Hypno #9 alone

We started on my beach.  I could feel the sand under my feet, the ocean stretching out in front of me. The cliffs to my right and the jetty to my left curve around to make me feel protected and sheltered in this place.  We called for those who needed to be with me and of course the bright lady was there. She has not left me since the last session. The interesting thing is that I can no longer see her. I can feel her and hear her voice. I know that she is part of me always now. The surprise was in a little girl. She was me, and not me at the same time. She was maybe 3 or 4 years old.  She was so sad and lonely. It was a physical pain in my chest. I could feel her vast and consuming need. A black hole in the middle of our heart. I wanted to run from her, and hold her. I wanted to pour all my love into her until she was never lonely again. The bright lady warned me that she would consume all the love I could give her and still need more. We have work to do.

I knew we were going to go out into the ocean. I started looking about and realized that we were going to have to walk out onto the very end of the jetty to reach our boat. I piked the little girl up and held her close to me. She would not be moved or shifted otherwise. I paused and looked out over the huge rocks that pointed out into the ocean. I watched the waves crash against them. This was a danger I knew from my childhood. Never go out onto the jetty because you could easily be killed. People had been killed here by doing just what I knew I had to do now. How was I going to do this with my arms full of this aching child? I had no idea and dismay welled up and filled me. The bright lady whispered in my ear and reminded me I am in a place where I cannot truly be hurt. I just had to accept the challenge and move forward with the fear.  I took a step. That step led to another, and another. Some where easy and small, some were precarious. The waves kept threatening to knock us all into the ocean. I felt so small and burdened. I had no idea how I thought I could be equal to this task. I set that aside and just took another step. Eventually, there were no more steps to take and I stood at the end of the jetty looking at a small wooden boat in the water below me.

Fear gripped me again. The little girl clung so tightly to my neck that I could barely draw breath. I could not swallow, but that didn’t matter as my mouth was dry with fear.  I was going to have to step out into this little bobbing boat. I was going to have to do it while holding this child who needed me so desperately. I was going to have to do it with each wave threatening to capsize it.  If I stepped off the rocks at the wrong moment the ocean could move my only safe place out from under me with no effort at all. I knew I had to do this though. I had lost all my other options along the way. I knew the water and waves would destroy me if I turned back now. I would be overcome and truly be stuck. I couldn’t even take a deep breath to steady my pounding heart. So, I just stepped out. I expected to feel a bit of a fall as the boat was several feet below me but to my surprise (and relief!) I was solidly in the boat with no issue at all. The decision to take the step was all that was required for safety.

The little girl, now sitting next to me and I marveled when the boat began to move. We traveled over the breakers and out into the ocean proper. We traveled until there was no sign of land. No way for me to gauge if we were in fact traveling or drifting. I had no landmarks to guide my way and no one to comfort me. In this place where my companions are me, and are not me, I was truly alone. I felt like I belonged here. I felt like this was always to be my fate.  I knew I was always supposed to be adrift and alone. The little girl agreed. The hole in my heart ached as it tried to suck all the warmth out of the sun, all the movement from the breeze, all the hope from my heart. The more I looked at this aloneness the more it consumed. It was like my attention was feeding it. It kept getting stronger and my despair grew to match it.  I heard a whisper, barely at the edge of my ability to understand, “What does she need to heal?” I wanted to scream and rage and cry at this voice. “How am I supposed to know what she needs?  She has been here my entire life. Can’t you see that I was too small when I realized that I would always be alone? How am I supposed to heal the truth?”

