Archive for the 'beth' Category

a little bit proud of this

Written on December 3, 2011 by beth and matt. 0 Comments

i did three guided meditation tracks this morning. i find myself struggling with how to talk about it and realizing how much shame i have over various things to do with it. but anyway, i am trying to follow the program week by week in this book, “the mindful way through depression.” i feel so stupid talking about it, even to my therapist. but what is really wrong with it? so after the short standing yoga meditation and the longer sitting meditation, i felt unhurried in my path back to ‘ordinary’ consciousness. i stretched a very little, and had feelings of great compassion. a sense of being okay the way we are. not that we are totally okay with ourselves but that it could be a possibility. like giving ourselves permission to be okay with ourselves could happen in this lifetime.

with the compassion around, i felt moved to hold, touch, and otherwise be aware of my little statue of kwan yin that i keep just under my monitor. i keep a few stones and crystals there too. it’s a super mini altar that would fit in the palm of my hand. it just occurred to me that i have three green stones – i have always felt affiliated with green rock. and that reminds me of the three treasures from the tao – mercy, moderation, and modesty, as ursula leguin puts them; kindness, restraint, and balance, you could say, though that last is really just my interpretation. anyway i could go on about my interpretation but that’s not what i was trying to talk about!

being in touch with kwan yin, different people in our system felt united (i could crudely say ‘the taoists and the pagans’ but of course that is a strange separation and oversimplification) in the bath of compassion. we had a young one come out in therapy on thursday, who had a memory from about 4 of being tied and left alone in a cold barn with a collar and leash; and we have been trying to hold them in awareness and send them warmth and company as best we can. so we felt like going down to the place under the well and just doing the best we could do be with the compassion and with the insider both at the same time. and we cried a little. then i felt i had to write it down, to acknowledge it or cement it or something.

this memory is a hard one. i think it pre-dates the cages; i think the idea for the cages grew out of the being tied. and our impulse is of course towards denial and minimization. but we can tell from many little things that it is real. it is hard to say that or believe that, but we have been as best we can. and then, somehow we are also not so inclined to minimize it this time. there is deep shame, it is hard to talk about; but there is also a huge grief for the tiny, confused, abandoned, chilled-to-the-bone child that we were.

this is very hard to say and we are hurting, so we will stop.

of course you feel that way

Written on October 21, 2011 by beth and matt. 0 Comments

today we had a thought about thinking, judging, resistance. it’s an image of ourselves (probably beth) cradling the thought or feeling or impulse compassionately in our arms and saying “of course you feel that way.”

this won’t be a long entry. really, we just wanted to record our thought. i’ve wanted to write, but work is – well – exhausting. of course it is. we spend most of our free time avoiding, distracting, looking away – of course we do. i can’t settle on anything. i’m still so unhappy. everything feels like a giant uphill battle. we find ourselves thinking, “what do you do when you get home from the hospital and then you’re suicidal?” it’s a question with no answer. i’ve been trying to be more assertive – but i fall back into old patterns.

we sent an email basically asking for accommodations at work. it was assertive and firm and i have broken down about it so many times after i sent it. they said they would get back to me “soon” “after they discuss it”. it’s to be expected, but it’s still a scary answer. i have morbid fears and feelings that my boss doesn’t like me now. i’m scared they’ll say i can’t perform my job and let me go. so crazy, i want them to know i can work and social security to know that i’m still disabled and i wish everyone could see that it’s just in the middle. i am disabled returning to work; why should they kick me off? oh god, i can’t think about it. i really should have called a lawyer by now. i have very little time to deal with it. i just don’t know what i’m supposed to do. if only i felt safe and secure and sure of keeping my job. then i could just not appeal the decision. but i am still crazy! i hate thinking about it.

this week is a hard week. i hope next week will feel easier. it probably won’t, but we’ll survive.

self-talk

Written on November 10, 2009 by beth and matt. 0 Comments

there is an assignment we would like to do. our brain feels sleepy and unwilling. i know that insiders are scared. i also know that we might not be in the best shape cognitively for unrelated reasons. everything interacts. our body hurts.

