1997: Frozen Terror

Posted on September 4, 2024 by jenny

From my journal for February 21, 1997. This is just after I’ve taken my first dose of Imipramine. The dose is too low to make any difference. It’s possible that the fear was triggered by my experience on Paxil.

And now the terror.  As usual, I feel flattened by it.  I know it would be good if I could walk the dog but it’s just too much.  I remember feeling this way in Brunswick — I called it the “Fear Thing” and it came and went mysteriously.  I also remember the time I went home in February — that would have been when I was living at Vaughan St. — and I was terrified for two weeks.  I felt frozen and cold.  That would have been in the early 70’s — so I’ve been dealing with this for a long time.

What I’m describing here is frozen fear, the fear felt by a someone who’s been traumatized. If they can’t fight or flee, the brainstem goes to the default which is freeze. “Freeze” is why I can’t walk the dog. The time I went “home” in February is when I went home to Cincinnati to visit my parents. I was there for two weeks and terrified the whole time. Tells me something about my relationship with my parents. I say I’ve been dealing with it “for a long time,” but I don’t realize that I’ve been dealing with it my whole life. I also have no idea that it’s an indicator of early trauma.

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1997: Candlemas

Posted on September 2, 2024 by jenny

From my journal for February 3, 1997

A headache spoiled my experience of circle dance, but it actually went well for the people — they liked the ritual I had designed of putting visions in a seed and “quickening” them.  They liked the story of how I found the shells.  Some had been to a Candlemas celebration at Mystic, CT, and had brought back gifts from there.  They had taken snow from here and brought back salt water, seaweed, and shells, which they put in a bowl on the altar.  Sandra had a small jar of beach glass which she scattered on the mirror.  I had put out 3 pottery “shells” filled with shells for them to choose, so their offerings supported my theme.  We were only 10, and it actually felt good, more intimate, they said it felt like “coming home” after being in big circles.

The holiday at the beginning of February is known as Imbolc, Candlemas, or the “Quickening” of the year. It’s the time when the seeds underground wake up and begin to start growing toward the surface. The pottery shells were pinch pots made of clay, the shells were odd shapes, no two alike, colors ranging from pale orange to yellow-white.

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1997: Medication vs. Therapy?

Posted on September 1, 2024 by jenny

From my journal for January 24, 1997

Saw Dr. Brunette today which left me completely bummed out.  I told her all that had been happening — it felt like she listened to me but didn’t really hear me.  At the end she said “Well, you sound pretty depressed” and gave me a prescription for Zoloft, as well as renewing the Lorazepam.  But she made me feel like therapy didn’t do any good, there was no point in not taking the anti-depressant.

But I feel bummed out.  And angry.  No sympathy for the hard time I’ve been having, no suggestion that the medication would help me cope while I did the work in therapy.  She was unimpressed by my hope that a new therapist might make a difference.  Damn damn damn — I feel unseen, unheard, dropped down the cracks between the medical people and the alternate ones.

The truth is that I needed both: therapy and a medication that works.  Unfortunately, Zoloft is also an SSRI like Paxil, and it’s Paxil I had a terrible experience on.  I was too afraid of Zoloft to give it a real chance.

From my journal for January 28, 1997

Thought about what I had learned from Karen.  I’m much more patient and gentle with myself than I used to be, and I am learning to comfort myself, when I feel bad now, I just embrace myself, instead of getting angry.  (or at least I try to, or remember to, I’m not always successful, it’s not yet automatic, but it is what I think to do.)

I told Dr. Rankin that my goal was to be able to sit on the couch and watch the chickadees in peace and contentment.  I think I did say something about having lost the competent, self-sufficient part.  I want to clarify that I don’t want that old self back, I’m willing to give up the old parts of myself, based on fear, and trying to control, and trying to prove.  I want something new to grow organically.  I’ve had some hints of what that might look like in the work with Karen, but they don’t “stick,” it’s like there’s some kind of foundation piece missing, some root that they could stick to.

I discovered when I finally got on anti-depressant medication that worked, that work I had done over and over again in therapy, but didn’t change my behavior, finally did start to make a difference. It’s clear that I needed both therapy and medication.

