So, Did the ptsd therapy work?
I dunno. Honestly, I don't know.
However, now that I have completed the "intensive" part of it, I don't think about anything related to it unless I am about to get on a zoom with my peer counselor, which is great and everything, but not sure it is of value to me, personally, in regards to putting the trauma it's subsequent trauma related thinking in my past where it belongs. She kind of leaves it up to me to figure out what I want to talk about and the truth is that I need something more structured because (this will come to a shock to no one who knows me or realizes I've been keeping an online journal for about 2 decades...) I AM A TALKER. Give me an audience and I could talk and talk and talk.... But really, the only thing I want to talk about with her would be to ask questions about the program, but this woman, overcame her personal trauma in some other program, so ...... for real. She doesn't actually know how this program works. Give me a break! That being said, she did say two things to me today that did hit home for me. The first thing she asked me was how I can dedicate time to myself. Let's discuss below because this one needs to be combed through carefully.
How can I dedicate more time to myself?
Great question and actually something that I personally put on my list of disordered thinking. I put it this way "Everyone else's needs come come before my own." Why clickmom? Why would you think this way? I think this way because that was the clear cut message I got as a kid. Can I even count how many times I approached my mother for something and was told that she couldn't address me in that moment because I was fine and my sister wasn't and her needs superseded mine? NO, I could not tell you how many times I heard that because my fragile ego probably only needed to hear it once to feel like shit and follow orders: MY NEEDS COME LAST. Got it. Check. Salute. (Except, I heard it more than once. It was my mom's parenting philosophy: Parent only when the house of cards was about to blow over. How would we appear to be a family of normal people when lil sis was out there wreaking havoc on the world?) Anyways.... Order heard and internalized and in 55 years I will be in therapy trying to figure out how I can change my thinking and put myself anywhere on my own priority list. Cool. NOT COOL! Even as a kid I knew that was completely fucked up... and yet ... here I am.
The dilemma I am in today: Husband is awake, I sit by his side like I am visiting a patient in the hospital. Does he need this for survival? No, but he definitely prefers me to be close by. I think the world just feels confusing for him and if he looks up and sees a blur that looks like me (Did I mention that he is going blind?) it's reassuring. Also, the man has to be bored out of his skull. He doesn't understand anything he watches on television, can't really understand anything he tries to read, hasn't got a real friend in the world, and our kids are off doing what they're supposed to be doing by living their own lives, so all he has is me. But, he sleeps most of the day many days, what about those days? Good question, on those days I am so afraid of waking him that I will often waste the whole day staring at my phone just to be extra quiet around the house so I don't wake him up because it's nice when he is sleeping. When he is sleeping I don't have to answer the same question every 20 minutes, or wait on him hand and foot, or follow him back and forth to the bathroom, which he hates but is a necessary precaution for someone who falls so often.
Basically, he is damned is he is awake and damned if he is sleeping and as I often say the guy can't win in this situation.
I think the only answer is to just spend more time doing the things that make me happy and spend less time taking care of him. He is just so extra pathetic if I leave him alone in the family room... I know that if I were the one requiring all of the care he would have put me into a nursing home long ago, and I want to be a better person. So, as far as he is concerned I am absolved of any and all guilt, so I think this is about me assuming some role that I was told was my role as a child... told this by someone who did not want to be a parent and was overwhelmed by her situation as an insecure divorcee with two kids, one of whom has a personality disorder and demanded more than she had to give. There was nothing left for me because in my quest for the attention that every child needs I went the goody two shoes route and that is not an emergency situation.
The other thing the peer counselor said to me was ...
HOW CAN YOU FIND A WAY TO HONOR YOUR TALENT?
Girl! I wanna know how to! In a perfect world I would hire someone to do all the marketing that needs to be done in order to weasel my way into the popular group so my work can have its own life.
Here is a story that I am thinking about today. I am not sure why this core memory popped into my brain this week. One time I was drawing and I drew what I thought was a pro-level artist rendition of a model. The only thing I remember is that her body was made of an upside down triangle and a right side up triangle. I had visions of myself being a world renowned fashion artist. I was so proud of that drawing that I wanted to show it to my folks so we could all agree that it was truly an amazing drawing. I walked into the living room where my parents were trying to tell lil sis that there would be punishment if she didn't behave and my dad was telling her that some kids got the belt and there I was with my hand stretched out holding my masterpiece when he plucked the paper out of my hand and whipped it to shreds with his belt. I screamed! My masterpiece. He had destroyed it. I was told I just make another one and sent away and no one acknowledged my artistic brilliance at all, they just sent me out of the room because ... I was fine even though in that moment I felt invisible, useless, worthless...
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