Post-cptsd

[meoww]

Anyway, since the awakening, I've realized that I didn't use certain parts of ma brain that much...I'm finally getting used to the whole process of using your self awareness to actually control your actions instead of being almost like an observer making commentary on yourself. Kind of like when you find yourself asking for advice on forums like these about relationships that you know aren't going to last but you just let it all play out anyway, I can't live like that anymore, living by a scripted playbook where I need validation to calm the inner void. I've had to acclimate to the constant stress of trying to improve myself the majority of my conscious hours instead of kind of just affirming what I already think a lot of the time. I used to place a whole lot of value my intuition, on knowing myself, when I knew I was poisoned by the trauma. Kind of a contradiction.

 

One YouTuber called it updating your mental software or something like that. This is way too much for my little broken brain to handle. One weird side effect of this is that time feels very different now, like days are soooooo long, but months go back sooooooo fast. I look back on my writing from a few weeks ago and it feels like it was written light years ago. I feel more like myself than ever, yet more disconnected from the real world.

[meoww]

Life is f_ing weird and stupid, credit to Tavi Gevinson for this nugget. I have so many thoughts to vomit out. I'm like a thought bulimic. I know I'm not ever going to get it all out, but these useless thoughts are getting evicted today!

 

What's on the menu today? A very random, unsatisfying assortment of vaguely philosophical morsels.

 

I just need to scratch this itch.

 

What the hell do I want? Seriously I don't want anything anymore. It's so freeing, but scary at the same time because what if I let myself go and become something I later regret?

 

I don't need anything...I am a free woman. That's so crazy! Is this just what normally happens to all old people?

 

Are kids really more pure or innocent than adults? I wonder if I will ever really trust anyone.

 

No chains. No country. No family...

No history.

But instead of feeling light, freedom feels like a punishment.

[meoww]

Put my finger on the weirdly oppressive, noninclusive feeling of freedom. It's not fair to put a person in an abusive situation and make them feel guilty for wanting out. Guilt is not the answer. Freedom does feel like a punishment, like I'm doing something beyond unacceptable, like something that will literally swallow me up and make me invisible. I guess I have to feel like I'm really part of a group, it's human nature.

[meoww]

It's human nature to want to belong. I'm not going to give any more power to any person or feeling that makes me feel like I don't belong. That's just one of the most depraved ways a person can act. This is a powerful thought that could really make an impact on me. Of course I have to be mindful of my own words so that I don't inadvertently hurt people too.

[meoww]

Emotional flashbacks are like getting a brief glimpse into an alternate universe where you're permanently trapped in childhood, as if you died at a certain age and your ghost is haunting that space forever. I don't know how to save her. I can't. She/I was always alone. It's like you're seeing the world how they/you might have seen it at the time, had you been fully conscious of your fears and anxieties. I guess the best way to cope is to know that it's not real, it's a figment of my imagination. I survived. That girl in little pink fleece pajamas is me, not some other girl I can't save. Metaphors can harm you, they can feel so real.

[meoww]

On some level I haven't been able to admit that I'm intact, I got here all in one piece. I made it through time, from my birth until today. Isn't it funny, how "time" pushes people to change their clothes, their ideology, their musical tastes like literally we are all still on exactly the same planet, not going anywhere and yet people are in such a hurry. So much has changed since I was born. I wish I could be motivated to care about the future. It's so exciting, but my spirits get so dampened because for some weird reason I don't feel like I'm part of it because I still have some kind of inner resistance, sometimes I call it not being fake, but honestly some people don't have to try that hard just to be who they are. That's not necessarily fake is it?

[meoww]

Can't fall back on feeling fragmented, can't fall back on regret, can't fall back on loneliness, can't fall back on being a perpetual lost child. Where did this doom and gloom come from?? Damn. This is just really uncomfortable. The transition isn't seamless. The unknown is becoming less terrifying, a little less unknown.

 

Okay, I think I cycled through the regret? I let myself experience some bad, destabilizing feelings.

