Trying something different

I understand the value of trying to accept emotions and flashbacks vs trying to push them away. Today I’m going to try to sit with it all and just accept that it’s here. I’m going to try to put into practice the dbt, cbt, Buddhist, whatever other theory it falls under concept of just accepting that the flashbacks will come today, that my anxiety will rise and fall, that triggers will be here regardless of what else I do.

It’s incredibly difficult.

Been noticing since I woke up this morning that it’s all rising. I’m hoping that understanding “it is what it is” will help the rise and fall come faster. I’m trying to tell myself that if it does feel overwhelming, I will call TM without agonizing over the call before I make it. I’m hoping allowing myself to feel whatever comes up, and to reach out without my own host of judgements around it will make today smoother than yesterday.

It’s hard to resist trying to push the flashbacks and anxiety away. It’s actually quite exhausting trying to just “be ok” with whatever is going on in my head and body. But if I can do it around other difficult things, maybe I can do it around this too. And maybe this will be the “pattern interrupt” TM was hoping I’d find. If not, well then, tomorrow’s another day.

I’m trying to tease out of this is harder also in part because my usual 1 week between appointments has been extended to a week and a half because of the holiday on Monday (though my appointment is on Tuesday, TM will be off. She works Tuesday-Saturday. In an effort to not screw their clinicians out of holidays, if the holiday falls on their regular day off, they get the next day off instead. This is a good thing)… anyway, I wonder how much of this anxiety is over knowing my routine is off. I often have enough trouble bottling things up for the week. The thought of two extra days to keep composure without being able to decompress is a bit anxiety provoking. The stuff I’m trying to keep in check has been brewing and threatening to explode for a while now. With the added stress of pms, I’m kinda holding my breath hoping it doesn’t explode and splatter all over me. On the other hand, I’ve managed to keep it in check this long (however poorly, but it’s stayed put), what’s an extra two days?

Ok. So trying to just accept whatever happens with my body today. Trying to neither push it to come faster, nor to get it to go away. Trying not to panic over the thought of breaking down and crying. Trying to be ok with it all. I’d say trying to breathe also, but I’m leaving that figurative as consciously slowing my breath is a trigger…

We can do this…

it just is what’s right (and the fluidity of time)

De sparked a thought about this a few sessions ago, and reading it on several forums has me wondering: am I the only one who si’s because it feels “right” and not as a form of punishment? De (and other T’s before her) seemed taken aback when I told her it was never really something that felt “deserved” so much as just what simply “must be”… In my head, there’s no real judgement towards it. It just is what it is. It’s what’s “supposed” to be. Things don’t feel right if I avoid si when I really need it. It’s a release. It’s an actuality, but never a punishment.

Am I in the minority with that? Where does that stem from? I can’t remember a time when I was hurt like that just because that is what was supposed to be… but there were other times that simply felt like the crap that happened in life just happened because they were supposed to…

I don’t know if that’s making much sense. Sorry if I’m unclear. I have yet to be able to describe it well to any T also, so I don’t think I communicated that correctly…

kinda like a kid who gets beaten every day just because – they grow up expecting that to always happen because it HAS always happened… no real judgement, just acceptance.

That’s what si has been like for me. The judgement has always come from the outside.

anyone else feel that way?

(weirdest sense of deja-vu writing this just now… I had formatted this exact post this exact way some “when” ago… It floated to the surface as I was finishing the post. Sometimes I remember things that are happening in the present as if I had been through them before. Sometimes it’s a dream I’m remembering, other times it’s a memory, but I know it’s not the first time I had done the exact thing in the exact way… only it was… time is fluid whether we care to acknowledge it or not)…