it is okay to be scared about doing this assignment. i know that it feels like we might do badly, we might do it wrong, we might fail to properly engage with the material. this fear is here; i know we can’t just wave a wand and make it go away.

too, though, we are safe from repurcussions. the worst that will happen is we get a poor grade. no one will judge us or censure us for it. there is no shame in the way we think; it is not inherently wrong or different. it is all right to go slowly and gather up our analysis bit by bit. it is not beyond our grasp.

we are doing a lot. we are not bad because it is difficult or painful.

our schoolwork is between us and the teacher. we do not have to let anyone else know how we did. and the teacher does not disapprove of us, but even if she did, she could not hurt us. the very worst case is that we are not able to get this degree. no one will punish us. no one is allowed to hurt us. we do our best, and let go.

i’m thinking of the tao suddenly – such is the way. do your work and let go. i never thought of it as a gift. but it is. it is not just about refraining from bragging or feeling superior. it is permission. do without claiming – do and let it go. god, i never saw how freeing that was.

browsing through, looking for passages about work, i also saw the idea that great deeds start small. yes, chunking is a very known and acknowledged part of the repertoire of doing or studying things, but i can still find new meaning when i think about the tao.

so we can do a little, rest. we can do it without being conflated with what we’ve done. we can think for the pleasure of thinking, not worrying about implications, applications, grades. we can do this.

nobody in our system believes all of this.

brevity is okay too

Written on July 28, 2009 by beth. 0 Comments

we’d like to take care of ourselves today. we’d also like to do at least one of: picking up our prescription, getting groceries, going to trader joe’s & uw admin stuff, cleaning our apartment. we have to go to therapy.

we’re not quite in gear, drifting, hurting, flat. the song “indifference” by pearl jam is shadowing our movements, never leaves our head. how much difference does it make? we miss ourselves. we are burnt out, tired of trying. we’re afraid to slip into first person singular because that always leads to a dead end.

i know it will be ok, but i don’t know how.

i feel like a spoiled whiny brat

Written on July 4, 2009 by beth and kat. 0 Comments

maybe, on a day like today, there’s nothing to do but write. too bleak and despairing to settle on anything. the sims doesn’t catch our imagination, reading depresses us, eating hurts our mouth, everything exhausts our resources. it is so hollow to be trying just for entertainment. this is the worth of my time. but the couple projects i have going to try to make school better when i go back are way beyond me. i can’t even concentrate enough for a logic game.

i have to concentrate to breathe through my nose. somehow it feels more silent, to keep my mouth tight shut. i do not want to have pride. it’s obvious that we’re having mom issues, but what does knowledge matter? what will ever be in our future? i don’t even understand why it all feels pointless, suddenly. it can’t only be our trouble with edges. or if it is, that just means it’s the real state and edges can make it go away.

we have to face the fact that insiders are angry at them, for no good reason. it’s so stupid and undeserved but we can’t just make it go away. we’re trying to put it back where it belongs – on our mom – but that feels hollow too. it feels like we can’t do anything right, we can’t ever be good enough. it just makes it worse that they probably feel the same way. just takes away our right to feel. how can we not understand? and many of us do.  but we are also hurt, and weary, and sullen. we can live with it but it’s nursing a big hole in our center, thinking we will have to exist without them. and i know it’s not that bad and i’m being melodramatic but i already know that, i already hate that people are having these feelings, i cannot forgive myself for them. and they only hurt me. the first inkling of them and i’m sure edges will flame ice cold and refuse to need us. which is their right. they have as much, more, reason to be angry as we do. how dare we. but it’s all mixed up, and the only thing my system can agree upon is that we should do without, eat air, hide ourselves where we won’t bother anybody. is that we will never be able to measure up so maybe we should just give up.

i know that’s disordered thinking that we will have to conquer in the long run. but i guess we can’t conquer it without expressing it.

i am having trouble forgiving myself tonight. i am trying too hard. why can’t the default, just being, be rich and satisfying? why must the default feel hollow and dull and without change?

