How meditation is freeing from control

July 8, 2010 at 9:49 am (dissociation complex Ptsd trauma child sexual abuse DID psychology survivor)
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OK, so in my last post I suppose that I did not do a very good job of explaining why meditation and qi gong are so freeing. Or how what seems like might be inviting chaos actually eliminates it with practice.

I have a sense that meditation can be a very scary idea. I mean, you’re just sitting there and god knows what awful things can pop into your head, right? And there you’ll be, sitting like an idiot with anxiety that is shooting the roof, all triggery and flashbacky and god knows what other.

What I think many people try to do to control their thoughts is to suppress them when they come up. Like pushing them down deep inside themselves. Oftentimes this effort includes some sort of behavior, like drinking or drugging or manipulating their food intake. Or they panic. We exert these behaviors to get away from our thoughts because it’s hard to do all that suppressing. So we do what we do to make that process easier.

But here’s the cold hard reality. It doesn’t work. By restricting or poisoning ourselves we hurt our bodies and that’s about it. Think about it. If these behavior worked, if suppression worked, wouldn’t the nightmares in our heads go away? The sad truth is that no they don’t. We may feel a temporary relief from them, but because we aren’t addressing them they just come back. Over and over and over again. So we end up chasing our own tail, repeating self-harming tactics as we give our scary thoughts more strength because we’re still afraid.

And so. Can we see where all the shit we do to not feel to not remember just won’t work unless we deal with them head-on? You know the shit we do doesn’t work or we wouldn’t continue to be so afraid.

Thoughts are just that, thoughts. They come and go all the time. The ones that stick around are the ones we pay attention to. They’re kinda like cats. Lolling about most of the time, wake up to clamor for attention, then go back to snoozing. If your cat receives no attention from you she’ll eventually go away.

This is why meditation is so great. It teaches you to let the nightmares come into your head, lets you see oh there’s that pile of hot mess — and then just let it go. You don’t feed the beast. My regular readers know that I perceive myself to be a black hole where fuckall badness gets into me and sucks down right onto my head. For me, meditation allows me to sit at the bottom of my black hole and see what horrors are out there. But if I just let them be, refocus my mind onto something else like moving my energy around or focusing on the smell of my incense, they stay out there in orbit. They don’t come crashing in on me because I just don’t give them that power.

As we practice it gets easier and easier to do this. Imagine sitting there breathing playing around with your qi, and suddenly you’re aware that a horrible memory has popped into your head. You have the power to say “Eww god I do not want to go there” — and you don’t. You focus your attention on the tools at your disposal to not get sucked in by the frightening whatever. And the thought, getting no attention, floats away. It’s gone.

So you are actually dealing with these scary thoughts by putting them in their right place, which is out there not bothering you. They come in, they go away. They come in, they go away. In, away. In, away.

You can always pay attention to your whatever thoughts whenever you want to. You can feed the beast but you can do it on your time, when you want to. Like in therapy or in creative endeavors or writing. They will never go away completely. But you have in you the power to not have them take over your life. You can shut them down. You can just leave them be.

I used to think that I HAD to give my full attention to my nightmares for a number of reasons. One, what happened to me was my identity. I was a victim and I did not see that by re-traumatizing myself constantly I would have no self-identification. Two, I had to re-injure myself repetitively to know I was alive. Three, to prove that what happened to me did indeed happen. Four, I didn’t know any other way to live. Five, I identified so strongly with my perpetrators that I couldn’t imagine them not in my life. That weird attachment thing is really just gross but there it was for me. Six, it seemed to me that as long as I kept the old shit alive nothing new or more horrific could happen to me. Seven, I was addicted to a crisis life. Eight, I really thought that by keeping an eye on my nightmares I was controlling them.

None of this was true. It’s about living the best, happiest life I can. And that means putting down the weapons. Meditating and doing qi work are the best ways I’ve found to really deal with my nightmares. I have the power to just walk away. And so do you. I hope this makes more sense. Meditation is control.

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Cut panic w/Meditation, qi gong

July 7, 2010 at 9:57 am (dissociation complex Ptsd trauma child sexual abuse DID psychology survivor, Uncategorized)
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I’m not sure what’s going on in the Universe lately but I’ve been asked several times about how to meditate and how to deal with being “stuck”. So in today’s lesson I am going to talk about how to cut anxiety thru the use of meditation and energy (qi) balancing.

