(Written in July 2008)
\nI\u2019ve been reading from 1986, and it\u2019s so painful.\u00a0 I am struggling so hard to keep going, and I\u2019m angry at myself for \u201cnot doing better\u201d, and deeply disappointed that I\u2019m not being able to carry out the projects I want to do.\u00a0 And I have no idea what I\u2019m up against.\u00a0 I\u2019m struggling with diet and the candida program because that helps somewhat \u2014 but it doesn\u2019t help enough to make it easy to keep going.\u00a0 I\u2019m aware of the COA issues, but the only tool I have is intellectual analysis and understanding.\u00a0 I\u2019ve just read a fine analysis of the inner critical parent (from October 86) and how its criticisms are not helpful \u2014 but I can still be triggered by that voice, as R\u2019s invalidations as recently as Dec 06 can collapse me completely.\u00a0 I\u2019m struggling with the plane phobia \u2014 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…\u00a0 medication and Dr. Rankin are 11 years in the future, and the full understanding that I\u2019m dealing with PTSD doesn\u2019t happen until 2001.\u00a0 And all that time I \u201csoldiered on\u201d.\u00a0 As I watch Eleanor soldiering on now, unable to address the real issues because she can\u2019t find the right people to help her.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
I felt a bit blue all morning.\u00a0 The old dull ache of heart no matter what I did.\u00a0 Reading my journal for 88 may be where the blues came from.\u00a0 At one point, at Kripalu, Sumitra says \u201cunderstanding is the booby prize.\u201d Possibly to counteract a belief about how you have to understand something before you can try it?\u00a0 But it was absolutely wrong for me.\u00a0 Understanding what I was truly up against was absolutely necessary for me.\u00a0 As long as I thought I was just up against a \u201cgarden variety\u201d neurosis, or disfunctional family dynamics, I could not find compassion for myself, or accept how I was.\u00a0 I kept judging myself as \u201cselfish\u201d or \u201ctoo sensitive\u201d, I accepted other people\u2019s invalidation, when I tried to tell the truth about what I was suffering I called it \u201cself-pity\u201d.\u00a0 Well maybe it was \u201cpity\u201d because my attitude was \u201cI shouldn\u2019t be this way\u201d rather than true compassion because it was being so hard.\u00a0 Thinking of myself as having a chronic illness \u2014 candida\u2014 helped somewhat because it allowed me to be a little easier on myself and to justify taking care of myself when I needed rest.\u00a0 But because it was really only a small part of the picture, the candida program: very strict diet, nystatin, etc. didn\u2019t really work to make me feel much better, to end the mysterious and debilitating symptoms.\u00a0 Being so ineffective didn\u2019t help depression at all.\u00a0 I was having such a hard time with the noise of the planes, and I make myself wrong for hating them \u2014 the whole thing was such a Byzantine tangle \u2014 and I know as I read that it will be nearly 10 years before I\u2019m free of it.\u00a0 It took anti-depressant medication and a brilliant therapist.\u00a0 Now, looking back, I can see how understanding what was going on with me was absolutely necessary for my healing.\u00a0 Understanding \u2014 and accepting \u2014 that I had been traumatized, and understanding the physiological mechanisms of post traumatic stress.\u00a0 Finally the thyroid piece \u2014 I\u2019m so grateful that Lynelle kept pushing me to see Dr. Vreeland \u2014 and the parasite piece \u2014 recent experience suggests that my mysterious bouts with illness \u2014 headache & nausea \u2014 were probably parasite related.<\/p>\n
Bessel VanDerKolk called it \u201ca pilgrimage.\u201d Indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Written in July 2008) I\u2019ve been reading from 1986, and it\u2019s so painful.\u00a0 I am struggling so hard to keep going, and I\u2019m angry at myself for \u201cnot doing better\u201d, and deeply disappointed that I\u2019m not being able to carry … Continue reading