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1997: The Oneness of Perpetrator and Victim

Posted on August 28, 2024 by jenny

from my journal for January 8, 1997

Dana said “Drugs are no escape” and described a man he had once had to arrest— he was drunk, his body deteriorating, his emotions out of control, he obviously had not escaped the pain.  I thought of my parents, and it brought home to me what Elizabeth Goudge had been trying to say in the final scene between David and Sebastian — something about the oneness of the pain of both victim and perpetrator.  I saw — maybe I should say I felt or experienced since I’ve seen it before — that Mom & Dad were in awful pain, that the damage they did to me was just the outflow of that pain.  I saw that they themselves had been shaped and damaged by their environment — the vulnerability of a generation who grew up under Prohibition, World War II, mother had to cope with a number of deaths and grew up in a stiff-upper-lip family.  Neither of them actually had much chance of addressing and healing their pain.  I think, though I always knew intellectually, that they only hurt me because they were hurt themselves, at some level it felt personal, like they looked at Jenny and thought she was a shit and treated her that way.  But it wasn’t like that.  Yesterday I could feel the oneness of their pain and my pain.  It felt like a deeper level of forgiveness, seeing them caught in a trap as painful as the one I’ve been in.  This makes it possible to accept that they damaged me without blaming them, there’s just damage, as though we were all caught in a war.  Every other time I tried to stop blaming them it’s been at the cost of invalidating myself, of making it be that I wasn’t damaged and therefore all this pain I’m going through is my fault, something I do to myself out of perversity or something, defectiveness, willfulness, “wanting to be miserable.”

My ex-husband Dana worked for several years as a cop.

David and Sebastian are a bomber pilot and a concentration camp survivor in The Heart of the Family.

My father told me I “wanted to be miserable.” I didn’t believe him, but I also couldn’t seem to stop being miserable. Not until I got on medication, and found out what normal brain chemistry felt like did I realize I had been depressed my whole life. It took several more years to recognize that the depression had been caused by early trauma.

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1997: Struggle with Misery

Posted on August 27, 2024 by jenny

From my journal for January 1, 1997

I can’t trust my perceptions right now because I’m sick and everything looks bleak to me.  I’m reading my way through Elizabeth Goudge — I find even her books difficult which is an indicator of the miserable state I’m in, that I can find no comfort anywhere.  I found myself being jealous of characters that have faith in God, characters that have the fortitude to get through bad times — and I realize that I’m feeling a lot of bitterness and self-pity.  “They have faith and fortitude because they weren’t abused by their parents.”  I’d really like to let go of that — I don’t want to blame mom & dad for my lack of courage, for my failures and despair, for my inability to perceive God. Actually, I see that when I do that, I make it hopeless — they did that to me and now I can’t …   — but I can practice compassion, I can try to live with dignity and fortitude, I can try to set my emotions aside and focus my attention on god, I can try to live in the present moment.  They did damage me, yes, and that makes it hard to do theses things, but it doesn’t make it impossible.  I think of my angry rejoinder about the Journey-women, it wasn’t the abuse that made us compassionate, it was what we chose to do with the abuse.

My “angry rejoinder” was after a performance of Journey Into Courage, when we took questions from the audience.  Someone said we had learned compassion from the abuse, and I said that was not true, that abuse generally makes someone abusive.  I said we had chosen to be compassionate.

Here I can see my own good struggle, knowing I was wounded, but fighting to heal as much as possible. At that time, I didn’t know I was also up against having been traumatized before the age of three which is when the brain finishes maturing. If you are traumatized before then, it means your brain matures under the influence of trauma.

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Wisdom from Inner Teacher

Posted on August 24, 2024 by jenny

From my journal for Saturday, August 24

Wanting to talk to someone about spirituality, I remember the Inner Teacher. Haven’t asked that one for help for a long time.

Dear Inner Teacher, I’m not feeling very connected with Spirit and need some help.

Dear Jenny, actually you are pretty well connected with Spirit. Doing the metta prayer for all beings, listing the ones that are important to you, and tuning in to your connection with everything — how the Universe is all connected — are both good practices and you do them very naturally and easily.