[meoww]

Is it just me, or is it easier to get unstuck when you just let the feelings come full force, eventually you just move on naturally, the intensity has to subside at some point.

[meoww]

I actually love my hometown and would love to buy a house there someday. It's so beautiful and peaceful, and such a picture perfect place to raise a family but I am afraid to go back. The environments I was in up to around age 18 trigger me like nothing else, and I start thinking distorted thoughts that don't even seem connected to abuse, but I can't seem to control it very well. I'm going to work on that. I hate having to avoid these places, I hate not being free in my own body! You know I'd like to at the very least be comfortable in my own mind. I want to be able to go wherever I want and not have to worry about running into this person or that person or harbor resentment for the people who swept it all under the rug. I am seriously always thinking bad thoughts now, as if I'm making up for all the decades I should have been more vigilant. All the times I should have been paying attention, for so many different reasons. Why burden myself? I already have so many challenges to overcome.

 

The more I heal, the less triggery I am. New friends, people I met in college, new environments don't really trigger me. I don't even think I have relationship baggage anymore. I'm realizing that I can't control my triggers when I'm around people from the past. Interesting because it's not like it's their fault I was abused.

[meoww]

I've started noticing how I approach new situations without apprehension, and I'm getting better at it all the time. New really means new.

 

As I've forced myself to become a different flavor of person, I've gone through a lot of different identities, explored the possibility of being thousands of people. That's hurt me in many, many ways. I can't help it though! I needed that time, and I needed the world to become what it is today for it to start to click in a way that I can understand.

 

I started this whole process seeing myself kind of like a little minnow swimming in a stream, destined to for a very specific kind of life. It has been a struggle to adjust to new waters, even if I made the choice to jump in.

[meoww]

Not settling has changed my life. If nothing else, it's truly a blessing to have spent a few years seeing things a different way. It's nice to know that even if I'm not exactly who I want to be, and I didn't have the family or lifestyle I wish I had, at least I haven't been settling. My learning curve is steep because I want so much, from where I stand, even it's as natural as the air some people breathe. Their normal, is my dream.

 

Even if I'm naive, with the absolute worst luck, worst timing, worst instincts this planet has ever seen, relative to my ideal life. It's been a few years since the awakening and I'm finally not feeling so much like one of those newborn deer that can't stand on two legs.

[meoww]

The time for rough drafts has ended in my generation, we're all living our real lives now. It's been written. I wish I could just watch it all play out like a movie, and make my choices accordingly. Lol I know it doesn't work that way. I just want to see all the generations, I want to be all the people, I want to be white, black, Indian, Muslim, Catholic, Jewish, Chinese, Bolivian all at the same time. I want to feel what it's like to have another brain or different skills and talents.

[meoww]

Ok let's be real. I have so much love in my heart for all people, I literally have endless enthusiasm and curiosity, so why am so tortured? What's the problem? I feel like my body can't even contain how "big" soul is. So I've established that, but this while human experience thing means being limited to a single body traveling through time. So I have to accept the limitations the way everyone does. They chose to be individuals. That's my perpetual identity crisis.

[meoww]

Ok here's a resolution I'm not going to like, at all. And maybe because it's been five years since the recovery and maybe that's just not enough time to form a new, healthy identity even though technically my body and my brain is fully developed. But I have to just do it, right? I'm on the fence because I don't think I can just think my way out of my identity crisis. I think I have to experience more in my life and just keep on evolving like I have been.

 

But I guess the normal thing to do would just to say, this year I need to resolve my identity crisis.

 

That's literally the main thing I just have to do, it's just a matter of how I plan to get it done. I have to just be someone, instead of like little bits and pieces of people. What's the best way? The whole Socratic questioning thing or just being this quivering formless jello without a mold?

[meoww]

Ok, maybe I'll compromise with myself. Here's my resolution, it's actually a real resolution because I am actually resolving to do this.