I could hold this small broken part of me. I could comfort her forever and still she would want more. If people could sense her presence inside me that could explain why they always tell me that they can’t give me what I need. Could they feel this dark yawning hunger for connection in my heart?  Could they feel the vastness of it that could never been filled? Was this why people I love always push me away? I wanted to weep. I wanted to fill the ocean with my tears. I wanted to be anywhere but on this little boat int he middle of nowhere with the personification of my knowledge that I will always end up on my own when it matters. Wild and desperate I cast about for something that could close the black hole in my chest. Nothing, nothing would ever be enough. The bright lady nudged me to look for something that could counter it. Something big enough and strong enough to at least be able to stand up to the vast aching need for connection. There, it was, huge and hungry but not nearly as horrifying. My curiosity was the one hunger that was big enough to stand up to alone. I let curiosity take over. I let it fill me and wonder at how we were going to get out of this. I let it look around at the little girl. I let it see the sun shining and the cool water.  It wondered why we had chosen this place. There had to be a reason.

As I let curiosity take hold I noticed the little girl just could not seem to cling so tightly to me. She was there, I could feel the weight of her, but I had become almost slippery. I was too busy looking for what could be to see into the darkness she represented. Truly, my hunger to learn and discover was a match for the need in this small child. I took her hand and I looked around. Curiosity whispered. “Why the ocean?” My heart responded with wonder, why would be be in a place that is a seeming desert without life? The ocean without life?  How absurd! It was then that I was consumed with the urge to just step into the ocean. Her hand in mine we did. We stepped into the water and found it safe, comfortable and unexpected. We also were able to see that there was life everywhere. We drifted peacefully to the sand below us. I noticed in this little bubble of the ocean there was light. I could see every detail clearly.  I let curiosity lead me.

We ended up looking at this little stretch of coral. At first it seemed cold and lifeless. I remembered wondering as a small child how they ever figured out that coral was alive. It looked like pretty rocks in funny shapes. The adult part of me spoke up and reminded us both that coral is in fact millions upon millions of tiny creatures. They grow these beautiful formations just like other animals grow shells. They also feed the life around them. They protect and house creatures as well.  A coral reef was, in fact, an amazing representation of how we can miss the truth of something if we aren’t looking at it correctly. It also showed how very connected it is to everything around it. As I realized these things and pondered all the other things I knew about coral and the life that is intertwined with it the creatures of my mind took shape. I could see the fish that lived in its nooks and crannies. The hermit crabs that simply looked like debris at first.  This coral that looked like a lonely rock in the middle of nothing was actually the hub of so much life.  I let curiosity take hold once more, why would I bring us here?

I noticed something had changed. The little girl was getting curious as well. The two gaping maws of the black holes pitting against each other had cancelled out the terrible and terrifying loneliness inside.  By looking at it again it started to ache in my chest once more. I realized that believing in the absoluteness of this feeling gave it more strength. That I could always find ways to make myself be alone. I could find ways to cut myself off from people even in the middle of a crowd. We feed our own demons sometimes.  Curiosity was still there, though.  It wanted to know if there was a way to defeat this feeling. It wanted to know what it would take for that little girl to believe in possibility again. Possibility…….

It hit me in a way that made my spirit reverberate into the heavens and deep into the earth. I felt like the entire cosmos and my very DNA had been altered by the sudden knowledge that possibility was the key.  It is possible that we will end up alone. It was also possible that we had more love and life around us than we realized at first.  I understood the lesson of the coral and I knew that the water would wash away my old beliefs. The little girl looked up at me and I looked back at her. I shed my imposed view of self and stretched my wings. I enveloped all of me, I embraced my bigness and my true self shown forth. I looked into the little girl’s eyes once more and realized that she could see me for the first time. I was big enough, strong enough, wise enough, and curious enough to protect her from her own fear. It was fear that bound us together and fear that would hold us until we could not breathe. What could we do to counter this fear? It was real. It was trying to protect us from being disappointed and hurt again.  It was not an evil thing, but it had grown strong and like a vine that kills the tree it grows upon it had begun to strangle my love as well. I could not run from it and I could not ignore it. Instead I began to look for a way to contain it. Curiosity told me it was possible and possibility meant that there was a universe where I did not need it.  It became possible to let go of this old old wound and see what I could discover on the other side. The hole in my chest eased a little.