Then why do I feel like I’m not doing anything?

Because of your childhood. Your parents essentially taught you that you couldn’t do anything right. This kind of early learning is very hard to update.

Fortunately, when I got to school, the assignments were clear, and what I did was graded consistently with truth. What I got right didn’t change from day to day. I got good grades and understood that I was intelligent, which helped give me some sense of confidence. Alas, I have other skills, like intuition, that I think I don’t have. That may be why I have trouble recognizing when I get something right, as in this example.

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1996: Big Life Change

Posted on August 22, 2024 by jenny

From my journal for September 23, 1996. I find it fascinating that I start to do so much better. I think the work about Mother helped. I suspect that it’s also because, or maybe even mainly because I’ve been taking a tranquilizer, Ativan, since some time in August.  I don’t say anything about it in my journal

In the session with Karen I just cried at first.  Then I found myself telling off Mother. I did a drawing of a bland woman and made balloons saying: You’re selfish, you’re demanding, you don’t care, don’t think you’re so great, …  Then I translated them into what she was really saying.  “You’re selfish” meant I wouldn’t do what she wanted me to.  “You’re demanding” meant I had normal legitimate child’s needs that she didn’t want to fulfill.  ‘You don’t care” meant I didn’t care about her because I didn’t care about the things she cared about, and also that I didn’t worship her which was what she wanted.  “Don’t think you’re so great” meant that she was jealous of my creativity and my intelligence. …  She hated it when I had interests of my own.

Then I tore off each of the balloons and said what was my truth.  “You’re selfish” — I am not selfish, I am very generous, I’ve tried to help people beyond what my resources would bear…   “You’re demanding” — yes, I demand honesty and exchange and love in relationship.  “You don’t care” — I do care about a lot of things that you can’t even see…    “Don’t think you’re so great” — no mom, I don’t, you succeeded there, I think I’m a piece of shit, I’ve never been able to develop and make good use of that creativity and intelligence you were so jealous of, aren’t you proud of your work? …

Then I did the letting go exercise.  I took hold of the towel and let go.  That was it.

September 27
Well.  I hardly know what to say.  I’ve had two days of being really different.  I seem to be learning how to accept whatever comes.  I have hits of anxiety, hits of sadness, I make room for them but don’t make a big deal out of them.  I’m not frightened by every little thing.  People don’t all look horribly ugly and sick any more.

Also, I notice that a lot of things that used to bother me don’t seem to be important any more.  Like?  Things unfinished in this house.  I’m not constantly comparing “this road is prettier than the one we live on.” Stuff I wasn’t even aware of until I’m not doing it.

A big piece of this must have been the work with Karen, telling Mother off.  Then discovering with Dana the feel of emotions that are unworkable and beginning to practice letting them be and distracting myself.

September 29
Woke feeling pretty sick — slight headache, fluish.  I prayed to the god of love to help me love myself in my sickness and it seemed to work — I feel gentle toward myself, not impatient and angry.  …  Maybe it’s just the bug that’s going around.  Another chance to practice acceptance.

My life has changed, but I didn’t change it.  I seem to be making no effort, yet things are different.  The other night I started to cook spinach for my supper and then turned it into a tasty meal with cream sauce, rice and tofu.  I didn’t try to make it happen, it just happened.

Unfortunately, I go on from this good place to being depressed again and forced to find an anti-depressant that worked.  Which was scary because of the bad experience on Paxil.

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1996: The Summer from Hell

Posted on August 20, 2024 by jenny

This is typical of that summer. I’ve just started taking medication and notice that the fear is reduced, but I’m still feeling depressed.  From my journal for September 1, 1996

Slept badly.  Woke with hot flash & burning pains at about 1:30…  Disappointing after taking 1/2 tablet.  On the other hand, the fear is greatly reduced. 

It seems harder to pray, but perhaps it’s only that the fear pushed me into it with more urgency.  I pray to the Indwelling god of love, to the love in my heart.  I pray for help and healing for myself and for Lynelle and for Dana.  I hardly know what to  pray for.  I ask for mercy.  I say “into Thy hands.”  I say “please being me into alignment with your purpose for me.”  I ask to live my life in service to love.  I pray to feel the love moving through me.  I heard again a voice counseling myself to be gentle with myself.