I resolve to at least have a basic sense of self. It's going to continue to evolve, but I am going to have to change the way I think because right now, it's too much of a struggle. I'm going to have enough of a self that I can sleep well at night. I'm going to have enough of a self that I could take like a personality quiz online and be able to answer the questions without reading into it. Like enough of a self that if someone asked me to describe myself, I could say if I'm on the more extroverted side, or if I'm patient, so that I can use actual adjectives to describe myself.

[meoww]

Yeah so I'm going to use actual adjectives to describe myself. And if I'm not sure what to say, I'll just describe myself the way that I feel I am now, in the present then who I might become in the future or who I might have been in the past.

[meoww]

Meoww: this isn't exactly how I'd describe myself to someone I'm meeting for the first time but let me try to have a balanced, accurate view of myself.

 

Wow, in 5 years I've changed so much, I don't get excited about holidays, dressing up, or my big dreams or anything, I'm not the emotional, feeling person I used to be so it's so hard. Like I'm so on the fence I feel like I'm just a middle of road about everything kind of person, does that count? Is it okay?

 

If that's okay, I think I can describe who I have become in recent years. It's literally the exact opposite of who I have been in some ways, so it scares me in a way, like my moms enablers would be like, see I told you! You needed to change your ways, but this isn't about them, this is about me defining myself and moving on.

[meoww]

Thinking I have no identity whatsoever is a flea of mine. More crusty leftovers from the shht sandwich of my life. When I get down about it, I've got to snap out of it and remind myself that's not really true. Even being a boring person is a kind of identity after all. I have some of the basics, some of them even remain largely the same as before the whole recovery, it's just that I see those traits in a different, more sympathetic, less paranoid light. Still I think it's useful to do a little audit, and check in with myself. Who I've become in the last few years, months and days even:

 

I still like physical affection, but need it less, making eye contact, being somewhat assertive. I don't usually feel uncomfortable around strangers, in fact I don't really get the idea of thinking of people I don't know as strangers. That barrier has a tangibly different quality now that I identified the way my NPD family made me feel disconnected to society at large. I still need to work on it but I am trying not to make as many snap judgments, in either a positive or negative direction based on appearance, ethnicity or education, the distorted way my dysfunctional family has in the past. I like seeing people succeed and be happy. I like people who are inclusive and fun to be around. I am afraid to say it out loud, but I believe equality is truth.

 

My real life role models are always growing in number and hope to continue to learn from them. I especially admire people who are passionate about their hobbies and spend their free time developing skills that they can use for life. I still have many changes I want to make.

 

I do have a me, and I don't need to be so insecure about it. It's not as nearly bad as I think it is.

 

I'm okay at making things that taste good, but don't always look completely perfect. The artistic side of cooking continues to elude me. Nutrition is important to me, food is living history, community, and sharing. I like the idea of sharing with people who appreciate it and give back. I like the idea of spreading new ideas and cultures through food.

 

I still don't trust my instincts, because I think a little differently from others at times. I've trained myself to be this way on purpose so that I can make vulnerable people feel at ease, and be the kind of person who can really be there for people when they really need it, and so that I can be a better person without compromising all my morals but still feel guilty or weird about it. I may still change my mind about this, and choose to think in a more stereotypical fashion because it's very important to me to fit in and has always been very important to me. My abusers were very abusive about this need of mine, because they have very anti-social ways of thinking they tried to force on me.

 

I kind of view fashion and make up as a way to relate to people socially. I like to feel attractive, but for some reason I'm caring less and less about my outer appearance. I'd like to place more important on my body as it affects my overall health.

 

I appreciate beautiful landscapes but usually desire a different kind of stimulation or relaxation because being in nature triggers the abuse my family inflicted on me, belittling me for a very small part of my identity that they exaggerated and read way, way too much into as usual, like "Ohhh Meoww. You're so low brow, and you probably have dirty loser friends just like you, I'm so civilized and urban, compared to Meoww the sasquatch who likes to breathe clean air and get fit," that's so hilarious in hindsight who did they think they were kidding, this is like a real life Cinderella story just like an ex once said, when I just used to like being active, being from a very beautiful place where people are athletic and sporty and also totally normal, they would sneer at me like I was so ignorant, just because of that. I'm realizing that wasn't my fault, they're the weird ones. Anyway, I feel afraid in nature now, like I'm missing out on what's going on in the real world. I feel primitive, like an animal or something, I don't like that feeling very much.