in a translation of the tao this line is capturing me:

get rid of kindness and justice and people once more will love and obey

i think there’s something in it for me. i can’t tease it out. get rid of kindness, and people will love. reminds me of a catatonia lyric: “altruism stinks of fallacy”.

acting in self interest, i will love and be loved? not trying to be fair, i will rediscover the connections?

i want to cry, i feel like i’ve been estranged from edges for a thousand years.

i can’t force it. and i like what the ursula translation says for the next verse:

but even these three rules
needn’t be followed; what works reliably
is to know the raw silk,
hold the uncut wood.
Need little,
want less.
Forget the rules.
Be untroubled.

i keep thinking shoulds are the only way to be loved again. if i can be or do enough. in this case, understanding enough, kind enough. self-effacing enough. and of course i drift further out to sea.

how can i apologize, without burdening them with my guilt? how can i admit my faults, without dropping everything to correct them? could there ever be such a thing as “hey, i’m sorry for the snarky comment. i guess i didn’t realize how much that issue was bothering me. i’ll try to look at that.”?

seeing that this stinks so highly of mom stuff does not seem to help. i think maybe there’s an insight to be had from her approach to apologies. i apologized a lot growing up. but she would say that i didn’t really mean it unless i made amends, and changed my behavior. that sorry means change (and the subext i got, sorry means obesiance.) i know this wasn’t my mom’s intended message, but somehow i got from that that it’s not okay to be okay, and apologize. that being miserable is a way to atone. (i guess that one’s pretty ubiquitous.)

i can’t stop overcorrecting by seeing how it hurts people even worse that i do so. (to be more concrete, being miserable to be sorry for a thoughtless remark, triggers bigger badder feelings than the remark did.) it is true, but i’m not able to use that to change. i have to find something else.

i am limping and sore. (not that limping is a bad or shameful thing.)  i guess i need to work on self interest. after all, everyone acting in [true] self interest will make the world a better place, right? or not-acting in self interest. i need to not-act in self interest.

whenever i use my spirituality to help me puzzle out my hurts, i feel so stupid and pretentious. like using others’ thoughts to help myself along is cheating, or at least not genuine.

i don’t know. i can’t talk myself out of despair. maybe that’s just what i need to feel right now. suffering is not more or less sacred than sensuality or contentment. but by its nature, i can’t just let it go at that. i rail against it, i want it to stop.

i hope, at least, that i’ve talked myself a bit from the flat nothing of depression to the clean wound of grief.

being broken together

Written on April 28, 2009 by beth and matt. 0 Comments

edges are having a hard time. their birthday is today yesterday, and like birthdays are so often, it’s upsetting and menacing and just generally being a pain in their ass. it’s such a well-defined thing that i keep feeling like i somehow have to be strong for them. like only one person can be the focus. (the focus of what?) like only the normative state, the only unmarked case, is to be okay or happy.

but edges and we are good teachers and good learners. bit by bit, we are trying to find something more stable than everyone-is-okay. it is very hard, like trying to write with a non-dominant hand. we have a lot of false starts, a lot of missed steps where we run away and hide and can’t deal at all. but it always comes right again. i love to participate in a relationship that’s so renewable. whatever cloth we make together is all holey, and more trustworthy for it. at least, i think that in the good moments.

why is the idea that only one person can be upset so persistent? we all seem to see support as a zero sum game – one person gives it, one person takes it. i know i think badly of myself/ves when i’m “using up” somebody else’s caring. and there’s something – there’s focus, and roles – but i don’t think you need to devote yourself to comforting someone to give them support, and i don’t think it’s necessary to have a clear focal point in conversation. for example, does it matter who is hugging who? isn’t it a fairly mutual activity? (so why do we hug someone, instead of hugging with them?)

some of it has to do with how much is tied up in the concept of “okay” and how important it is that that be maintained. when we are not okay we always feel like we’re a drain on resources, a drag, a negative. it seems almost like part of the definition. we are hurting others with our hurting. we are forcing them to be near something unpleasant. we have to defend ourselves – the unmarked case is “okay”. (i am not even sure what that means, but that’s another post.) if we are “not okay”, we have to explain and specify and provide reasons. any vagueness here is somehow a failure. like “not okay” can be converted to “okay” if we have a defensible reason for being upset, with a visible solution.