The little girl let go of my hand. She wandered over to the coral and she looked at the fish there. They were her friends. She laughed and played and watched them with a curiosity that was growing faster than thought. I knew I had to leave her there. She did not belong with me anymore. She was too heavy to fly with me and I need to fly. I need to fly into the wide open spaces and see what I can find. I need to live where my wings can spread and my heart can soar. I need to be able to see far and wide to find all the things that are possible for me. She could only cling and weigh me down. Yet, she was a part of me. She was a part of me that I had known for my entire life. She represented a belief that had helped me navigate my world for as long as I had been trying. I was sad to leave her. What if I needed her again?  What if she needed me? She is a part of me, and I a part of her. I heard her laughter bubble around me. I smiled and I knew that I could always come to the reef to find her. I also knew that if she needed me she would send one of her special little silver fishies. We would part, but we would never be truly without each other. The urge to fly became so strong. I kissed her forhead. I told her she was loved. I left her there to discover that we are always connected, even when we can’t see it. I left her there to discover that she had enough love inside to slowly fill the darkness with light. I cried with both loss and with joy. I spread my wings and I flew through the water into the sky.

I watched as the water drifted from my legs, my arms and my wings. I felt the warmth of the sun. I let each drop of water carry away this feeling that love would always lose me. I looked about and let curiosity take over once again.  I realized that the little girl had her wish fulfilled, but sideways, like life usually does.  We never get what we ask for exactly like we expect. We often get it in a way that takes us time to recognize. It sneaks up on us and before we know it we are surrounded by what we needed most. Possibility filled my crown and fed the rest of me. It flowed downwards and it eased the ache in my heart. It acknowledged that alone can happen and is real. It also saw that it is entirely possible that I won’t always be alone either. Before I knew where I was, or even that I had chosen to be traveling at all, I saw land below me. This is the land where my loves currently live. They each have their own special place and dwelling. Some of those houses were cold and broken. They were not what was important right now. Right now what mattered was the loves that were alive and warm. I could see them. I could see the forms that the world sees and I could see the forms that their true selves take. In this place their very spirit has a shape. I could see the love lighting the world around them. I found myself standing on land and holding each love in turn. I could see that some where brighter than others. Some where steady and some where flickering with change. It was all possible. It was all ok. In this world I could see them for what they are and accept them as they are. No more aching need trying to make me cling to them and strangle their light. I embraced them and wrapped my wings around them. I honored each beings truth as they honored mine. There was a small bit of sadness. They were not meant to fly with me. They live here, in this place on the ground. While that could change, I realized I need to accept now, and stop trying to force possibility into the present. I wept and I loved. I held and I let go. I let each thing be itself and I looked once more to the sky. I appreciated the beauty they bring to this land. I admire the homes they built for themselves. This was not my land though, it is theirs and I am just a visitor. A very lucky visitor for few ever get to see this place and these people. My tears of sadness became tears from overwhelming beauty.

I took to the skies once more. I looked out into the unknown horizon and I realized… every possible thing is out there if I stay curious enough to look for it. I just have to keep searching and maybe it is possible I will find someone to fly with me one day. Even if I don’t that is ok too for I am big, strong, capable and complete all unto myself. I could love them more and visit more lightly because I don’t need them. I chose them and they choose me. Now, to fly once more and see what else might be possible.

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Hawaii and sunrise

This trip has been so amazing. I can’t begin to do it justice. I am just going to talk about one small part of this trip. Due to calendar complications the best time to take the trip happened to overlap with the anniversary of my mom’s sudden death 5 years ago.

This is, unsurprisingly, a difficult day for me. So, I made a plan. I wanted to turn this day into a positive force in my life. I thought starting a new tradition for the day while in Hawaii was an opportunity to do something good and powerful for myself. I decided that this will be the day I do a letting go ceremony.

It was simple. Meditation and I wrote down my wishes. I took them to the rocks at the edge of the ocean. I read my wishes to the wind and burned the paper they were written on. I used the salt water of the ocean to cleanse and purify. I started in motion the wish to let go of all the things that get in the way of my truest authentic self.