How does one live as though the energy of love were filling one’s life?  How to do this when you don’t feel the love, only emptiness or fear — or what is it I feel now?  a sort of thick barrier, like sleepiness or unconsciousness, a kind of inertia that drags at my efforts.

The voice that counsels me to “be gentle with myself” is right on, and addressing the fact that the problem is that early trauma has been triggered. The “kind of inertia” is actually the “freeze” response when one can’t fight or flee.

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My Current Struggle

Posted on August 15, 2024 by jenny

Writing with a friend

I’ve been having a difficult time.  I don’t entirely know what’s going on for me.  I do get occasional hits of fear, and if they last a little I can stand back from myself and give me a comforting hug.  Gosh, I wonder if it’s possible that I’m working out a relationship between my “I” and my  “self.”  My self, for some reason is scared, disoriented, afraid she’s doing everything wrong — or there’s something she’s supposed to be doing and she’s not doing it.  I looked at trying to read more in ’96 but I just couldn’t do it.  It’s so bad — I’m having a really rough time, actually the most recent, starting September 1, I’m taking some medication — didn’t recognize it — not able to go back and read pages and pages looking for it — the medication stops the fear, but I still feel miserable.  I suppose the fear is just distracting me from the depression and I’m still depressed.  I’m also dealing with intense hot flashes.  Not sure if it’s menopause or if I’m still dealing with the fallout from the Paxil Episode.

I’m sitting outside with Sharon, under the big umbrella.  I hear two blowers — nearby air conditioning — one just went off.  I wish I wasn’t so sensitive to sound.  There goes something else…

Now what am I feeling.  A kind of pain and tension in my chest.  It could be my heart.  Depression, sadness, grief?  If I could get to the grief, if I could only cry.  Why is the grieving so hard?  Because I’m not grieving for something I had and lost — then you know what you’ve lost and what you’re grieving for.  But when it’s something you should have had and didn’t get, like caring and support from your parents, then you don’t know what you didn’t get.  You only know that there’s a big hole in your life.

I think about Mama Greene.  She gave me love and support.  But by the time she came, I had already been traumatized.  And somehow I knew that if I got too close to Mama Greene Mother would be jealous and that would be really bad.  “Let’s call Mama Greene and tell her we don’t need her tomorrow.”  At least I went upstairs, out of mother’s hearing, called her and told her I loved her.

Love.  That’s always been such a difficult word.  I’m not sure what it means, or what it’s supposed to feel like.  I’m not sure if I’m capable of love.  Tenderness.  I remember when I came across that word and realized it was something else I never experienced.

Note: the “I” and “self” designations are from The Web of Meaning, by Jeffrey Lent. He calls the “I” the “conceptual intelligence” and the “self” is the “animate intelligence.”

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1996: Easter in the Soul

Posted on August 14, 2024 by jenny

From my journal for August 27, 1996

I thought about the phrase that moved me at the Church services this week — something about how God will comfort thy waste places o Israel.  Again I let myself feel how empty and wasted I feel inside, and how much I wanted God — the god out there — to fill me with compassion.  My heart was filled with burning pain.

Suddenly it occurred to me: suppose god is in the center of my heart.  That god, who created me, who is me, my deepest self, my most real Self.  Then my heart changed, became an open chamber with a deep, deep root (It’s great white elephants all the way down.)  How amazing!  Easter in the soul.  I stayed with the feeling for quite a long time — still an emptiness, but what a different emptiness — an emptiness rooted in great depths.

I have been going to the Episcopal Church in St. Johnsbury, with a friend of mine.

I do not remember this experience at all. I went right back to feeling terrified most of the time. Alas, This kind of thing happens when I don’t have an agenda. I “let myself feel how much I wanted God” and behold: “Easter in the soul.” Then I try to make it happen again, but now I’m doing whatever it is to make something happen, and it has to be completely without agenda to work. So frustrating!

I remember how I found the shells on the beach — I had to give up trying. I had to talk to God and let go of finding any shells. And then I found a double handful.

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