Thinking and not thinking

I think many understand from personal experience how intrusive thoughts might be a reason to seek a familiar shut off switch. My later 20s, I may intimate it’s a long story, includes ways to shut down thinking. Even after excellent trauma therapy from age 57-60 I still work to reground and breathe. It can include intense emotions.

That therapy didn’t start until I was near 57. I learned a lot. I’ve tried sharing what I’ve learned with anyone who wished that. I desire a lot more of that kind of therapy which ended when in 2020.

It’s because my therapy was so late in life, my prospects for employment feel at an end. My health deteriorated from 2017 as well, and 2022 was a particularly difficult year. There are burdens that stir most of what’s causing me distress. Late effectual therapy has shown what could be.

In that line of thinking, there are stressors which sabotage and have sabotaged me for decades. The length of time these things go on, without trauma therapy to aid cognitive thoughts the stress kicks me into survival mode. There’s nothing that properly describes my situation in a short essay. The cptsd I written about is a way to explain. There are some who know.

What do you do and think about?

Doing the hard work of looking at me.

3/14/2018
I’m teary eyed, and there’s so much work to do. I feel daunted, but hope the Welbutin kicks in this week? Then the new therapy I have been working on, maybe I can keep doing it at home. My T said I can try that, she believes what I do with one type is Ok for home. I cried so hard though, the tears just go and go…

I had looked at me, I found the very sad me, I looked at him, he at me. I sat in the orange chair, he across the living room on the couch. He related gratitude I know him, have not forgotten him. We could barely manage this. Then… my 3 year old self, he had hugged me and I him a few weeks ago… We did it again, in front of me, me on the couch. That’s when I couldn’t stop crying… I cried so hard… I am now too… So, will I be Ok at home to do this? I’m told the old me who didn’t cry, didn’t feel, that boy me on the couch and decades of that, we/he/me now feel like the feelings demand me to feel.

When I got sober, it was me looking at the feelings and saying to myself, OK, that’s got to be good, I can feel now. But, now? It’s now, feeling these feelings that my body knows the score and it’s not happy. Not happy at all.

I feel the rape again too, too many days I relive it now… I must be close that boy in me needing his voice… the others have been getting their chance and now… I don’t know? I’ve written my story… I’ve written so much, but have I given him a voice or just told his story???

Me (56) Now just (A): Can we talk?
Me (15) Now just (B): About what?
A: What did you think and feel living through 14 to the beginning of 16? But, if that’s not the timeframe… please pick yours, I’m not here to influence, please express you as you?
B: That’s a tough question for me, I don’t think anyone ever asked me how I feel? Maybe in that therapy, that one session where the guy made a threatening comment “why are you smiling?!”, demanding that it evoked me thinking the situation is funny, when I was scared and used my smile to ameliorate my feelings and in a way to de-escalate what I feared. That’s also part of my story, so getting to how I feel is really difficult. The story wants the attention and the inner me… Is what?
A) I get you, that resonates with me to this day, though, I now do have access to expressing my feelings. My hope is you can see some of what’s been your future, and draw from me to express yourself?
B) My gut wrenches to consider feelings.
A) Yes, I’m sorry.
B) Well, I think the loneliness made me very sad, maybe untreated depression? Sad will have to describe it. Then the anxiety about my body and not being like the other boys, the fear that was so intense, I really needed not to feel.
A) I understand.
B) Ok, so there’s sadness and fear with anxiety. I sort of think some happiness was in there? Music made me happy just like it does you.
A) Yes, that’s true.
B) I felt awkward, and unable to talk about it or having no one to talk about it to made me feel worse. What’s a worse feeling than sad?
A) Dejected and despondent?
B) I supposed dejected fits. I had a lot of anxiety, it was fear of my difference, my awkwardness, and not knowing what I was supposed to know. I found out I didn’t know so much? I’ll explain some other time. It’s that dejected, and it’s depression really, that the core of me was off, I didn’t fit in anywhere, and it felt overwhelming. I was always sad, and lonely, left out and afraid.
A) Yes, those fit for me too, I understand you. Does relating this to me help at all?
B) Sort of, you, being me, is safe for me to talk to, you’ll not judge me, and I can tell you know everything I’m saying, so it’s Ok. What do we get out of this?
A) I think this moment is a bond for us. I am seeing the emotions we felt then and that I know them today. I’m still awkward about them, but sense that I’m working to deal with managing them. Do you see that?
B) Yes I do, and that’s why I’m not crying… maybe that and it’s not cool.