There are a lot of details I am leaving out but I can’t leave out what happened the next day (this morning as I write this). I got up early to go to Punalu’u (a black sand beach) and watch the sunrise over the ocean for the first time in my life. This beach has some of the most powerful waves I have ever witnessed outside a storm. It has a sand beach but it also has the incredible volcanic flows (now rock) that lead out to the water.

I stood there on the rocks at what felt like the edge of the world and I watched the sunrise. The sound of the waves crashing against the rocks filled my ears. The air was soft, warm and clean.

I breathed in and it felt like I was breathing for the first time. The connection with this place and myself was so strong all I could do was cry. Tears rolled down and the sun climbed higher washing the sky with pink and lilac. I breathed again. I felt the soft salt air fill me up and make me light. I breathed out and felt so much leave me. I wish I could tell you what left but I haven’t figured that out yet.

I know that the wish I made the day before was set in motion this sunrise. As the waves sprayed me and danced around my feet I was purified. I was renewed as the Pheonix is renewed in the ashes of it’s former self. I have no idea where the journey is going to take me. I just have to trust that I will know what to do as I get there . I have to believe I can survive anything and find a way to be better on the other side.

Hypno #7 the garden

I started off in front of a heavy solid wooden door. Carved in deep relief was my oak tree. I paused for a moment and invited my Bright lady, my inner Priestess, in with me. She was right there. Usually she appears to me as a solid person spun from sunlight and starlight, this time, I could only the light off in the corner of my eye, nearly out of my vision. She remained like this to these whole session. But I knew it was her and she still felt comforting and somehow stronger than she normally seems. She was much more emotionally real and tangible. She went with me as I opened the door and behind this was a path is clear and light and I can feel the ground crunching under my feet. We walked this path and eventually we came to her garden this garden was vast and yet small. It was everything that could ever be possible in a garden. Everything that would have been possible had there been no pain in my life. It was wild, and yet tended so carefully. In the center of her garden was a spring. This fountain that bubbled into a stream that meanders through and connects all the different parts of her garden. The bright lady took me there to the source of the spring in the center of her garden and we sat beneath the giant oak tree on a stone bench.

From this place we paused and we look deep inside me deep down into what is my second chakra. The place where my garden should be growing from. It was hard to look and see such a barren forbidding landscape. She reminded me what her garden felt like and how the air was so clean and pure. In that moment, I realized that the garden that should have orange accents in that second chakra wasn’t orange. It was red and it was as read that normally I couldn’t see because I’m so used to it being there and it just kind of pervaded everything. There was also a river, a big huge river of a black sticky bubbling tar that divided the landscape like an open wound. In the front left of the garden was a sharp spiky mass that left you feeling like to gaze at it too long would leave your eyes shredded and bleeding. Back and to the right of the center was a heavy misshapen mass. This mass was also so very sad and you knew it was supposed to be something else but I am still not sure what.

We asked the lady what needed to be addressed first. “In order for garden to grow it has to be able to breathe. The air has to breathe, the plants have to breathe.” A garden must be able to breathe, so our first task was to get rid of the red that was invading everything and sucking everything dry.

I was guided to separate the parts of the red that I need and should keep, and the parts that didn’t belong to me. So, I breathe in the red and I breathe out some inky muddy grayness that eventually floated to the sky and became these dark heavy dangerous looking clouds. I breathed in and I breathed out. I breathed in and I breathed out. I noticed that I was able to collect the red in my hands. It was lighter amd brighter now. More pure than I could have imagined. I took the red collecting in my hands and spun it into red glass rods. I knew that when connected together, these little glad pieces became a wind chime. I had to understand what I was working with before I can make it into the windchime. Red is anger. Red is passion. Red is ambition. Red is energy. Red is fear. Red is love.I needed these things.