Both of these practices have been in use for thousands of years. They’re not easy to explain as each person’s relationship with their qi and their mind awareness is unique. This can be made into a really complicated thing involving religion and blah di blah but this is just a common sense approach.

I use meditation and qi gong (energy movement thru the body) for as long as I can remember. So if I’m unclear it’s because I’m taking certain steps for granted. I’ll endeavor to not do so.

The first thing to be aware of when you’re beginning either of these practices is that there is a center in your body where your energy lives. It’s kinda like the powerhouse of the whole shebang. This center is called your tan den. It’s located in your lower abdomen, three fingers under your belly button. Think of it as a ball that expands when you put energy into it and contracts when you take energy out. This is the first step in any Chinese practice, to just be aware of your tan den. Mine is a sort of bluish-purplish with shimmery strips of gold that move around it. So close your eyes and imagine this ball. Just that it’s there. It is whether you believe it or not, so you might as well find it. What color is it? does it move around?

Okay, so now we know where your center is. It’s actually the center of your entire body. So now imagine that you’re expanding the thing as you breathe into it. Just fix it in your mind and breathe in slowly. Breathe from there, not from your upper chest. When you breathe in your belly expands. When you breathe out it contracts. Count to 4 as you slowly breathe in. Count to 4 as you slowly breathe out. If you just keep your tan den ball in your mind pretty soon you will notice that it does get bigger when you breathe in and it contracts and gets denser as you breathe out. This focusing in is made much easier if you are sitting with your back relatively straight with your feet crossed in front of you. The important thing though is that you’re in a quiet place where you can rest. Because that is what you’re doing.

Right, so you now can feel your center. Time to meditate. Just sit in the posture I described above and light a scented candle or incense or something that has a strong scent. Close your eyes and just sit there, breathing slowly, noticing how your tan den expands and contracts. Remember slow, full breaths. Count to 4 on the inhale and 4 on the exhale. Breathe thru your nose. Pretty soon you will be aware of thoughts, sometimes really weird thoughts, popping into your mind. Try to notice them or hear it if it’s a song. Then refocus your attention on the sound of your breathing and your center getting bigger and smaller, bigger and smaller. The next thought will come up. Notice it then refocus on your breathing and your center again.

It often happens that things that pop into your mind are disturbing and you are having a hard time letting go. You get caught up in them. This is the whole trick to meditation, why doing it is so calming. As you refocus your mind to your breath or your center you may find it impossible to do so. In this case, try to focus on the scent you’ve got going on from your candle/incense. Pretty soon even the most devastating thoughts will go away. Because it is what thoughts do. They come and go all the time, but if we linger on them they will stick around.

The whole point is to learn how to let go of our thoughts when they disturb us and cause anxiety and panic. If you’re in a flashback trigger, imagine how hand it would be to be able to make it just float away. Let the thoughts come in, notice them, then go back to your breathing or smell your candle. The thought will go away if you don’t focus your attention on it.

Often I hear people say well when I meditate I go blank or I get very disturbing thoughts I don’t want to think. All of these things are okay. Thoughts are only that, thoughts. They come and go all day long. But you can choose thru meditation to let them move on. Which will have an immediate calming effect on the worst anxiety-provoking thoughts. No panic-provoking thoughts no panic.

So now that you’re meditating you can also focus on moving that energy around your body, which is a great way to balance yourself and be an even stronger tool to let those nasty thoughts go. Close your eyes and inhale, imagining that energy is being sucked up from your feet up your legs to your tan den, making it expand. Then exhale, sending the qi back down thru your legs and feet way, way into the ground. Inhale up, exhale down. With some practice you’ll actually be able to feel the energy, like a slight tingle. Inhale up, exhale down.

Now imagine that you inhale qi up thru your feet and legs. As you exhale imagine the qi shooting out your lower back all the way around the world. Inhale and it comes into your tan den from the front. Exhale back down your legs and feet deep into the ground.