 

End.

I’m not sure how to end this, so, that’s all for now.

 

Thinking out loud 2…

There are many people who inspire me. @thefawz for standing up for a kid being bullied in a restaurant (staged), @contrapoints for her honest channel, wit, intellect and live stream, rserven because she mentored me toward my narrative voice (not knowing it), and others. It’s obvious my life is now being on the edge of a community of Trans People, and perhaps LGB issues, I have been following Trans issues. Does reading, advocating, and watching their considerations encourage me to be myself? I also have a very strong connection to an online community of survivors (now grown to 2), where the first community validated me.

 

What started my narrative online is validation. I have a nagging doubt that men who are unexposed to nuanced humanity will evolve their rigid biases over time. To me, that’s why we have Trump (arggghhh, enough of him!) That group of online men has kept me stable in validation, and that vital role in being connected like that, is everything!

 

Jumping back to Trans Women, I saw the movie “A Fantastic Woman” yesterday, it came to a nearby venue. The movie is an emotional rollercoaster, a drama where Marina and Orlando open the film with their love, and Marina carries on to the end. Her resilience reminds me of how each of us move through our own drama, and seek help or solace in our way. The character Marina played by Daniela Vega draws us into her most intimate experiences:

 

I went to the movie alone, I do too many things alone. My interests are humanity, and evolving self determination, and I ponder a great many things. I’ve stated I have a bad memory, and having such a busy mind, I write this note of that being contradictory. I may reconcile what that means in time, perhaps dissociations have devolved my memory? How, odd, I can write for days about my life, and experiences, I can give more detail, I recall so much, but, to recall someone’s name, or any name of something when I need to, often fails me. I could never remember equations either, nor code, nor some rules of grammar and spelling. Sigh…. Ok, boring you!!

 

When I started reading rserven is when I could see more about being myself. I have suffered body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), it’s untreated, and undiagnosed, even to this day. I don’t want to talk about. Then why am I writing about it? It’s what I do, I write. There’s no specific connection to being Transgender and BDD, because Gender Dysphoria (GD) isn’t a mental illness, BDD is. There are mental health issues that can manifest for someone with GD, and they’re no different than many other people. Depression, anxiety, ADD, OCD, and other. Anyone can find something to be concerned about their mental health at some point in their life. Whether they’re in tune with themselves to know it, that’s always in question.

 

I’ve been fortunate to have online access since around 1997, and I’ve learned a great deal. I’ve also remained sober since March 20, 2000. When I consider the humanity I embrace it’s evolved with learning and sobriety,  but I see some conflict moving forward. I have very few friends I talk to, and no acquaintances whom I visit unless they’re at some friends dinner party. I’ve not been to one of those for many years now. I’m not seeking connections (though think about it all the time), so to remain isolated doesn’t seem conducive to moving forward toward whatever that means.

Ok, maybe next time I’ll ponder what “moving forward” means?

The Pain

Hello, write a comment if that works for you? CPTSD takes a lot out of me. I have so much work to do, and while I do it, I have to manage my emotional state, my hopes and the requirements to keep going. Today, this day is not easy, and I want to document it, and wish others would convey a small token of understanding, that loneliness is very complicated.

I’m going to need some self care, and I’ll start that after I write this. I don’t really matter in the scheme of the universe, so whether I be or not be seems like self pity and drama, quintessential victimhood. There are those who know this isn’t pigeon holed, that depression manifests with the other parts playing in mood and emotional management.

I have to go, and if I feel better, that would be great.