(Written in March 2011)
I looked out at the empty bird feeder and remembered the time I was angry at myself because I couldn’t fill the hummingbird feeder. I feel a huge wave of remorse for having treated myself so badly. O gosh feeling a lot of pain and compassion for the one who is angry because she wants a bigger life and she loves the hummingbirds, and the one who wants so badly to fill the feeder and can’t.
Felt sad & scared most of yesterday. I called Bobbi in the morning and told her how I was feeling. She talked a bit about the camp. She said she was delighted I’d signed up because it meant I was feeling better. Then I tried to tell her how I was feeling hoping to get through to the crying which often relieves fear. We agreed that I was scared because of the part of me that says “Just snap out of it.” I tried to talk back to that one, to explain how my life is. Bobbi thought I was being too cerebral and wanted to work on it with NVC. She was worried that her phone was going to cut out, so I suggested we hang up and I’d see if I could write what I needed to say.
I do not choose to be this way. If it were possible to choose to enjoy the life I have now, I would do that. I am the way I am because something happened to me in the past that left me with a brain and nervous system that does not self-regulate in the way a healthy person was designed to. I struggle every day with feelings that belong to the past but get triggered by something in the present. I work very hard to manage this delicate hypersensitive nervous system. I work very hard trying to pay attention to sensations in the present. I struggle to not hate myself when I’m having a hard time. What I need is compassion and empathy, not impatience, anger, disgust, or shaming.
The other thing I need is to feel solid, centered and grounded.
That helped. I called Bobbi back and read it to her. Then I said what I needed was to feel centered and grounded. I tried but couldn’t do it. So I said what I’d like to do is go walk the dog (It was a beautiful sunny day, and of course that often triggers me) so we hung up and I went out trying to be aware of my feet contacting the ground and my muscles working.
I wish I’d written about the fear state while I was in it. I suspect that I was also dissociated. There was a lot of energy in front of my chest, it was in lines, sort of like a cage, and my energy was trapped in it, held in front of my chest and around and above my head. That sounds about right.