all my friends would probably define themselves as crazy, as would i, and in these crazy communities this issue comes up again and again. there is an implicit hierarchy we explicitly fight against, at best. who has the most right to be upset? who has the most shit going on? there is this subconscious, automatic reckoning, and it’s so pervasive, i know we all do it. even though we talk about not wanting to do it. the one who is worse off is special and deserving – but on the flip side, the one who is better off and accepts it gets the moral high ground. “oh, my stuff is stupid. yours is real.” then you are the modest one, the restrained one. at the very least, you are building up credit for the next time  you break down. but that credit is damn hard to spend… it’s such a fucking illusion.

i’ve also noticed that people who self-define as okay tend to think that there needs to be a buddy system, every not-okay bonded and surrounded only with okays. (i’d love some better terminology. but everything carries too many connotations, or is too specific.) some mental health professionals do this too, i think. they’re afraid we’re going to encourage each other, teach each other how to be miserable. heaven forbid we provide each other with validation, let alone encouragement. to me, this feels like the same kind of slimy reasoning that says schoolkids shoot each other because of video games. it doesn’t wash at all. 

anyway, the okay people are too afraid of us rubbing off on them. they’ll all eventually run away – but still try to govern what “influences” we have contact with.

i want to reject all of that. i want to get away from the coin-world where one side is always on top. support can be so many things. so many aspects of support are uniquely suited to others who know what it feels like. practical things that take a tangible amount of energy, that we might not be up to when upset – like cooking or cleaning –  are so rarely what we need the most. just being there, especially if we’re not trying to make things better, can make so much difference. 

maybe one of the important things to remember when attempting to provide or receive support is that we can’t be fixed, and we can’t fix another person. it may not be possible or desirable to feel better. 

i guess there’s a reason i’ve devoted so much of my life to peer support. heh.

i gather speed

Written on April 14, 2009 by beth. 0 Comments

we got very triggered over the weekend, easter stuff, and we’re just today starting to relax from it. there’s a story to tell, maybe, but it’s not mine. and we’ve come through, and it’s therapy day, and we’ll be ok. i’m trying to breathe slow and deep this morning. i stretched my body out, realizing what i was doing wrong growing up, why i could never become flexible enough: i always stretched to the point of pain. it’s still a habit, to push as much as i can. today i reasoned with myself that if i could feel a stretch, it must be doing something. and realized how easy and pleasant it can be, and maybe that’s the road to flexibility.

anyway, that’s body, and i’m sure there’s some application there to take back to mind and spirit. it’s nothing new or deeply profound, but any angle that deepens my perception has got to be a good thing. i feel tremulous.

i’ve been having what feels like blood sugar crashes a lot lately. i think i know why: i think it’s when i eat something sweet in the morning and then nothing else to back it up. so why don’t i just stop? i had two cookies just now and i don’t feel up to making myself breakfast. i know i will pay and i should just eat now so i don’t have to. is there someone inside that likes the trembly dizzy feeling? or is trying to tell us something? i should just go eat. but nothing is easy enough.

i’m still working at settling into my free time. it’s hard to adjust quickly and gently. i’m trying to go for gently. some days we still don’t feel up to doing anything, even if there’s nothing we have to do. but the apartment is clean, and most days we have some glimmer of hope.

to an insane degree

Written on October 18, 2008 by beth and matt. 0 Comments

i’m falling apart.
i’m overly emotional.
i’m unable to get functional time (wrt school anyway).
i’m closer to the surface.
i’m fragile.
i’m switchy.
did i mention unable to get functional time? and did i mention that i have group members expecting me to get things done by four today?
i’m vulnerable.
i’m in physical pain.
i’m exhausted.
essentially, i’m in crisis. 