 

This hasn't changed in me either:

Anyway so as much as fitting into the mainstream crowd matters to me, and as much as I want to be connected to as many people from a wide variety of backgrounds as I can be, I don't like using it as a justification to do harm and not feel guilty about it.

It's hard to explain, I'm not a disturber or reactionary, it's like I'm so logical that it makes me kind of a rebel, so I feel stressed out all the time pretending to be normal. I don't want to be some radical person who doesn't get taken seriously, at all. I just can't help it, I feel like too often we make excuses for bad behavior and inefficient systems whether it's in parenting, education, marriage, or even like architecture. I want it to be the future already dammit.

I like things like authority to be based on a foundation of being efficient and doing actual good things. I especially despise useless clichés that make me feel insecure and end up becoming outdated and making me sooo annoyed and frustrated that I ever cared in the first place, and weird ways of thinking that eventually change when someone like Michelle Obama or some public figure comes along a makes a big deal out of it and suddenly it's acceptable only because it's in fashion, I'm not for that at all. but I think younger generations are getting that more and more and taking their power instead of letting adults control them. I don't like being told that the world will collapse if we have equality, or I have to be one with nature, or that I'll understand when I'm older or that everything changes when you become a parent. I'm not a robot. I have always had the capacity to think for myself and I will exercise that ability instead of repressing it like I did when I was in my teens and early twenties. I have a little passion left me in me. I need to let it guide me to like minded people because they are the ones making the future happen.

 

I guess the idea is, do I want to keep going like this, or not? Is it serving my best interests? I'd say, in many ways, no.

[meoww]

Doing the self audit thing helped. I can see that I have tendency to feel constrained. That's not good for me. I need to reformat and allow myself to be comfortable.

Every couple of months I have to buckle down and resolve to make some big changes.

 

I see where I've changed, how I'm still the same, some of the things that make me uniquely me.

 

But all the same, it's not good for me to hold a world view feels incompatible with my current lifestyle. That's kind of pointless. It's fine for me to have certain principles but I'm not going to make myself constantly uncomfortable to the point I can no longer enjoy my life. That's the kind of sacrifice my abuser, my mother has asked me to make all my life. Like, do the "right" thing even if it makes you totally miserable, as if it's that clear cut. Of course it's not that simple. Her sense of right and wrong is totally childish, and rooted in very limited life experiences, it's sad. I will no longer be like that. I don't want to die like that, I need to be mentally and physically free, otherwise I'm still the same old abused me.

[meoww]

"Oh my god he bought me a sandwich, I should totally offer to pay next time. I don't want to seem like I expect anything from him, but oh my god what if he stops buying me stuff does it mean he's not into me anymore is this unprogressive of me I should be more independent?" Me in 2013

 

Another guy

"Oh look, he wrote me one email after a year of no contact, see I knew he still cares, he loooooves me, he's so into me," Me in 2012

 

My friends, "Meoww, so-so is not even worth your thought." "Hmmm yea but he took me on a trip once and he said lots of nice things to me 6 months ago before he turned into a jerk."

 

Lol even I can't stand my old self. My friends are saints.

[meoww]

It's weird when you're a masochist sometimes you don't even know. I've been whipping myself in every way possible, even now. This is a bunch of bs. I don't need to whip myself to make sure I'm a good person or behaving appropriately. There's obviously a better way.

[meoww]

Mom: You're a selfish brat, and you'll never be successful because you're not smart enough and the world is ending, and by the way you're fat. And you smell.

 

Me: Help I'm so scared I'm so alone what is happening to me and I need a family let me just cling on to the first guy I see and just take everything she says to be the truth but kind of not at the same time. Don't get too close, no wait come back you hate me I love you I hate everyone no one loves me no that's not true yes it is!

