This was originally posted in March 2012<\/p>\n
(journal entry from June 2004)
\nA really bad night.\u00a0 Dogs barking, didn\u2019t call cops.\u00a0 My heart just ached.\u00a0 I tried to bring compassion to it without success.\u00a0 It\u2019s slap in my face how little control I have.\u00a0 I can\u2019t even stop my own dog from barking, nor can I make her drink \u2013 a worry pain in my heart.\u00a0 I feel isolated and disconnected, far from spirit and from human contact.<\/p>\nFeeling pretty wretched.\u00a0 Not wanting to live \u2014 this is just too hard.\u00a0 My heart aches and feels stony at the same time.\u00a0 I think \u201cThere\u2019s no reason to go on\u201d then I remember Bella and Lynelle.\u00a0 They would be very unhappy if I died.\u00a0 Probably this is something that I\u2019m going through\u2026
\nThinking about the trouble with Paula, I see that I\u2019m not satisfied by calling the police.\u00a0 What I need is for someone to hear what a hard time I\u2019m having. To care enough to help me, and to take action to protect me.\u00a0 I see that Paula\u2019s diatribe was just like Mom: invalidating my pain, telling me it\u2019s not OK to ask to have my needs met if it\u2019s inconvenient for her, making me wrong for having a hard time with her actions \u2014 or inactions, or failure to take responsibility \u2014 that hurt me.<\/p>\nHeart heavy \u2014 all of me feels heavy, dragged down, weak, without substance or energy.\u00a0 Feeling slightly sick to my stomach.\u00a0 Now the scared hopeless feeling comes in, a sort of vibration at the corners of my jaw.\u00a0 And now the cold down the front of my body, I was feeling that last night and now heat, so I feel hot AND cold and sick and weak.<\/p>\n
I hear the planes and remind myself that I suffered from that noise for 14 years, and now it doesn\u2019t bother me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Comment from 2012:
\nPaula was my neighbor in 2004.\u00a0 She let her dog run all the time, and it would bark at all hours.\u00a0 Sometimes when it was barking at 3AM, I would call, and have trouble waking her up.\u00a0 She would say nice things, and call the dog in, but then it would happen again, and again, and again.\u00a0 Finally she got so tired of me calling, that she called my number and left a long message about how she had lived here for 18 years and nobody ever complained\u00a0 (nobody lived next door to her until we built Neskaya) and I must have a thing about dogs, and how awful I was\u2026\u00a0\u00a0 I deleted the message. But it knocked me into a very painful space.\u00a0 I did call the cops at one time \u2013 the man I talked to was very helpful \u2013 there is in fact a leash law and a noise ordinance, both of which I could have made use of.\u00a0 But I never did.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t believe that it was OK to protect myself that way, and I couldn\u2019t call the Police while I was so upset.\u00a0 It\u2019s also true that I had terrible insomnia, related to PTSD (I sleep well now, thanks to medication) and that I was extremely sensitive to noises, also a symptom of PTSD.<\/p>\nComment from today:
\nWhat I notice now was my need for someone to HEAR my pain, and to do something about it. \u00a0This is Little Jenny, whose mother never listened to her and reflected back her experience, who taught her that it was not OK to protect herself \u2014 I guess by ignoring my need to be protected, since I can’t remember her ever saying anything. \u00a0Except the time I complained that classmates were teasing me, and she said “Ignore them.” \u00a0I didn’t know what the word meant.
\nI am astounded that in typing this up I typed “rejected” instead of “reflected,” exactly what mother did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This was originally posted in March 2012 (journal entry from June 2004) A really bad night.\u00a0 Dogs barking, didn\u2019t call cops.\u00a0 My heart just ached.\u00a0 I tried to bring compassion to it without success.\u00a0 It\u2019s slap in my face how … Continue reading