This wind chime would become my warning system. It would warn me when something was coming it; wouldn’t say if it was a good something, or bad something, but it could tell me if the winds of Cchange are blowing big or small. I took this wind chime that I breathed into life and spun into glass, and I crawled up the ladder that was my spine. I hung my red windchime in my throat so that I could hear it and know it’s warning. I could then choose whether or not I would swallow what was comimg to me. I no longer had to swallow everything to know what it was. I can tell if it was a thing that I needed to let in to nourish me.

I climbed back down the ladder and we looked at that black tar river. This sludge river was created like most rivers are. As drops fall from above then run down the path of least resistance collecting particles as they go. This sticky thing that had run down the landscape of my garden, taking bits and pieces of me with it, and it coated them and it’s repugnance. This river did not belong there. None of it was serving me anymore. It was there cutting me off from parts of myself. Making it so that there are things I could not see, and I could not access.

“It’s okay to let it go. It doesn’t have to hide those things anymore.”she said. “You’re strong enough to see them all. This doesn’t belong here, you don’t need to be a divided creature.”

I picked the sticky Blackness up in my hand and I stretched it. I stretched it, and I stretched it like taffy until it became a string of thread. I took that blackness and I held it and I stretched it and I made it smooth. Once it was no longer sticky I tosses it behimd me. I could not see what was happening but I knew it was forming a tapestry. I knew that this tapestry had a place to live already, it was prepared in my garden/body. Aglass case for my intuition lies right behind my third eye. My intuition could see the tapestry but I was not allowed to. My intuition needed to know what darkness looks like so it could blow through my body and play the windchime as needed. I know, now, that my intuition needed to know what dakensss looks like but I don’t have to stare into it anymore. Darkness will not get it stickiness on me again.

In am instant, that lasted a lifetime, I had spun more of the river into thread than there was tar left in the river. At that point, I was able to let it go and know that the thread will go all the way up the ladder of my spine, to right behind my third eye. I began to climb. When I got to my head and looked I saw the case was open. Ready and waiting, the glass was perfect and unblemished. I attached the thread to the back of the case knowing the tapestry would weave itself there when I could no longer look. The river will continue to spin into thread and weave all on its own. I no longer have to put my hands on every part of this process. When completed the tapestry and the thread will be sealed inside the case and only my intuition would ever need see it again.

I climbed back down into the garden. For some reason, this climb seem to take longer than all the others. The thread was still going, still spinning away. The river was nearly gone, it’s now small enough that I can step over it.

I could now get to that big lump of heavy mishapen sadness, in the back corner. It was so rough, so malformed. And I knew that there was something it was supposed to be. Something light and beautiful. I knew that I needed to cast away parts that didn’t belong. I knew I wasn’t ready to do that yet. I could not see what it was supposed to be clearly enough to shape it consciously. I just needed to get the right thing around it. Water! I knew suddenly and with certainty that it needed water around it. The water would flow over it smoothing and revealing its final form. I did not need to be a conscious participant to be able to trust this process. It is time to invite water into my life.

I knew this was coming I could sense it waiting in the wings. It was surprising to see it so clearly spelled out in this place. I need water in my life, I have to accept the change, the flow, the emotions. All that water represents has to be accepted for this Monument to be revealed.

We did not get to the spiky place, I’m not ready for that yet. And that is okay, there’s a lot of work to do in my garden. There always will be but that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Instead we looked, and we asked, what needed to go into my garden. What did I need to put there now that could work away and bring out the possibilities? There appeared a seedling, in my hand. Barely a sprout of a plant.

The bright lady looked at me, “What is it?” I looked at this tiny little indiscriminate scrap of a plant. I looked at her and the dismay must have shown on my face. She laughed warmly, kindly, comfortingly. I don’t know how I knew that she’s only this diffuse lightness but I knew it. I stared at the plant and I stared at the plant, and days came and went, still the plant did not change. Mint!

She laughed kindly at my confusion. “Seriously? Mint?” I could not have been more shocked. A softness washed through me, “You have to know why mint.”

“I have to know why you’re giving me mint?”

“Yes.”

