From my journal, continued:<\/p>\n
Thursday, March 12
\nThere\u2019s a temptation to believe that I don\u2019t enjoy my life, either because I\u2019m not really making a contribution or because I\u2019m refusing to enjoy my life as it is.\u00a0 That makes me a worthless, ungrateful, selfish person who doesn\u2019t deserve good things.\u00a0 But that\u2019s what I learned from mother about who I was.\u00a0 I think of the time I went out of my way to pick up some medication for her on the way home from Aunt Betty\u2019s, and instead of thanking me she said \u201cThey weren\u2019t going to deliver it, were they,\u201d in a snide tone of voice.\u00a0 No wonder I find it hard to believe that I can do anything good.\u00a0 I guess it\u2019s the collision between these two opposed versions of me that is making me feel so confused.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know which to believe.\u00a0 Actually it\u2019s more that the idea that I\u2019m worthless is encoded in my cells, the possibility that I do make a contribution I get with my intellect, but to be able to take it in emotionally requires dismantling the mother voice in me that says \u201cDon\u2019t think you\u2019re so great.\u201d<\/p>\n
The other difficulty is the struggle with PTSD.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing visible, like a brace on my leg, and there\u2019s so little understanding in the culture of what trauma really means.\u00a0 I remember the time at the Circlework training, I was struggling with terror through the roof<\/a>, and I must have said something about fear and this woman told me \u201cfear is a choice.\u201d\u00a0 That made it all worse. \u00a0If fear is a choice, then I should be able to choose not to be afraid, and I can’t. \u00a0It was only much later, after considerable thought, I saw that fear is not a choice unless you are scaring yourself with a story you believe.\u00a0 Otherwise, fear is triggered by something external, and then your only choice is how to deal with it.<\/p>\n I noticed driving to town, that I don\u2019t feel like I have to prove I deserve to live right now, and I don\u2019t care if I\u2019m a \u201cgood person\u201d or not.\u00a0 So I still have those two healings.\u00a0 Checking for God \u2014 he\/she\/it\/they seemed distant, indifferent.\u00a0 Tiny One is curled tightly in a ball \u2014 I get a message that it\u2019s too many bad things: a friend having a hard time, the constant war, the unnecessary poverty, etc.<\/p>\n Friday, March 13 From my journal, continued: Thursday, March 12 There\u2019s a temptation to believe that I don\u2019t enjoy my life, either because I\u2019m not really making a contribution or because I\u2019m refusing to enjoy my life as it is.\u00a0 That makes me … Continue reading
\nI felt better yesterday than I did the day before, but I still didn\u2019t feel energetic enough to drive to Montpelier.\u00a0 So I talked to Karen on the phone.\u00a0 She was a big help.\u00a0 I read her all that I had written yesterday morning.\u00a0 I see that I was so confused because the new story \u2014 that I\u2019m just what God\/Universe wanted \u2014 has grown to be as strong as the old story \u2014 I don\u2019t deserve to live.\u00a0 Karen helped me see that perhaps I don\u2019t have to choose between them.\u00a0 I told her about seeing that the inner ones who hold me down are trying to protect me from Mom.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always felt frustrated that the good times are so short \u2014 I told Karen about the day the Christmas Tree fell down<\/a> \u2014 and then I lose them again.\u00a0 Karen helped me get that it\u2019s just how the process works.\u00a0 Slowly the good days come more often and last longer.\u00a0 I\u2019m thinking now that the good days show that I have the capacity for happiness.\u00a0 She pointed out that when I complain about how long I\u2019ve been working to heal, I\u2019m judging myself for taking so long.\u00a0 \u201cIt takes as long as it takes.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s also true, I see now, that it\u2019s taken so long because of the size of what I was up against.\u00a0 I also thought about that long piece I wrote about denial, and realizing that it wasn\u2019t denial at all, it was lack of information.\u00a0 Even my resistance to the diagnosis of PTSD was because 1) the Doctor prescribed medication that traumatized<\/a> me 2) I thought it was me trying to make myself important which was mother\u2019s idea 3) I thought \u201ctrauma\u201d meant violence, and though my parents\u00a0were mean and confusing alcoholics, they were never violent.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t until I got to the place in Waking the Tiger<\/a> where Peter Levine<\/a> says: \u201can infant can be traumatized by being left alone in a cold room,\u201d that I finally realized what I was up against.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"