[meoww]

It's a feedback loop that doesn't signify anything particularly pertinent at this point. All that are left are the triggers. Thats what the YouTube duuude was saying. Once you get in touch with your emotions, regain a bit of control in your life and all that jazz, that's all that's really left after a few years.

 

This is going to be a little bit hard but not too much of a challenge. I'm more than ready. That feeling of unfinished business is just gone, it really does end. I can talk about it without crying. My mind doesn't go blank when I try to remember examples of the abuse. It's remarkable for me to able remember things and be in control of my memories and feelings. I am ready!!!

 

Here's what I need to able to do:

 

1) interact with nutty people without going off the rails myself

2) not avoid the places and people that remind me of the trauma

3) abandon the build up, build up, oh my god the pressure is crushing me and my soul school of stress management

4) I'm generally calm, but in an avoidant way, I want to be calm in a proactive way

5) no more flogging myself like a medieval priest

6) I can block out certain bad feelings if I want, we all do that to when necessary and it's not always a sign of weakness or dysfunction

[meoww]

I promise I'm not lying about the unfinished business part, but fff I just need to write my mom a letter she'll never read:

 

Mom,

 

Why? You were blessed with a daughter with no health problems, a big heart and excellent work ethic. You had a very straightforward job as a part-time parent of a child who was happy and eager to please. My dad and grandparents shouldered so, so much responsibility for you. All you had to do, was DO NO HARM.

 

I know you didn't have a lot of control over your mental state, that you were truly suffering to teeter so precariously on the edge of suicide or a breakdown for over 20 years, but why did you drag me to the edge with you and hold me there by force, my feet dangling helplessly above the void? My well-being was completely dependent on your irrational whims. I was always trying to convince you not to fling me into the abyss. I fantasized about basic stability the way most kids fantasize about being powerful and famous. Why did the only peace in our home come in the form of abandonment and neglect? What believed to be support, I only much later on learned was thinly veiled harassment, brainwashing, and flagrant exaggerations about all the hardships of the world.

 

I was left to stumble upon the milestones of adulthood by chance. If had not heard so much damaging rhetoric about how I was more suited to factory work, how I would only graduate to become an unemployed drain on society, if I had control over my finances I would have completely avoided the cat and mouse game you played every few weeks and I may have taken a completely different path in life. By the way, the escalation of your guilt trips in my college years is no accident, and is a very common tactic among abusive parents. I turned back when I was quite literally at the gates of freedom, only to suffer for many more years, because I was so beaten down and brainwashed I couldn't even see freedom for what it was.

 

I never told you who to be, I respected your opinion so much I ignored my intuition that I wasn't really in the wrong for 24 years. I was patient, I kept your secrets, I was accepting of your limitations and I never tried to shame you for it. I respected your privacy and human dignity even when you didn't respect mine.

 

Why couldn't you bear the thought of me having success and happiness at the same time? Why did I have to chose one or the other?

 

I would have let you be the martyr you believe yourself to be. You could have been a martyr without harming me, without harassing me constantly to the point that I had literally no quality of life to speak of. You could have been the star of your own tragedy without dragging me into it.

 

If you're so honest about wanting to remain in this unstable condition, why does it bother you so much when I'm happy? If you're as fulfilled in your misery as you have claimed, then why are you filled with so much rage? How come you can never answer my questions? Why would you let petty jealousy and immaturity to ruin your ability to develop a loving support system of friendships and equal partnerships, or diminish your role as a leader both in your home and your workplace?

 

You are the biggest coward I have ever known, you refuse to even try to make people respect and value you because you are so afraid of a little rejection. I see right through you now.

 

How bizarre that you claim to take pride in being antisocial, in being excluded and rejected. You create discord and disharmony, wounding the hearts of people around you, and are actually surprised that you can't sleep at night? You boast about how you have no need to connect with people or no need for their puny morals. All you have is pride and an inflated ego where a soul should have developed. You have no respectable sense of duty to the people you love.