“So I have to know what it is so I know where to plant, don’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Okay well, mint is new to me. Not quite gross but it’s still weird and uncomfortable. Traditionally it is used for soothing.”

“This is a great start” she said, “What else?”

“Mint is a weed that is invasive. It’ll grow without my tending it.” “Yes. It alsomakes you uncomfortable. It is new, but the new things in your life are going to be what helps your garden grow. Do you know where it belongs?”she asked.

I do. It goes in the middle right in the center. I took the frail seedling and I planted in the ground. The ground didn’t seem so hard and barron is it did before.

I took my hands and I dug up the earth and I put this delicate plant into that soil. It grew and as it grew the most perfectly orange light began emanating from it. This was the color that was supposed to be there. It was time to leave the garden. But this little tiny plant would continue to grow and multiply in my absence. Water would be invited into nourish the soil and break away the pieces that no longer needed to be there. The black sticky tar would continue to spin until it was gone from every crevice of my garden.

I looked up and I saw the door and I watched it and melt and become this gate almost looking like branches making the shape of a tree into a garden gate you could see through. We close the gate and it was time to come back to the real world as I slowly began the process of winding up and out of myself into reality, “Wait! Take me with you.”

I took a breath in, to breathe out my acceptance, suddenly she was inside me. She is me. Reality jolted me awake.

Traumatizing myself

Trauma can haunt a person in a lot of ways. Most of them even make a degree of sense. If you were in a very bad car accident you may avoid the area or othrr circumstances that remind you of the event. We all know people who have trauma. We also know that it is possible to heal from trauma. Sometimes that looks like the trauma reaction going away. Other times it looks like you just learning how to handle the feelings and keep moving. Some trauma will never be healed. It all depends on a huge variety of factors such as your brain chemistry, getting support and validation at the time, and a variety of therapeutic options. It is possible to recover. I talk about trauma a lot. What I have never looked at, until it smacked me in the face today, was how I sometimes traumatize myself.

It isn’t intentional. It isn’t something that I plan. It is something that happens. I think it happens to more trauma survivors than we realize. It isn’t something I have ever seen written about or heard being talked about. It is something that usually only exists within us because we are too scared to talk about it. We believe the voices of trauma on some emotional level so we believe we deserve the punishment. We let them play in our minds, or use any coping method (healthy or otherwise) to silence them. If we are lucky we may have a therapist that can help us. We would still have to talk to them about it though. For me, that has been a terrifying prospect. I have had an underlying fear that if anyone really knew what I was thinking or feeling that I would be locked away.

Today, I felt I had to reveal some of this secret shameful world to someone I love. My feelings and fears were impacting them. I felt they at least deserved to know that it had nothing to do with them. This is an old wound. It is a compound wound. Multiple traumas coming together to scar and maim in ways that are far more devistating than any one of the parts. It has tendrils that sneak into aspects of my life and self concept in ways I had not realized until I was forced to examine them to explain.

As a light was shed on these deep dark places in my spirit something has started to happen. I am starting to see that the tendrils are not nearly as strong as they seemed when I was alone in the dark with them. I still have the feelings but they are looser than they used to be. I am not feeling like I have to keep replaying the evil words that I heard.

I knew those words were not logical but I kept replaying them again and again. When I was forced to share them it became easier to see how deeply flawed and wrong it was. It became easier to see how they really do not apply to what is happening to me now. I still have work to do. The roots have spread deep and wide. It is going to take work to dig them all out.

I am willing to do the work. I hope I can continue to see how wrong they actually are while I am doing this work. What I know I won’t do is keep traumatizing myself by hiding my fear. I won’t let these things hide in the dark and keep me alone anymore.

On the way to the dystopian society

Today, I met up with a friend that I have not gotten to spend much in person time with. We decided to meet for coffee and head to the strangely elusive dystopian society in a town just south of the city. There was little information about this place but it was listed as a museum and had pictures of tea pots and kitties. I felt it was worth the risk. We found it and discovered that it was a perfectly plebian suburban house. There were no kitties or tea pots as advertised.