but damn it all, i know that this move was a really good thing.  and i say that knowing my state of mind is not unrelated. i can make it through this? that has to be true. i’ve made it through so much. yes, we had extremely intense suicidal ideation/wish last night… but i guess that’s not the same as carrying it out.

i’m not sure of much. i know that we are undergoing some sort of rebalancing – us therapy types, us fronts, had a very free rein for a very long time. to others it feels like when the therapy types are unchecked, we become insufferable and cocky, too sure of ourselves, too attached to ourselves, too affected. they exploded in meticulously detailed violence, rage, hate at us last night. maybe that’s their right. i mean, maybe we do need an attitude adjustment. maybe we have been self-satisfied. i don’t know.

but i do know that this move is good.

though thinking about it now, while feeling proud of ourselves for something we shouldn’t have was too much attachment to the self, so was needing to be a smooth surface to which no external anger can attach, can find purpose. presuming to be able to avoid anger is incredibly cocky and self-centered.

everything is dangerous. i don’t have time to be writing this entry. i don’t have room for crisis, but i guess that’s always the case when crisis comes.

even though our sky is falling, this doesn’t feel like a setback or a relapse to me. certainly it is a low point of the spiral… but i know we are moving forward. and i say that doubting a lot more than i usually doubt.

all i can fall back on is mercy, self-forgiveness, gentleness, is knowing i am not special, different, above or below the mass of humanity, is my faith in imperfection and in a rhythm my body knows but i don’t know consciously. i’m thinking of the three treasures from the tao – mercy, moderation, modesty. and my versions thereof.

that paragraph provoked more rage from those others. we are not in equilibrium.

truth is a villain

Written on September 18, 2008 by beth, kat and matt. 1 Comment

and i am hurting, aching, tired bone-deep, weary, overwhelmed, and i am sick. but i am so lucky, lucky, lucky compared to everyone. compared to! those are the red-alarm words, right there, but what do i do with that? the fact of the matter is, everyone is really objectively worse off than me. my throat is barely sore, i’ve coughed like four times, my stomach can stand food, my nose is clear (thank you flonase!) all that’s wrong is headaches, aches, fatigue. so i owe. i owe and owe, i should be there for people. i should be other-focused. should is another word that raises red flags. 

lucky girl, lucky girl… you know what’s kinda cool? i can usually tell when something is an old tape, because it doesn’t use the language of my true gender. lucky lucky lucky lucky.

we have talked in therapy about how we feel like others’ hard times mean we should be flawless, other-focused, strong. and sharon always says that isn’t true. that really, two people can be hurting and be supporting each other. like support can be a two-way street simultaneously. it is a very hard idea. but maybe it is the only way out of quicksand like this.

i feel badly, because shoulds and comparisons cluster thickly around my head. aeron asks me to make him jello and i suppress, suppress, suppress. i owe him. he is worse off than me. plus sickness gets to him way worse than it does to me. i think it has to do with his asperger’s, he is just so sensitive to everything in his environment, so particular. sickness is a change in the routine, and it’s sensory stimuli you can’t get away from. whereas i either just dissociate, or become a whiny kid, or both. but really i am pretty good at ignoring what is going on with my body. i try not to. but i can, still, sometimes, much of the time.

that’s why the migraines were so damn scary and why i whined and whined about them – i couldn’t get away!

beth is close tonight, and as is often the case, annoying most of the rest of us. she uses words like holding, like wellness, like breath, beside, nourish, like with. actually we do kind of like the language of “holding ideas” – even if it’s embarrassingly cheesy. it just means there is something between believing and not believing. because we can’t believe. but increasingly, the new ideas come alongside the old ones. i hate myself for being self-centered, while remembering the idea of love for self. and holding is a little less intellectual of a term, for something that is already too intellectual a process. we can only ever logically grasp what we are supposed to believe, and say we believe. we can’t believe it, except maybe sometimes someone like beth will bring us a sudden draught of cold clear drinking water. and in those moments we hurt so very badly for ourselves. (and it’s a good thing.)

