Roll with it

Helplessness is not a feeling I deal with very well.  There have been several times in my life when helplessness became overwhelming (Lightning's birth with transposition of the great arteries and all that entailed being one of them) and I really have to fight not to just curl up into a ball and let the world fade away.  Still haven't pinpointed it (although I'm thinking it had a lot to do with the dolphins celebrating my birthday this year) but something has shifted within me.  Instead of giving in to the helplessness of not being able to do very much about the many things affecting my life right now I'm choosing a different tactic.  I'm going to look at my strengths and do what I can to make small changes in my world.

Having a chronic nerve pain condition along with hypoglycemia has made it difficult for me to do anything physical for long amounts of time anymore.  I can still do a reasonable amount of work, but I can't start a lawn mower.  Accepting that you simply can't do the things you used to be able to do with ease was difficult.  But.  Thanks to my education and my life experience there are lots of other things I can do to help both myself and others.  I've got a plan in works right now that will help a great many people, but I'm making myself wait for it to come together instead of trying to rush it.  The Universe seems to be intent on helping with this, so I'm going to let it come together in its own time.

Another thing I can do to help both myself and others:  There will be a new additional section to my Narcissism Resources post on dealing with a President-Elect who has NPD (that's narcissism personality disorder to any newcomers.)  Quite frankly DT's electoral college win terrified me because I've lived with a person who has NPD in my life and they are just the worst to deal with.  Especially if they're in a position of power.  So...there will be new articles and information available soon in that area.

The kitten we rescued in Hazard, KY ended up being a 2 year old male cat who was so malnourished he looked like a kitten.  Ginger has now been neutered and has his shots (that was a bit of an ordeal, but he was fine when I picked him up) and we're very slowly introducing the two cats.  Calypso is handling it better than I expected her to.  Based on her behaviors now, I'm thinking her previous owner punished her more than praised her.  We're giving her lots of reassurances and attention while letting Ginger get used to being inside the house and so far all is going well.

I'm also going to be doing more tarot readings and posting them here in case anyone else is interested in seeing them.  Part of being an INFJ personality type is getting flashes of crap affecting people and not being able to do a damn thing about it.  It pretty much sucks.  Tarot helps me interpret what some of those flashes are.

Another thing I'm doing more of is EEG neurofeedback at the office where I work.  We have a protcol called Alpha Theta that really helps with PTSD.  Neurofeedback has been helping me cope with some of my PTSD symptoms.  When I do Alpha Theta I will often feel as if I'm making a connection to the Universe that I've been lacking for a very long time.  It's helping me let go of some of the shame and helplessness that CSA instills in children and adults.

That's pretty much it for now.  I'll try to update fairly frequently, but since the Holiday Death Spiral is in full spin don't count on it.  There are cookies to bake, gifts to wrap, and mother in laws not to decapitate.

Talking with a Ghost

Mind the tags - this post is about my experience of childhood trauma.  If this triggers you I am very sorry.

There was once a little girl who had a special friend she liked to spend time with.  One night when she was spending the night with her friend the girl found a monster in the night.  She awoke in her friend’s room, but her friend wasn’t there.  She walked down the hallway and heard strange noises coming from the basement.  Walking down into that room, the girl saw her friend and her friend’s father.  Her friend’s father was doing something the girl didn’t understand to her friend, but it didn’t look like her friend liked it.  And it didn’t look like something any grown up should be doing to a child.  So the girl ran across the room and yelled at the man to stop.  The man turned to look at the girl and stared.  He said “I am a man of God.  If this was wrong then God would strike me down.”  He was quiet for a moment then he pointed at the girl. “If you tell anyone I’ll hurt your brothers.  You have to do what I tell you from now on.”  And that was when the girl understood that monsters hide behind familiar faces.

          When I decided to start blogging about what I can remember about my childhood trauma I decided to use a narrative method.  It allows me to talk about what happened and how it felt without fully pouring into that madness.  There are huge chunks in my memory from around the ages of 7-10 and I’m guessing that’s when the abuse happened, but the truth is I just can’t remember.  It’s funny what the human mind will do to protect itself.  In my case I forgot.  I learned to ignore things that didn’t make sense because looking at things too closely would tear down those walls my mind put up.  Forgetting worked for over twenty years, and then things started coming back.  Small things came to me:  I remembered I inexplicably stopped talking to my friend in middle school and never got into another conversation with her until the night we were leaving high school.  I started having dreams about that house.  I started to notice things I had done since childhood – never leaving my bedroom door closed, sleepwalking, and always keeping my finger nails long enough to scratch if need be.  Looking at these things now they all speak the same language:  possible escape.  If they door was open I might be able to get away.  Sleepwalking got me out without me even being aware of it.  And those fingernails could be quite effective in warning someone off. 

          There was a counselor I was working with that I was going to talk to about the trauma once my cancer surgery was done.  But.  He died unexpectedly and I feel like I’m dangling in the wind now.  It is HARD to find someone to open up to about this.  This is not fun to talk about.  It hurts to write about it.  But I don’t want to be a victim to that man of God anymore.  He has no power over me.  And so I’m going to write.  Until I can find another counselor who I feel safe with and won’t make my trauma worse, I will write.  Because this anger/grief/shame/not-feeling-safe needs an outlet.  Writing about this feels like talking about the ghost of my childhood.  I don’t know if I tried to talk to anyone about it when I was a child, but I do know I escaped into books.  Words helped me to survive then and they will now.