This lead to another search of things to do in the area and off to the winter form of a Japanese garden. Neither of us had been there and I am having a good pain day. We walked and talked and took in the quiet stark beauty. We got a little lost as way led to way and our conversation meandered with the paths. We discussed love, pain, consent, victory, failures, hopes, and fears. We wandered and we talked about whatever felt right in that moment.

We ended up supporting and validating each other. We climbed literal and metaphorical hills together. We found comfort and strength in each other, and in ourselves. As life does often answer your pleas a bit sideways, I was not surprised to find by the end of the day we ended up with exactly what we both needed. On our way to the dystopian society we stumbled into a perfect day.

I learned something about pain today

I learned something about pain today, something I never guessed at. I learned that when you’re used to being in pain not having it can be even more disorienting. After an injection into my hip, right now, I can’t feel any pain. It’s so bizarre and it’s so disorienting that I’ve already derealized.

I don’t know how long this is going to last. I don’t know if it will stay like this forever. What I do know is that my hip pain has become part of my identity. I’d like to learn a new identity. I wonder if it’s possible?

I do know that the litacain will wear off and my hip will hurt worse than normal until the steroids kick in. I know that this relief is temporary but may get better again. I will be extending my time in PT and we hope that between the steroids and building my abductors that I may get my baseline down below the 3 it currently is.

I learned that I am much better at imagining pain than I am at imagining relief. This makes me sad in ways I don’t have words to explain. What does it say when you are totally unable to cope with what is normal for most people?

Last place

I am coming in last in all my romantic relationships. There are a large variety of reasons from sheer practical to more emotional. The relationships I have now are still rewarding and are worth it but it reinforces the patterns of a lifetime.

I have always been in last place. In previous relationships, it wasn’t as good as I have now. They were mostly toxic and too many were abusive. It has created a wound that I am not sure I will ever heal. I would have to throw the baby out with the bathwater to avoid that particular wound. I am not willing to do that.

Where does this leave me? (Horrible self esteem and emotional trauma aside) It leaves me in a place I just cannot function in. A place where all the good things are so tied up with pain I will never have anything without everything. I am learning to accept this.

I am learning to accept that I have created this continuing pattern. I allow people to take me for granted and to devalue me. And if they don’t do it then I will take care of it myself. There is little to nothing I can do to change the facts of my life now. All I can do is accept it.

So, I can keep dwelling on this and pouring salt into each gaping cut or, maybe, I can just learn to stop looking at the pain. Maybe, by building a life that is rich and full it won’t matter to me anymore. Maybe, I can make a world that is so wonderful that the only person I need to be first for is myself.

Setting intention for 2018

Today, in therapy, at one point I was talking about how I have not been able to figure out what intention to set for the coming year. See, I don’t do new year’s resolutions. Every year at my birthday I set an intention for the coming year. This year’s intention was about putting myself first.

I have learned so much this year. I have also had an extremely difficult year in many ways. From were I stand right now I would say that it was a failed experiment. There has been some amazing experiences and joys but the pain and challenges have been bigger.

Normally I know what the next intention will be before Halloween. This year I have had nothing. All I do have is incandecent anger and slow potential. I seem to have uncovered a secret vault of anger this year.

Not putting myself last made me see all the places my boundaries were ignored my entire life. It made me see all the places that my consent has never been sought, let alone given. It made me feel the injustice of the wounds inflicted upon me, big and small. It has not allowed me to choke down the fear. It has let it all rise to the top to be examined under furious scrutiny.

I wonder if anyone (outside of my therapist) really understands the depths of my pain and rage this year. Grief has been tearing closely at the angers heels. I know I am not done exhuming these volatile emotions. But I want to be.

Anger is an emotion that I am intensely unhealthy with. I either steep in it letting the venom drive me forward or I have stuffed it into the vault deep in my subconscious. There is no middle ground for me. Both sides are excruciatingly uncomfortable. Both sides come with self loathing and self sabatoge.