Ok. Now imagine all of the above. When your tan den has sucked your qi in from going around the world exhale and send yhour qi up your back and thru your head, way way up into the sky. Inhale and bring it down thru your front to your tan den, which has expanded as you do so. Then exhale the qi down your legs and feet, deep into the ground. This is called a route. Routes are important because they balance your energy all thru your body. I could talk about chakras and lots of other stuff, but this is the basic point of the practice.

This is not an easy skill to learn. I took instruction from my sensei for two years before I really got the idea. But I have been meditating all my life and I will tell you right now that if you meditate twice a day, even for ten minutes, you will be able to much better control your anxiety level.

It works whether you believe it or not, so you might as well give it a go. Some days it can be easy as pie and other days it can be torturous. Is what is. I still have days when all I am picking up is some old disco song or whatever. If that is what my mind wants to tell me on that day, is what is. It’s really important to not judge yourself, to not think it’s good or bad or you feel like an idiot or whatever. Remember, these are only thoughts. Put your mind on other things and they will vanish.

Trust me on this one. Give it a couple of weeks and you will start to see a difference in your ability to control your anxiety. Have fun 😉

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Painting my Soul

May 1, 2010 at 1:31 pm (dissociation complex Ptsd trauma child sexual abuse DID psychology survivor)
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Long ago in a land far, far away, I was in my twenties and my PTSD hadn’t put me to a full stop yet. I was a Marketing Consultant, pulling in a ton of cash working for myself and basically living the life of a young affluent city gal. If someone at that time would ask me what I was I’d say I was a painter. It was what I loved, I made money on it…it was just who I was.

Once the PTSD brought my life to a screeching halt in my mid-thirties everything in my life basically stopped. Except my painting. It morphed into angry, screaming drivel yes. But I kept doing it because it was the only thing giving any oxygen to my soul.

I hung onto painting because I was never allowed to express creativity when I was a kid. I was “gifted” in those days before the category was created. I was smart, so smart that I was attending college courses in grammar school. My parents decided to keep me with my regular class and not advance early because I exhibited chronic socialization problems. I didn’t seem able to form bonds with kids teachers anybody. They assumed it was because of my braniacism and not the sexal assaults that my mother consistently denied. So while my sister was able to draw and color and play violin I studied. Bitch. I never even owned crayons.

Anyway, for my 22nd birthday my girlfriend at the time took me to an art supply store and set me up with oils guache brushes the whole nine yards. Trying to think about what to possibly paint the first time she told me that it didn’t matter. That whatever I painted no one else in the world could paint exactly my vision and that was what creativity was all about. I fell in love with it immediately.

Anyway, I’ve had a few fairly successful shows but for the most part my stuff is Impressionist which is not a popular style these days. It doesn’t matter to me if anybody else likes my work as long as I do. And I’ve done very few things I don’t adore.

So I’ve been happily painting along until about this time last year. My therapist at the time was on me to bring something in for her to see. So I brought in this really cool still life that I’d recently finished. She said wow I had no idea how cool your stuff is blah blah can I keep it I was so shocked to get any kind of reaction from her of any kind so said sure. I mean, I can always paint more, right? Right.

The next time I was in her office my painting was leaning against the wall I would stare at, straight ahead of me. It stayed there for nine months, until the day I fired her. For other reasons than this, but it did have an impact on me, this cavalier disregard for my stuff.

Today is the first time I have picked up brush to paint and canvas. It’s like blissing out. I can’t really describe it, I just paint what I see and there it is. My old self-portrait of a hundred individual tiny little slivers all rimmed in black no longer applies. I’ve only just started this one but most of the black borders are gone. There are still alot of us,. 42 I believe, but the lines of delineation between them just aren’t there for the most part. That tells me that what I am feeling internally, that there’s actually communication going on, that the littles are gaining shape and that things are very confusing. The littles are feeling things for the first time and even though I’m not finished with it I can feel them there. I recognize everybody, which is also a great surprise.

So there it is. I get my creativity back. There used to be a single internal, the Painter, who did it. But today it was a thing by committee. Parts that have never known of others’ existence are deciding on color texture and all the decisions you make when you’re painting in oil. The best part of the whole thing is that I gave this back to me. I gave the best part of me back to us. Cool breeze.