we lost our copy of ursula’s translation of the tao te ching, dammit. it’s lost because it was out, because we wanted it handy… sigh. i could really use a drink at that spring.

front door, back door

Written on July 8, 2008 by beth and matt. 0 Comments

today in therapy we did more “preparation” work about nymph. (as usual, she was there but not out.) we tried to talk about some of the stuff that might come up and so we were sort of discussing programming. and sharon was saying… well i’m not exactly sure what she was saying. what i got from it was that she didn’t like to deal with the programming in a specialized way, but just treat it like any trauma (as severe). maybe that isn’t what she was trying to say at all. i kept talking slower and slower (or rather, more and more haltingly). i didn’t have any affect on the outside but things were crazy on the inside.

we started to feel so hopeless about ever doing this work. we were reminded of … it’s so hard to talk about this stuff. to me it seems like there are two common paradigms in programming therapy. one is to work with the structure and subvert it or dismantle it respecting its existence or whatever. the other is to refuse to acknowledge that the abusers had that much power.

i’m really mixed actually. for example, we’ve read about psychic surgery in safe passage, and there’s the sort of two ideas: one, you do some more “surgery” to remove the object; two, you refuse to acknowledge that there’s anything there and repeat that the body rejects anything foreign to itself. (can you tell how many times i’ve read that damn book? i didn’t look that up or anything.) i’m pretty sure my therapist falls squarely in the second camp. and opinion-wise, certainly in this case, i do too.

so i guess two ways of thinking are like front door or back door. the back door is trying to get at people, not working with the programming. i think it was caryn stardancer at a survivorship conference that first gave us those words (“back door”).

our immediate and violent reaction, at least someone(s) inside, was to warn that the back door is booby-trapped too.

which i know is stupid because it’s like… if you’re not acknowledging whatever about the programming, then by definition you are supposed to be getting around all the traps. not dealing with the traps on their level, because you want to emphasize that we are in control and we don’t have to make any bombs go off.

but i just get this panic and a sense of hopelessness. there’s no way in. blackness crept in from the edges of my vision, i froze. i continued talking, but i was able to communicate less and less. i got through the session ok. we are supposed to maybe start the emdr on thursday. (or i mean start the part with the side-to-side stimulation.) but i don’t know if we are strong enough. at the same time, i really really want to be strong enough for this one. i feel like we’re ready to go there. i don’t know.

we weren’t expecting to stop talking or get sleepy or be pulled up short. it caught us by surprise because we had been more meta and academic about the whole thing. but we clearly had a very strong reaction. so strong that we did not show any affect about it (though i was trying, and a couple of times did breathe fast enough for her to notice. i want to be authentic.) but it’s not like we consciously produced that reaction, because i swear we weren’t expecting it at all. it stopped us up dead and the hope is still gone.

there’s no way in. i might as well give up now. oh yes i know these are probably programming messages. i feel fairly sure that talking about working with programming set off a tripwire. i mean, my first reaction to all the programming stuff is to deny it, but i’m trying not to do that. so to me it sounds stupid that there would be this hopelessness programmed into us, like we are trying to blame every little thing on the programming.

at the same time, if i were to trust how it feels, it’s pretty clear that something mechanical is going on. automatic, x thus y. and i know it’s not unreasonable or anything, given the premise that programming can exist.

but my hopelessness doesn’t feel unfounded. there’s no way in. how can we ever get past any of this? i really really know we need to do some therapy work with nymph. that is just a huge part of the work our system needs to do. i think if we can get this piece, it might potentially be as big as the piece we got last summer. bigger, really, though maybe not so dramatic. i don’t want to give up. but there are bombs around every way in, every one.

and if we don’t acknowledge the bombs, then… i don’t know what. feels a little dangerous, like ignoring a threatening phone call. or it still stops up short because we can’t actually say these things. can a piece of work in therapy really be successful if you never tell your therapist what memory you are working with? sharon says we can say as much or as little as we want.

i don’t know where this can go. i’m scared and in denial, at one time. i feel immensely discouraged. even trying to keep in mind that this feeling may not be organic, and certainly isn’t present-rooted.