m definitely forming a “no one messes with me” attitude - a long overdue necessity given my boundaries have been violated in many ways since a small child.

That’s so interesting about your leg. It’s great to have that attunement to your body. My blood pressure just flared and I think some of us can feel the effects even though it’s asymptomatic for others.

[therising]

Hi Eagle Ray

I like the splinter analogy. Knowing something damaging has to come out definitely doesn't make it less painful. Not knowing exactly how long that splinter is can be another factor. If you knew it was a year long, there'd be an end point to look forward to.

I always find it fascinating, learning about emotion. I can appreciate practitioners who practice both traditional and modern medicine (a combo). Whether we want to call it Chi or chemistry or physics or biology, it's all energy in motion or not in motion. How the energy behaves produces side effects.

Anger's such an incredibly powerful energy. Problem with it is we can't hold it in. So, what to do with it? Exhaust it out at someone? Let it transform us into some warrior princess/prince? Sit with it, explore it and let it lead us to mind altering life changing constructive revelations and new emotions? Perhaps a bit of each. How to manage it when it gets too much can be tough. With a bit of imagination, I sometimes imagine anger as a dark smoke. If I vent it/blow it out, I imagine it gradually becoming lighter and lighter. People can say to us 'Why don't you try mindful breathing to calm down'. Sometimes that simply doesn't work. Throw some imagination into the mix and then you're breathing something out to the point where you can start to feel a little light headed and all your energy systems feel more relaxed (nervous system, vascular system etc). Incredible things can be achieved through the imagination. I acknowledge it's definitely hard to unlock our imagination while we're within a depressing period. I find sometimes guided meditation can help, someone guiding me into my imagination.

It's crazy when you think about it; you can be the most caring person, spending days on end going into your imagination, trying to see and get a feel for what would make all the difference for someone who feels so deeply depressed. Finally you can see some of the ways in which you can love a person back to life. Then when you need someone to go into their imagination, for you, what they can come out with (after having gone in for only a few seconds) is 'I don't know'. What the hell?! Logical conclusion is...there's obviously not that much in there or they just don't exercise it enough for it to work.

[Eagle Ray]

Hi Rising 

I spent about 20 years with mindfulness meditation which helped a lot, focused on the breath learned via attending a Buddhist Centre over that time. I did 8 years of shamanic sound healing. I went into the different states of consciousness, waking dreams etc in which a lot of powerful healing took place. I know that’s the realm in which actual healing occurs. I’ve done the visualisations of breathing out dark smoke and light coming in. I’ve practised tai chi etc etc. All of those things have helped over many years.

But I’ve sustained so many injuries to my nervous system, heart and spirit and so relentlessly in recent years that I’m at breaking point. My body now is trying to make the decision to die on my behalf to end the suffering. It’s what happens to anyone, human or other animal, when they can’t take it anymore. Nature will kill you off because living becomes untenable and your nervous system knows it.

Last night I was watching the movie Toomelah for the third time because it was on TV. At the end the young boy considers killing himself, breaks down and cries, then tries in a kind of shocked dissociation to carry on finding slivers of hope. That is me now but was also me as a child. I did not have a single adult I could turn to for safety and was so disoriented.

 I have birth trauma and ancestral trauma to heal. I’m doing a course soon that I hope will help with this stuff. Trauma relentlessly over the course of your life will push you eventually beyond your coping and healing skills and capacities. When I go into meditative/quantum consciousness massive grief erupts out of me every time. My body spews out the toxic stuff from trauma. I continue to hang on to life by threads.

[therising]

Hi Eagle Ray

I wish there was something incredibly miraculous I could say where you'd feel everything that weighs down your mind, body and soul suddenly lift, a lifetime of stuff. I wish this with all my heart.