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Accepting Applications

February 23, 2010 at 8:36 am (dissociation complex Ptsd trauma child sexual abuse DID psychology survivor)
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So. We are now accepting applications for a new internal system. We assume it’s possible for us to change it;we also assume it’s gonna be a bitch to do. But we are strong and we are creative, so we have faith in being able to get the job done.

Here’s what the right applicant will require:

–Creative sensibility. We write cook and paint, all very important.

–communicative. Must be a le to effectively get messages across amongst a wide array of personnel with varying interests.

–conflict resolution. Must be able to efficiently negotiate conflict resolutions between splinters of all ages and experience levels.

–calm. The applicant must be able to engender calm when Rome occasionally burns to the ground around it.

–sense of humor. Must be able to see the humor in various situations.

–triage. Mist be able to quickly discern priority cases amongst population

–switching. Must be able to quickly and painlessly coordinate appropriate switching as necessary.

–growth. Must have the ability to grow and change as life permits.

–open-minded. Must be able to witness life events and splintered responses without judgment.

–hypnosis. Must be able to put to sleep various personnel when warranted.

–separate past from present. Must have the ability to quickly discern staff responses that are triggers from the past from what is happening in the present moment.

–religion. Must be a Buddhist, Tibetan preferred but not mandatory.

–woman. Nothing more to say than this. Must be a woman.

well, this is a start. Apply here.

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Letting Self Outta Jail

February 3, 2010 at 2:39 pm (dissociation complex Ptsd trauma child sexual abuse DID psychology survivor, Lesbian)
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Well, there certainly is a running pattern here. Hmm, we’ve been in therapy long enough to be suspicious of anything repetitive that toddles along in our head.

We are happy today. Today whoever is out running the show understands that the shit we went through as a child and young adult was not her fault. We aren’t a contagious filthy…thing. We are just someone who was a victim of severe chronic neglect and child sexual and otherwise physical abuse. And who has, quite surprisingly, lived to tell the tale.

But dare we say we know that we have survived it, that it is in her past? That we can see a path to recovering from that horrible shit as clear as, well as clear as anything has been in our life?

It’s the getting thru it all. As T says, it’s in the sorting it out that makes it clearer. Which we will do thru that first safe relationship.

Kind of a shock, really. We see ourselves today as a response to events in her life that overwhelmed her little kid’s capacity to deal. There’s nohing inherently wrong with her other than the very wrong things that were done to her. Had these things not happened she would be a happy healthy vibrant woman.

So there it is, isn’t it? There’s really only one of me. We are really just tools of communication and coping when normal channels were broken. We all have our stuff to be sorted out for certain. There’s all that stuff to feel and all that memory to deal with.

But we can do it. I can do it. Jesus that’s confusing but today it is perfectly true. We have let ourselves out of jail today. It’s quite the amazing feeling. Hope is there, an odd sort of power that’s been previously overlooked.

We wanted to record this feeling, this tsunami of relief. We want the splinters to be able to read this and to know that at least one of them knows pixie dust land, where self-compassion lives.

Huh. Who knew?

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What flashbacks are like

January 23, 2010 at 2:40 pm (dissociation complex Ptsd trauma child sexual abuse DID psychology survivor)
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*****TRIGGER WARNING********

So. This is what a flashback is like. We saw something on a blog, specifically about someone who self-mutilates sexually (I know. What were you thinking?). Because they had had a posiive physical response to some parts of their abuse. Which happens. We’re 50-50 okay about it which is a big improvement.

So. We thought we were okay then BLAMMO! First notices the smell that sick smell of sweat and alcohol and cigarettes and semen. Disgusting. As soon as we became aware of the smell we had this horrific taste. Cigarettes semen alcohol and our own blood from a punch in the mouth.

Off fonthe races. Can’t breathe like something is pressing on our chest like choking at the same time. Don’t know where we are bug we’re trapped, panicked. Start watching ourself, the cats, that pulled-away feeling when we’re dissociating.

Hear a rustling sound, like feet walking on leaves. He’s coming, he’s coming. Oh god panic. Panic. Sudden sharp pain in the ribs from being kicked. Male screaming. Laughter from other men. Suddenly dead mom’s voice nobody in my family would do such a thing. Feel it in me ouch ouch better not make a sound or he will come. Confused.

Heart racing. Panic. Trapped nowhere to run. Where aRe we where are we?

The smell and the taste are most repugnant.

