5/27/22
Aloha Amazing Person,
How are you doing?
Just looked up what ‘Aloha’ actually means, and it’s not just ‘hello and good-bye’, it’s also “love and affection”. What a wonderful way to greet each other; I pray for that for all of us!
Whew! Survived last weekend’s retreat where I gave a talk and helped out at. Still processing all that happened, including the emotions that came up and are still making themselves known. I did have a good time. Met some wonderful people who were there for their first time and so I got to serve them, as well as the awesome co-workers, and I loved my roomies! I’ll get to more about this in a bit, but first I want to finish the post I started last week but couldn’t stay focused enough to write. Let’s see if I can do any better now . . .
At the end of the post dated 5/10/22, I started writing about a memory emerging of a dissociative ‘event’(?) that occurred at my favorite park several weeks previously.
When I had talked to my therapist about the initial experience she said what had happened could actually be termed a dissociative ‘blackout’ since there was such a complete loss of not just memory, but time, too. Most often when dissociating I’m aware of what I’m doing but not realizing I’m acting from a different mindset, I guess you could say. (I usually refer to the different mindsets {A.K.A. ‘dissociated personalities’} as the ‘splinters’ of my psyche. They’re each named and briefly described in the ‘Cast of Characters’, which you can access by using the tab of the same name on the home page.)
Now that I’m more learned about what and how the D.I.D. effects me personally, I can usually figure out what happened right after an ‘episode’ because the ‘executive’ personality, (A.K.A., adult and healing Elder Pearl, ‘EP’) remembers what happened. (I’ll have acted more like a five year old version of Pearl {LP} for example, or angsty teenage ‘Grace’, etc..)
Far less frequently I experience very short periods of time (a minute or two usually) where I don’t remember anything about what just happened other than, if I’d been walking I’d be standing in a different place than where I thought I was, be a bit disoriented, and I’ll know how it was triggered. The most frequent cause of that these last several years has been when Great Guy (‘GG’) may be near by. He’s a man I care about, am attracted to and a part of me instinctively trusts, but an overly protective ‘splinter’ of my psyche (Michael) pushes him away in some fashion because he perceives GG as a threat to my heart. That’s caused by the hell I survived over a period of time as a child at the hands of men I loved and was supposed to have been able to trust (and kept trying to), and others. (See posts “When Hell Began In Earnest” dated 11/2/20, “Still Innocent” dated 11/9/20, and “Beginning to Unpack Monday’s Post”, dated 11/11/20.) ‘Michael’ came to associate men I care about (and trust) with extreme pain, so his main purpose appears to be to protect my heart. Haven’t quite figured out how to get Michael to understand he’s really breaking it further each time he hurts someone I care about. Working on it, of course.
‘C’, my therapist, said the blackout may have been caused by my mind already being stressed out quite a bit from having just sent out the letters to a couple of the people who were responsible for the hell of childhood, as well as the notes of apology and explanation to the ‘next generation’ for walking away when I chose to get into therapy to heal from everything. Then, whatever happened at the park just kind of pushed the mind the rest of the way to dissociate for a while (as explained in the post mentioned earlier, 5/10/22). With the feelings that were evoked when I had that momentary memory recall recently, I can surmise about what happened at the park but don’t know for sure, and don’t want to create a false memory by picking at it too much. Can only pray if the dissociative event was triggered by someone I care about and they were rejected in some way, that they somehow understand it wasn’t anything actually negative about them, ‘just’(?) an effing mental knee jerk reaction that I’m working on healing, and I am truly sorry.
This is one of those times where I get to apologize for involuntary reactions stemming from what other people did to me. As I told the person I drove with to the retreat, I’ve come a long way in releasing a lot of the anger from the abuse, but there is still some left over that rears up when stuff like this happens. I’m learning how to acknowledge anger without dwelling in it, then focusing on something else like how far I’ve come and the possibilities of what the future holds as I continue on the path of healing. As what I believe was a God nudge whispered into my heart recently when I was asking how to get over the damn anger – the best way is to live and love well. With You, God, I’m gettin’ there.
Pertaining to those feelings of intense shame and worthlessness that came up when that little bit of a memory popped up about what happened that caused the ‘blackout’ in the park. What’s weird is, for most of this healing journey I’ve heard/read about that deep shame, sense of being too ‘sullied’ and unworthy of romantic love that other survivors talk about, but have never felt it myself (but always acted like it). As ‘C’ has mentioned a few times, feeling those God-awful emotions really is a positive step since a person can’t heal what they don’t know.
(Keep reminding me of that, ok??)
And that’s one of the things to appreciate about myself – keeping the faith and not giving up. I know amazing opportunities are waiting as I am ready to receive them, as Michael is tamed and (hopefully) integrated, and self worth is increasingly valued. I’ve come a loooong way, and VICTORY is imminent.
Joyce Meyer, one of my favorite speakers, is going to be in the area (sort of) at the beginning of June and I’m going to her conference! So geeked about that! One of the myriads of topics she’s talked about is how uncomfortable it is to be ‘in the middle’ of change, or progress. We can be so excited to get started on a journey, and we’ll have much to celebrate at the end, if we persevere. But sometimes we quit because frequently ‘the middle’ can get so discouraging it rarely goes as well as we imagined, can take (soooo much!!) longer than we hoped, and there are obstacles and naysayers and our own doubts that get in the way. To be honest, have been struggling with that these last several days . . . Is there really going to be a time when I can receive and give love like I (and anyone else in my life) deserve? Will I allow faith in God and self to be greater than the negative people, feelings and fears? Will I be able to do all I keep believing for, or even some of it?? (YES!!!!)
(As Joyce Meyer says, “I’d rather believe for everything, and receive most or even some of it, than believe for nothing, and get all of it.”)
I hope you, too, can keep believing for all you’re worthy of, even when others and/or circumstances try to convince you otherwise.
Today’s song is encouraging for the times when “The Middle” seems all there is, and we need a reminder to ‘stay the course’. Here’s the band Jimmy Eat World with their song “The Middle”. 🙂 Enjoy!