A few people on the forums here have mentioned a woman named Irene Lyon. If you're one of those people and I've forgotten that, please forgive me. If you haven't heard of her, her specialty is in working with the nervous system and healing trauma. Sounds like the upcoming course could offer something in the way of healing. I hope so. I hope it's the next productive stepping stone on your path of healing. You would be a truly fascinating and inspiring person to sit and speak with, given how many things you've studied and practiced, based on so many different perspectives.

The quantum meditation sounds intense. It obviously has a significant impact on you. Can't help wondering what it involves. Whether it's the quantum field or the divine matrix, no matter  how we view it, it remains a truly fascinating topic and experience. Have you heard of Gregg Braden?

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Rising

Thank you for being so kind 🙏

Yes I’ve heard of Irene Lyon but I’m not one of the people who’s mentioned her here. I had a very good psychologist at uni but was limited to 6 sessions per year. She knew I was really interested in somatic work so the last time I saw her she mentioned Irene Lyon. I looked her up and her approach totally aligns with the work I wanted to do.

But I felt I needed the co-regulation of working individually with someone so I went on a search. I really wanted to do Peter Levine’s somatic experiencing method which I know Irene incorporates. I tried a few people but it took until mid last year to find a psychologist who was the right fit for me. She is excellent and I’ve managed with her to successfully resolve some traumatic incidents and do significant healing.

What’s coming up now is really deep level trauma - birth and intergenerational stuff. I had two highly traumatised parents who in turn came from traumatised parents. I’m now working on the epigenetics but it’s like trying to throw off a boulder crushing you.

I know Joe Dispenza looks at this stuff but I’ve struggled to connect to him. I know he healed his own body from a serious accident, but he also came from a highly supportive background without a complex trauma history. I’ve connected more reading Joseph Tafur’s work on healing complex trauma which is more grounded and relational for me. He in turn was inspired by Jeremy Narby’s book The Cosmic Serpent which takes the work of the shamans he lived with in the Amazon down to the molecular level - essentially epigenetics.

By quantum meditation all I meant was entering that space where mind/body/spirit are fully integrated and heal. Shamans have been doing this stuff for millennia and I learned to access it in sound healing.

I have a place I go to by the ocean with a strong energy where I can drop into an altered state of consciousness and access stuff I can’t easily at other times. But for ages now grief just keeps pouring out which I’ve realised has to just keep getting purged to allow the space for healing.

[therising]

Hi Eagle Ray

To heal so much that goes so deep is something I've never had to do to the degree that you are doing it. I have managed to connect at times with what sits deep within me and have felt the overwhelming emotions that can come pouring out yet, through a lack of trauma in my life (for which I'm grateful), it's at a different level.

Leading questions are mind altering. Sometimes I don't recognise a leading question until it leads me to a revelation. Then it's a matter of 'Ahh, this is where that was going!'. Some revelations can be stunning. For example, a leading question could be 'Why have I never felt loved?', which can lead to having to define for the 1st time what love actually means to you. If it means feeling someone leading you to evolve toward knowing who you naturally are, the next question could be 'Why has no one ever led me to know myself better? Why did my parents not lead me to evolve into knowing and loving myself in all the ways I really needed them to'. Revelation: No one led them. Why not? You can suddenly realise, based on looking back through your history, 'Oh my god, there has possibly never been a single person in my lineage leading anyone to consciously come to life in this way'. The biggy...'I'm the first in line to seriously explore what it means and what it takes to love one's self to life'. You are the 1st true pioneer on such a quest. All this from the leading question 'Why have I never felt loved?'.

I see the pioneer in you and I see and feel the ways in which you open my mind and light the way and I love you for this Eagle Ray ❤️. You're one of my lights. I'm excited for you as you work so hard in loving yourself to life.

The greatest and most liberating revelation can be 'This is not my fault'. For example, 'It's not my fault I cannot love myself. It is a fault that came before me, one I can feel so deeply in so many ways. Now I know what the fault is, I'll explore my abilities to love myself. Let no one get in my way!'.