It became very clear to me this evening why I have not been able to choose a new intention for next year. I am not done with this one. I have not learned how to put myself first. I have only learned how to not make myself last. I wish that extended to other areas and people.

So, there will be no new intention for next year. I have not learned all I need to. I have not uncovered all the wounds that need to be healed. Part of me is angry that I have to use another year on this. I wanted to be farther along by now. I wanted to be past the excavation phase. What I want isn’t the most important thing though. What I need is

Screaming into the void

I never really understood people who said they felt like they were screaming into the void. I didn’t get what the metaphor was about. I do now. I feel that is all I do anymore. There is no one to listen. There is no one that really wants to care. (I know that some people are already internally disagreeing with that statement but I also know it is true). When you come down to it, they really want me to just accept it and get over it.

What is it they want me to accept? That I will never matter as much to them as they do to me. Every damn time I start to trust someone this is what happens. Months ago I said that this would happen. I was reassured at the time that I was wrong. I wasn’t, not really. The difference this time from before was that I decided to accept it. I decided to settle.

Now, it is happening again and I am being dismissed again. I was ok with how things are when I thought I was being heard. Now that I know I wasn’t being heard I am filled with pain and rage. With this being deprioritized in yet another relationship starting again I am afraid to even try to address it. Why bother if my feelings will just be unheard? Why bother if the only choices I have are to accept it or leave?

I hate knowing that I have been screaming into the void for months. I hate that I didn’t know I was. I hate that I am being deprioritized by another person and I don’t even want to bother to try talking about it. I hate that I don’t know how to balance what I feel for them vs what they feel for me. I hate that I know it isn’t that they don’t love me (I know they do). I hate that I am always going to be second (or third) best.

Days like today I wish I wasn’t committed to trying to stay present. I wish I could just allow myself to depersonalize and stop feeling. It would be such a relief to let go of the pain and the fear for a little while. It would be nice to not feel worthless and unheard. People always like me better when I am not me anyway. I wish I could stop crying.

I, obviously, need to find ways to detach from these people. I need to find ways to get my needs met that don’t rely on the people who said they wanted to be my partner. I just don’t know how not to give people I love all of me but I desperately need to figure it out. Right now, every part of my soul that I gave them feels like a betrayal of myself. I know I am building walls and those walls will eventually just drive them away. How do I protect my poor battered heart without the walls pushing them away?

I am accepting the reality of where I stand in their lives. I still feel the good outweighs the bad. Just not today. Not today when I feel so utterly misunderstood and worthless. I know that tomorrow it will be easier again. I kind of hate that too. It isn’t fair that they know they just have to wait out my feelings and I will, eventually, stuff them back into that dark corner of my mind. They can just avoid me for a few days. Leave me to cope alone and in the dark. Leave me to my own devices rather than hearing me and dealing with the emotional consequences of their choices.

So, today, I understand screaming into the void because today I understand that is all I have ever really been doing.

As good as it gets

Except for my thyroid issue I keep running into medical professionals that are basically telling me this is as good as life is going to get for me. I can expect some (but probably not significant) pain reduction from PT. My fibro is only going to get worse and there is no other good treatment option for me. My hip is going to have to get worse before they can do much more.

So, this is it, my new normal. I hope that my energy improves with my thyroid but this is the best I can hope for with pain. This is what I have to adapt my life to. This isn’t going to leave room for much else. I am going to end up limited to work and family. At least we figured out work I can do. I take my first step tonight.

While this is my new normal for pain, I do have hope for my mental health. This is a good thing because I am experiencing some pretty intense body hatred and dysmorphia. The xrays today triggered it badly. Right now I feel like I owe an apology to every person who has ever seen me undressed. I also want to make sure it never happens again.

My new normal does mean that I am goimg to continue to be battling my mental health but at least I can expect to make improvments there. It also inclides a small bit of hope that we can help my thyroid and energy levels more. This is particularly important because starting a new chapter in life takes a lot of energy. I just wish I was starting from an easier place.