Abandonment

Apparently this is an issue for me.  It’s 5:55am and I haven’t been able to sleep.  Just cat napping throughout the night.  I put the tv on and was watching an old tv show called, Diagnosis Murder, and I must have fallen asleep as I just woke up from one of those abandonment dreams.   The characters in the dream were Steve and Mark Sloan from the tv show …. probably because I’d been watching the show when I fell asleep.  We were in a house and discussing going out for dinner.   They headed out to the car while I went to get a jacket and turn off the house lights.   When I came outside the car was gone.   They had left without me.   Interestingly the outside of the location was our home up north on Georgian Bay.   The driveway there was a half circle that had a defined enter and exit  (due to terrain).   The geography is easier to draw than to explain:

I looked down the drive towards the main road and noticed that a tree was down and blocking the “in” direction of the lane and thought ,  “maybe they’ve noticed they forgot me but can’t get back down the driveway”.   So I walked to the end of the driveway hoping to find them waiting for me but alas, they were not.   I woke up just as I was contemplating texting them to say,  “I guess you haven’t noticed that I’m not in the car”.

 

What I’m Feeling

We’re at this point in the trauma group where we are encouraged to share some of out story as it relates to our core beliefs.  We’re told don’t have to share if we don’t feel up to it and that there is no pressure.   But there IS pressure.  There’s that internal pressure associated with not being the odd one out.   And it’s anxiety inducing.

We’re dealing with core beliefs and talking about where they originate.   The story behind them.  Our group is small.  Only three of us and Sean.   And there are astonishing parallels in our stories.   When it was my turn I spoke about my mother and that side of my story.  I feel okay talking about that part of my story.   But I can’t divulge the other side.   The sexual assault side.   Ugh I can’t stand those words.   I can’t say those words out loud.  Even writing them is difficult and I can feel myself recoiling.   Just writing those words took several minutes and multiple attempts.  Even thinking those words is uncomfortable.   If thinking and writing them is so stressful and so triggering, how can I speak them?   And this is where I can’t quite articulate my feelings and likely will not use the right words,  but here goes …….

I still feel ‘guarded’.  I feel as if the others in the group are more open than I am.   And that makes me feel like I don’t belong there.   Like I’m a fraud.   I can’t share the parts of my story that are the most painful and traumatic.   Yes there are things tied into the mother wound, but they are also stand alone events which would have been devastating even if I’d had a supportive parent to believe me and help me cope and heal.   It’s the words.   I can’t write them again .   I hate those words.   Hearing them makes me cringe.   Thinking them makes feel sick.  Writing them makes me feel  ……. can’t find a word.   Speaking them feels impossible.  It’s the words .   Those two words.  And I don’t know words to replace those words.   I know that sounds crazy.  To be paralyzed by words.   But it’s a real thing.

Not being able to share/speak that side of my story with the group makes me feel unworthy of being there.   I’ve only spoken that side of my story very briefly with Sean almost a year ago.   And only disclosing that the events happened.  Not dissecting the trauma and how it’s affected my life.  But I feel very guarded about those parts of my life.   It’s still stuff I don’t want people to know.  It’s humiliating.  Embarrassing.   Maybe shame is a part of the emotion?   I don’t know.   It’s not so much the events themselves, but  what and who I am as a result of those events.   It’s about my inability to form close human connections.   It’s about how I can’t see doctors.   It’s about how people can’t touch me.   It’s about how people can’t see my body.   About how I can’t even look at my own body.  It’s about I feel deprived of and afraid of intimacy.  But at the same time crave it.   It’s about people knowing that I’m so damaged and so unloveable and so incapable of making connections.  I feel like not being able to share these things with the group makes me dishonest.   Afterall,  I’m hiding those things.   I’m afraid of being ‘found out’.

 

New Day

I finally fell asleep around 7am and woke up at 10am.   I woke up cranky and agitated.  I’m hungry but too unmotivated to get up and make something to eat.   It’s almost noon.  I’m sitting in the recliner under a comforter with 4 dogs and 3 cats on top of me.  I’ll have to get up soon ……

 

Technology

One of the things that made the trauma group less terrifying was the fact that we didn’t have to share our stories.   That was stage one.   Now we’re in stage two and beginning to share.  It helps that it is a smaller group as I think sharing with a large group would be way too …… well ….. impossible for me.   Because of covid 19 we are meeting virtually through the OTN network.   I don’t know how the others feel but for me that degree of separation that technology offers,  makes talking to the group easier.   I don’t think I could speak if we were meeting in person.

 

Body Shaming

It just occurred to me that it’s possible that some of my phobia about being exposed and/or touched might be linked to all the body shaming I endured throughout my life.  My body was criticized at home and at ballet.  My personality was also criticized.  I couldn’t do anything right and there was always something wrong with the way I looked.  

I always thought the being touched/exposed was from the Liam thing and other assaults but now I wonder if perhaps body shaming is also a part of the equation.

 

My Turn In Group

It was my turn again today to speak parts of my story or whatever  I felt I would like to share.    It’s been a very stressful and difficult week.   A lot of stressors.  For starters, several of my classes did not accrue sufficient registrations to run, so this session will be lacking financially.   Second the property tax office informed me that due to having fallen behind (due to loss of income because of covid 19) they recalculated and now say I need to pay $698 per month OR lose my property.   I ask you, if I can’t affor $463/month how do they expect me to come up with $698/month?   There’s no logic.  So there was that stress this week.   Then on Monday night coming home from work the car pulled sharply to the right and then started making a blub, blub, blub sound like a flat tire.   Gotta be honest,  I was cursing,  “if one of my brand new tires is flat ….. !!”  Of course, fear and panic set in almost immediately.    I was about  three quarters of the way home and feeling really frightened that I might break down and be stranded.   I prayed ,  “Please God just get me home”.    I finally made it home and when I turned into the driveway,  there was a loud clunk.   I called my mechanic the next morning and took the car to his place.   On inspection he discovered that the passenger side rear wheel was about to FALL OFF!!!   He was able to jiggle it with his hands.   It was horrifying to see it so loose and think that it could have fallen off while I was driving.   The cause was something to do with a worn out wheel bearing.   It’s fixed now but the stress is still with me.   The next stressor came yesterday when one of the dogs belonging to a colleague became quite ill and may have to be euthanized.    She is only a year and a half of age.   I can feel their hearts breaking and it brings me to tears.  It’s one of those times when there are no words and you just want to hug the person to let them know you care.  But this damn pandemic doesn’t allow us even this most basic human connection.   And then today,  my elderly cat Stevie, passed away.    It has not been a good week.  And it was my turn to speak today.

I went into this day feeling emotionally out of sorts and weepy and somewhat scattered.  I didn’t know what I was supposed to talk about or what I wanted to talk about.  I think I just began by saying just that.   I didn’t know where to go with my thoughts.  So I spoke about how I still feel guarded and can’t speak about certain aspects of my life and maybe it’s not about sharing with other people, maybe it’s that I’m not ready to face those things myself.   And I shared how that makes me feel like I’m not worthy of being in the group > like I’m not holding up my end because I’m not as open as others.   Beyond that I can’t remember what I talked about.

I don’t know who chose to put the three of us together in this group but I am glad that we are the three that we are.   We were all in that larger in person pre-covid group for stage one of this trauma recovery program.   And it seems since going to the virtual format the group was divided into smaller groups each with a different facilitator.  Like I say, I don’t know who decided which people should be grouped together but I am glad we are the three that we are and that our facilitator is Sean.