From eight to nine

I've not blogged for a while, not because I haven't wanted to but because I've been learning. For those of you that know me, I love to learn. Sadly however I have had to come to a realisation that no matter how much you "know" or can understand whats "happening" knowledge itself will only get you so far. It can give meaning, help you express and communicate, it can even give you confidence, but there are some things knowledge can't do.

It can't stop your over wrought nervous system shaking when something spontaneous happens, it can't get rid of emotional pain trapped inside you, it can't help explain fear even if the logical explanation might help comfort "it" a little.

So as those of you who read my last post have realised, I have got to a stage where I am ready to introduce my mind to my body. "What?" you may ask "your attached to your body, what on earth do you mean?".

Regulation

I asked a friend last night to write a blog as she hadn't in a long time and now take my own advice. As I'm sure the whole country knows, we have just had the summer holidays. Now I enjoy my kids being off,  enjoy being able to travel, love seeing friends and sitting in the sun. I relish experiencing new things as the kids get older and this year we have reached a stage where we can all ride a bike on the road.

But as someone who also struggles with my brain the summer holidays present another challenge. My therapist is on holiday to which means the ability to upload offload discuss how situations can or are being handled is not there. I usually see this as a chance to put into practise all the things I have  learnt over the previous months, I see it as a marker as to how well me myself and my others are getting on and co operating with each other. I like to see how well we can remain in the present and not be swallowed by past flashbacks or future anxiety.

Sticking out

I once watched a series of you tube videos looking at how different communities embrace harsh experiences. For example if a whole set of people have experienced an earthquake then they journey together in the path to processing that experience and coming to terms with it. Everyone in the same boat wobbling along together, everyone having and giving support in the most basic form by just knowing what the other has experienced the same experience.

Similarly we at the moment in the UK have just been through the last few years of our banking system collapsing. Everyone has an opinion on it and has or knows someone that has been affected by the capital fear. Its a journey we as a country have travelled together and are still travelling together.

We have friends that work in the village in Romania (near the old orphanage which made us shudder on early 90s news headlines) and although divided in its opinions there is an understanding for those who grew up in the orphanage, there is a massive amount of unsaid communication as to what and why those individuals are the way they are. 

Silence - Friend or Foe?

"MUM!, Carwen won't speak AGAIN!"

1993 aged 16yrs and two years into being  secretly being stalked by Frog Face. One of the ways I coped was to write a diary in which I would never acknowledge Frog Face. I hoped in some way that I could literally write Frog Face out of my life and forget.

14:08:93

...Last nights dinner was another "take the piss out of Carwen event", I have now got to the stage where I can just shut off. I can hear them calling me 'deaf and dumb' because I never answer or defend myself against their insults. It does not matter any more as nothing can hurt me {as when I was younger} when I  made myself oblivious to physical pain, I can now shut down mentally. I have found fighting back never works and you only end up getting hurt twice as much. As the verbal abuse keeps coming you know inside you have won because you remain emotionless......

18:09:93

.....You know sometimes you wish something drastic would happen and then 'something' would effect you and maybe you would be 'seen'. Then when something drastic happens to you your not sure if it is drastic at all. I mean one minute all you want to do is cry forever and the next its just not reality. You seem to be shrouded in a haze of numbing peace. Maybe this is what people mean when they say in drastic situation "you just get to a stage where the tears dry and you just have to live on as best you can"........

06:10:93

.....Oh I don't know everything is upside down. I want to scream and kick till I'm blue in the face. I want to be alone but I feel so inhibited when I am. At school  sometimes there are so many people around all talking and making the air clammy and hot. I put on my walkman but although it helps me to forget I'm with people - I can't.   I want to run away and be cold, to breath cold fresh air, to be in some quiet place where I won't see anyone and they won't see me. I would put on a song and dance without worry. I'd be in my world singing at the top of my voice and dancing circle after circle. The air is crisp and dry, the sky heavy with light. My eyes drink in the beauty of my world into which no one else can come.  I am  without the thickness and stuttering, I am without having to try and speak properly.  It's impossible and I want to cry, I cant be alone.

I have an aching in my belly I just don't want to 'Be'. I spend most of my time in my fantasy world were I can escape. The thing is I'm spending more and more time there. It scares me as I know its wrong but I just need to be there and although I'm physically not free there - I am. Is that wrong do you think?....

Having never told my dysfunctional family anything I had gone through, my behaviour to them was really hard to understand. Each of us lived and survived our own stories of coping. None of it was "normal" and we each lived extreme confusing unseen lives.

12:10:93

....Quotes from dinner tonight referring to yours truly.

 "I hate you so much x2"....

"I really passionately hate you, you are so annoying!"......

 they speak to each other.. "I know I get that feeling when I look at 'It'... 

"mind you I never speak to 'it' (laughing) "I'm glad I only have to see 'it' at dinner"...

I'm feeling a tad pissed off! well no that's a lie I feel nothing to them. I am nothing to them. Its stupid to think I ever will be. The thing that scares me, I mean really scares me is that I guess because of me having my own world of silence and the three months of hiding that I  did over the summer I think I may have forgotten how to cope. I mean I used to go a few days without speaking or seeing anyone. I could always integrate back when I had to, now though I am more paranoid than ever If only I could keep this wall around me for longer; I just get so terrified of people. Crowds are becoming another problem, I can only speak to one person at a time and I can't cope if lots of people are talking.

In class I freak if the teacher asks me a question or looks at me. The other day I had taken soup in a flask to school and it must have got smashed inside on the bus. During history I took a sneaky swig and ended up with a mouth full of glass. I couldn't do anything about it so had to sit there for twenty minutes for class to end and go to the loo.  I generally feel ugly and pathetic, I don't know what to do. I can't tell anyone as there is no one to tell. 

I'm writing this because on my journey into discovering, I used to get so confused until I realised there is a difference between people who have experienced a trauma and those that grew up within trauma and have had their whole character / world view grown in it. 

I hear people comment on how they wished they could go back to their twenties or teen years as if the years of age are robbing them. When people talk about 'getting back to what they used to be' prior to the experienced trauma, I used to feel like failure until I understood I didn't have anything to 'go back to.'  I have never felt robbed by the age thing and feel every year I live is better & more free than the last; I am relieved I'm here. Ironically it's not because the years have made me stronger, it's because I am now safe and it's in that safety I am able to finally shed my strength, shed my walls and know I am still loved accepted and 'seen'. #CPTSD.