(Written in July 2008)
I’ve been reading from 1986, and it’s so painful. I am struggling so hard to keep going, and I’m angry at myself for “not doing better”, and deeply disappointed that I’m not being able to carry out the projects I want to do. And I have no idea what I’m up against. I’m struggling with diet and the candida program because that helps somewhat — but it doesn’t help enough to make it easy to keep going. I’m aware of the COA issues, but the only tool I have is intellectual analysis and understanding. I’ve just read a fine analysis of the inner critical parent (from October 86) and how its criticisms are not helpful — but I can still be triggered by that voice, as R’s invalidations as recently as Dec 06 can collapse me completely. I’m struggling with the plane phobia — angry at myself for not being able to handle it better, angry and hating toward people who make noise and feeling guilty about that, being invalidated by everyone around me… medication and Dr. Rankin are 11 years in the future, and the full understanding that I’m dealing with PTSD doesn’t happen until 2001. And all that time I “soldiered on”. As I watch Eleanor soldiering on now, unable to address the real issues because she can’t find the right people to help her. Not for lack of courage or grit or intelligence or willingness to work hard, but for lack of understanding and compassion in the general population.
I felt a bit blue all morning. The old dull ache of heart no matter what I did. Reading my journal for 88 may be where the blues came from. At one point, at Kripalu, Sumitra says “understanding is the booby prize.” Possibly to counteract a belief about how you have to understand something before you can try it? But it was absolutely wrong for me. Understanding what I was truly up against was absolutely necessary for me. As long as I thought I was just up against a “garden variety” neurosis, or disfunctional family dynamics, I could not find compassion for myself, or accept how I was. I kept judging myself as “selfish” or “too sensitive”, I accepted other people’s invalidation, when I tried to tell the truth about what I was suffering I called it “self-pity”. Well maybe it was “pity” because my attitude was “I shouldn’t be this way” rather than true compassion because it was being so hard. Thinking of myself as having a chronic illness — candida— helped somewhat because it allowed me to be a little easier on myself and to justify taking care of myself when I needed rest. But because it was really only a small part of the picture, the candida program: very strict diet, nystatin, etc. didn’t really work to make me feel much better, to end the mysterious and debilitating symptoms. Being so ineffective didn’t help depression at all. I was having such a hard time with the noise of the planes, and I make myself wrong for hating them — the whole thing was such a Byzantine tangle — and I know as I read that it will be nearly 10 years before I’m free of it. It took anti-depressant medication and a brilliant therapist. Now, looking back, I can see how understanding what was going on with me was absolutely necessary for my healing. Understanding — and accepting — that I had been traumatized, and understanding the physiological mechanisms of post traumatic stress. Finally the thyroid piece — I’m so grateful that Lynelle kept pushing me to see Dr. Vreeland — and the parasite piece — recent experience suggests that my mysterious bouts with illness — headache & nausea — were probably parasite related.
Bessel VanDerKolk called it “a pilgrimage.” Indeed.