Deep Breath and Prayer

I know the idea of starting a new blog was to write about working through the abuse healing journey, yet it is my blog and therefore I can choose to write about whatever is on my mind, right? And in the end, it is all related and tied together so I think it is ok to have some posts that are not directly addressing pages in the workbook or such. We do not have to rehash the struggle of this week. Chris would actually encourage me to try and look at the accomplishments and positive times...she is good at that. In the end, I made it, maybe the most important piece of it all. Woke up today in a not so good place. Migraine, anxiety, panic. Of course that just pissed me off. Yup, totally skipped the "accept where you are" piece and jumped to "this is how I have to start a beautiful Saturday?" I did take my magic white pill....although I have just realized that I have not taken any of my other meds. Anyways, it ia what it is...and that would be the "whatever" ver...

The next exercise up in the book is a way to help you see your progress. It is set up so no matter where you are in your journey, just starting or way into the process, you can have a benchmark to look back at and see where you were and where you are. I know that I struggle with that - the feeling that I am not making progress, or that I have regressed. It notes to come back and do this periodically. I have gone back to these pages a couple times in the past week and I close the book and "run" from it. This is one of those "scary" exercises for me. It is one of those having to really think about the situation and sit much closer to the abuse than I may want to. I have thought about doing this in session, yet not sure how to do that. I think my conclusion will be to choose the option "in the middle" which is sit out in my little safe spot in the parking lot and do them. I am not taking up anyone's time (I find it difficult to ask someone to just sit the...

I almost had it. The day was good. Good session - I even asked good questions. Heck, I even shared scary thoughts instead of avoiding. I mean, that is success right there, eh? I have had a lot of up days in a row now.....and therefore the demons just do not like that. I guess my big mistake was that I didn't think about that part of it. I did not let my mind go to that whole "when is the bad going to happen, when is the scale going to tip." Oh silly, silly, me. I am too tired to draw right now, yet let me see if I can tell you what I see in my head if I were to put it on paper. The darkness has me pinned to the ground. On my back, on a ledge with my shoulders and head hanging over the edge. The darkness has its knee in my chest, hand at my throat, the other hand pulled back in a fist. "Oh no you don't" it yells at me. Too excited about the future I guess. Too happy about life. Too much enjoying the moment, enjoying life. The darkness is smart as it waits unt...

Ok, I was completely freaked out about reading this section, like I avoided it, then I avoided it again. Seriously, I would not even look ahead and try to prepare myself for it. With a deep breath, I took it on last night. Um, well, um, ok. I will have to say, I am kind of disappointed here. There are a couple scenarios that could have transpired here. One, the book could have missed a big opportunity to talk about nurturing one's self (I will get to more on that soon)? Two, maybe the book talks more about it in later chapters and this is just a preview? Three, Chris (and the rest of the family) are such advocates for nurturing one's self that and making it such an important thing that the "typical" view of it does not measure up? Unless I had pages stuck together and missed something, I found myself going, "that's all"? Heck, if I knew that is all it was going to be, then I would have read through it the other night while speed reading the other pages. ...

Safety, ground rules, safe places. Ok, so I sped-read these sections. Yah, I read them and maybe I read them in a quicker fashion than that pages previously. The intro said that there would be parts that would move faster than others, yet let's be honest here. "Have you ever felt safe" and those questions. Whether I fight to figure out what time frame of my life to answer them in, the bottom line is, yes, there has been at least one time in my life that I have felt safe and yes, I can describe it, and yes, I can pick out factors, etc. Do I deserve to be safe? I just cannot even get into that question because it starts the whole double standard firestorm and I end up getting made each time I start to try and dialog through it so I have just decided to let it be. So, shall we move on to what the books calls the "5 building blocks of safety"? Create Ground Rules. Yes, because we all know how good I am with rules. Chris and I have "rules" although they ar...