 

I put up with this because you cried so much and so often. You were always in so much pain. I thought that pain meant something, I thought it meant you were like the rest of us. To give you credit, you did inform me you were a lost cause. Even if that's true, it still doesn't explain why you needed to lash out at me. Yell at yourself when you want to scream at me, hit yourself when you want to hit me, isn't that enough? YOU ARE THE ONE WHO CRAVES PAIN, I DO NOT. So I sometimes feared you as a child, the shame you felt knowing that meant I deserved to be hit and be chased around like scared rabbit, my belongings flung out the window?

 

I don't care about your excuses and justifications, I just needed the chaos to end. No one can live for very long in chaos, I don't know how I even survived. I should be dead a thousand times over, I should have given up years ago, I should have become an bitter and violent woman just like you just to survive.

 

You're a tornado, and I was alone in the eye of your storm for many, many uncertain years. Let me see the world I never got to see, not because I'm blind or handicapped but because you trapped me without my consent, before I even knew what it meant to chose. I want to know what it's like to be alive. Can you even comprehend that? Let the pointless, meaningless destruction of my life end. I forgive you.

 

If you read this, you would react like a crazed chimpanzee, using your words to tear open my scars again until I'm in danger of losing my life again. You've done it so many times. I might walk with a metaphorical cane for the rest of my life, I might never function without a pain or ache somewhere in my body or my heart. Your only pastime is inflicting new wounds, my scars are your life's work.

 

Now I know what other survivor's mean when they say the pain never goes away. I had been harboring false hope I would eventually think my way out of it. At least I won't mourn you twice when you're really gone, because I've never had a mother or a family. You would read this letter and feel hatred toward me, when a real human being would feel heartbreak. I'm still guiding you, teaching you how you should feel because that's what human beings do. They give unconditional love and support to even the most wretched, unfortunate souls among us.

 

Just get this letter tattooed onto you for all the times you're inevitably going to wonder why we don't talk anymore. These are my last words to you.

[meoww]

Venting about ena: just a little.

 

You know when people try to fight a war that's not even real? They get all worked up about some topic that they don't seem to know a lot about, but refuse to find out more about it because they just "know" it's bad?

I'm not trying to miss the point, I know that real relationships are more important than keeping up appearances. I noticed some people have a tendency to write people off in their minds, without even giving it much thought, because they believe a weird logical fallacy about vanity and pretentiousness. I had a friend like this once. Very naturally pretty, too. Which is worse in some ways because she probably doesn't understand that not everyone looks perfect without a bit of grooming.

 

Wish some people would stop preaching about the sins of vanity or wherever. Might as well stop decorating your Xmas tree, or baking pie, or cleaning your house if putting a little face paint on is so bad.

 

I think the real issue is when people can't accept differences: that can go either way. It sucks when some person talks down to you because they have more money or more beautiful "things," but the issue is with the people, they would probably find a way to be snobs no matter what. And no, this is not some variant of the whole, "guns don't kill people, people kill people," argument. Quality of life is increasing all around the world, and I think that's fantastic and a sign of even more equality to come.

 

Once you get in the habit of dressing a certain way, or seeing the world a certain way, it doesn't take that much effort to maintain it. On a practical level, they aren't even devoting that much time to their so called vain pursuits. Some people are just gifted and are really good at doing their hair and taking pictures and maintaining their social media, it doesn't have to be despised or worshipped, can't we just recognize though that it's a legitimate way to communicate and yes, some of us feel left out. More importantly, I think it's so much better when people are able to learn from each other instead of being afraid of what is unfamiliar to them. Reminds of the way people look down on pop music when it is really not easy to make at all. So yes, vanity is an issue, but it's not even nearly as bad or evil as they think. I guess I should just feel sorry for them.

 

It's like a fear of the unknown. It reminds me so much of my mother. On this high horse about nothing at all, but I also know that there are times when you just can't even feel your insecurity because the denial is so clever at masking it.

 

Okay I'm getting bored im just going to post this as is

 

But I just hate how casually they make these judgment calls and distorted knee jerk reactions