visiting the present

I am feeling tectonic shifts in my gut. My walk is different. Feels like I am finally pushing the ass end of that elephant through the eye of the needle known as my life. The absence of the elephant will be a liberation from shame and self hate. A 50 plus year old elephant that has kept me from myself and the present.

Can't breathe

I cannot breathe. I keep having trouble catching my breath and not feeling panicked. Unfamiliar that is how I feel to myself. Unfamiliar. I am tired and have low energy. After work and workouts I have nothing left to do anything else.

If they only knew

Forever

For all the therapy over all the years, starting in my 20s and continuing until now at age 60 I have avoided the most painful part of my life. Yesterday I said the words I have been too ashamed to say. Said them out loud to my therapist. And nothing bad happened. And then the other words came at me from across the room. Words that were painful to hear. Analysis of why I did what I did and why I had never spoken of it.

He was in some ways the person who taught me about pleasure. Taught me about my own body.

Stay present
Do not abandon this long struggled for opportunity to be well and to be at peace with myself
I can work through this

It was closure
It was a moment to find resolution at last
It was a search for identity
a return to what was familiar
was this me?
I went there to find out

Not uncommon as most experiences are
I am not the only person who has ever made that choice

The pleasure part
I do not remember ever experiencing any pleasure
I remember pretending to be asleep
I remember feeling chocked and gagged
Felling bad

Jimmy I could not trust
Jimmy embarrassed me publicly
In front of his friends he humiliated me
He was an embarrassment to the family, in my mind
His elaborate lies and fantasies
I only have memories of being with him and being embarrassed

I am present
I am not discharging
I am exploring the new information in sisterhood with kindness and compassion

crickets

I love the sound of crickets,  it comforts me.

Looking for comfort because of so much discomfort. Dealing with my anger, of externalizing it. MY work with the new therapist has been good, very good. But it is hard work. It makes me tired and sometimes makes me scared.

Landlady threatening 20% rent increase. An email, she sent me an email. We are in the same house and she chose email. I was insulted. The idea of moving and losing my nest is upsetting. I am quite worried about it.

Work.
Overloaded. Overwhelmed. Exhausted. Overstimulated. Burn out coming I can feel it.

In July I have to buy my car and hold Dingell event. August is michfest. September is Suds.

I know that Maggie issues continue to hurt me deeply. I remain angry hurt and v sad about all of it. No doubt the experience has slowed me down and opened me up.

 Being present with the pain is difficult, I would rather disassociate and be gone ... getting smaller and getting better means doing all the work all the time and it is rewarding and exhausting. Nothing tastes as good as healthy feels. getting smaller and feeling physically safe are highly relative.

Feeling very threatened at a basic level because of challenge of losing my home and healing from the rejection. My home is part of my healing so to loose it would be devastating to me.

The therapist is modeling positive affirmations for me. Saying very positive affirming things about me trying to get me to feel that about myself. Has every therapist done that or is it because it is a butch lesbian saying it I am hearing it? .. Allowing and feeling an impact.

It is painful Practicing the experience of presence. But often the feeling of goodness also takes over and I am happier. Staying present with that will help my healing so I am focused there. Gratitude. Presence. Strength.

I am safe and nothing bad is going to happen.
I deserve happiness.

Coffee is improved with the sound of crickets...as is presence.

good news

I have learned something new about myself.

I am trying to be present with it, but it is unfamiliar to me, and my challenge now is to become familiar and comfortable with it.

I couldn't figure out what is was I was saying to myself that was so negative, and then I realized....
It is not so much what I am saying to myself but what I am NOT saying to myself....what affirmations am I not saying. I am not saying to myself Margaret you deserve a good life. Margaret you deserve to have someone who loves. Margaret you are worthy of having what you want.

I have never said that to myself. Omission of desire.

Choosing instead from what was available,  not saying what I want, but choosing and going for it. Marilyn, Maggie, jobs, places to live, more like what is offered. Never me saying This or that is what I want and going for that. Except once. HAG.

......and now saying those things to myself and more affirmations. Changing my perspective. Feel physically different. I am thinking=feeling-looking- differently and it feels unfamiliar.

Forgiving ..Dalton said I was a very forgiving person of people I love. I saw my forgiveness as a weakness but it is a strength. And if I forgive others, I can forgive myself. That's the final step. Forgive me.

That is what I am doing now. Telling myself I deserve to have what I want, I am worthy and now I am angry at Maggie and Bobby. It is so curious to me. If I am worthy, then I give myself permission to be angry at those who hurt me. Reversal of feeling ...forgiveness and now anger.

cold weather influence

This cold weather is depressing and oppressive. It takes up my time. It takes up a lot of thought space, we are always thinking about the snow...and we are putting out more physical effort too to shovel the snow and salt the ice and push the car. Parking is insane because the ice is taking up paring spaces everywhere. ...so much more physical efforts. I am now afraid of ice. I have arrived in that AARP house and understand. The other day I actually walked in my stocking feet to get to my car because it was safer. At work I dried my socks by my office space heater. My office space heater is on every day. The car is cold, the office, my desk is cold, the basement is cold, it is really cold outside and it has been for weeks now. Ice everywhere. And many days of snow falling and driving in slow traffic and brushing off my car not once but three or four times a day. All this drives me inside. I go to work and to buy groceries and gas. I hate going out in it any more. I just want to hibernate and stay inside where it is warm. and stay inside where it is warm and quiet. Lovely silence. No one asking anything of me. No expectations to be somewhere doing something that I do not want to be doing. I like the alone quiet. it feels safe.

episode 661

I am in the middle of an episode, a ptsd episode. I have had too many emotions in too short a period of time. The visit of Kate, Erin and Tee, the show, visit ends and meeting with Maggie.  It all came together and threw me down. I wrote a brave and pre-mature text to Trish saying "I am better she is not worthy of me" and the next day I was crashing. The meeting has become surreal to me as a memory. So unfamiliar and non emotional. I was all business. Nothing personal and she was the same. All too much emotion.  I wanted to change my mood so I have been smoking and eating. But I have come to the end of it now and am getting back to presence...but with a little less pain. Number 661 is an arbitrary number I am sure it is in the thousands...but 661 is one episode a month for 55 years. My physical pain has increased too. My shoulders, both sides are painful to lay on and my right shoulder has shooting pain and weakness. Pain in my left hip has returned. The toll on my physical and emotional well being is significant. I think about that a lot and what I can do to counter that with healing. That is why I am in therapy, to heal myself. I need to be compassionate to my self and go back to eating healthy and exercising every day and I will feel better. Get strong again and stay strong longer.

Therapist number ? Let me count them starting with Myron, Paul, Danny, Gerry, Tom, the woman who's name I never remember, Sharon, Alice, the emdr specialist, and the woman in Baltimore Alice Miller, Susie and now Dalton. 11. Alice had the greatest positive impact and Susie helped me too. Each one did....Danny I think was able to break through great big brick walls that I had built around me. Alice put me back in my body and then I left Buffalo. I think I could not be present in  my body in Buffalo because it would always feel unsafe.

Every move was because I did not feel safe so I moved. Age 12 I moved to Grier. That is where I began to heal, and I was in the company of girls and it felt so safe. That is the safe I want to feel again but now the safe has to be me, myself and I. I can be safe in situations by protecting myself. I was safe in my meeting with Maggie because I kept it all business.

I have created a new sanctuary. the apartment looks brand new as if I moved in place. Change. Something I hope I can continue to embrace.