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Sex, Yes. Enough Already!

January 23, 2010 at 10:16 am (dissociation complex Ptsd trauma child sexual abuse DID psychology survivor, gay lesbian chic queer gay marriage civil rights, Lesbian)
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Sex. Yup. We do it. We get it in any way that we can. In menopause and we are a bitch in heat. But there are several good reasons for this.

The first is that we have gotten what we always assumed was permanent damage to the privates fixed. In a nutshell we have been able to have clitoral orgasms over say the last two months–for the first time in her life. Honestly, how do any of us get anything done at all? I mean, just the mere physical thing of it. My god we honestly had no idea hah.

This is a hugely liberating thing for us mentally and emotionally as well. Our body doesn’t belong to somebody else. Wow what a concept. We never knew it didn’t belong to our plethora of pedophiles. Which is totally cool. Because there’s no overwhelming pain to tune out we’re actually there for it. So of course it would be all over our brains. Because we are not…gone. Amazing. We get to figure ou what we want, fabulous.

Because the nature of our particular story contains mucho bizarre and sadistic shit we learned very early on that “sex” included a gigantic array of specific actions. So when we grew up we never thought of creating boundaries around it. Weren’t there so our attitude was pretty much “sure, why not?”. Nothing in the adult world was new to us, so what the hell? Just a game anyway.

So now we get to actually connect to it, which is a pretty incredible thing. Who knew? Not us.

Of course there are just a ton of issues popping up. The little ones keep stepping in and promptly flipping out. We are learning how to convince them to stay away but it is absolutely irritating when they do not follow the rules. Makes for a busy time sometimes to say the least. The Teenagers are of course totally freaked and they’re hard to see because they are so good at hiding. But we have no patience for them and we’re pretty well able to just push them down temporarily. They kick up quite the sulky aftereffects but frankly we do not care.

We suspect that our sex drive isn’t politely diminishing with age because we just never really had it so much. So it’s not fifty years old. We don’t know how old it is exactly but it’s not our physical age, that’s for sure. Hah.

And really, it’s just the cat’s pajamas as our grandmother used to say. Which is to say what exactly we don’t know but generally that it’s really, really neat-o. We highly recommend it.

The shrink we saw for a dozen years, the evil CBT, used to say well what people did to you had nothing to do with sex. Oh, okay. That’s helpful. She would go on and on and on about consent about how sexual abuse isn’t in any way related to sex. Try telling tha to a seven year old girl who has a high drunken maniac between her legs. Try it yourself then tell us all about how the two things are not connected.

We do have some questions around this whole thing. Most importantly, can a person go blind from excessive masturbation?

Hah, see? Hysterical.

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Laughing because we can’t cry

January 23, 2010 at 9:26 am (dissociation complex Ptsd trauma child sexual abuse DID psychology survivor, Lesbian)
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Therapist Stares us down. Wants to make a very clear point. Silence. STARE. STARE. STARE. It is not funny you know. You went thru ghastly bestial sexual abuse when you were so young. It is not funny. Having nerve damage from getting bitten in a horrific place, that is not funny.

I want you all to look at me. All of you can you do that? (sulk). I wan the weaver to throw up all the colors in the loom at the same time. Or at least have everybody listening to me. Do it now.

IT. IS. NOT. FUNNY. What you are doing in here with me. IT. IS. NOT. FUNNY. what you have to cope with on a moment-to-moment basis. Your pain.

IT. IS. NOT. FUNNY. Do you know that? (more sulking, shutting down). Yes, we know. They know. Everybody knows it’s not funny bu we don’t know what else to do and so.

You can try actually feeling what you’re feeling. (mild panic). Well, umm, it’s really just too much isn’t it? I mean in what context can we ever let it be okay?

It will never be okay, what all those people did to you. NEVER BE OKAY. What we can do is to stop hiding, stop laughing about it and go thru it all together. Here. (don’t believe it).

Oh come on, it is pretty funny really. I mean, we go to the DMV and it messes with our sexlife for a day? We don’ know that we even exist? Up until the other day we havel a Part that has never gone to rest? Waking up in another country? Come on, you can’t say that’s not so freaking weird that it’s not funny. Come on, it’s weirder than Monty Python for god’s sake. It’s like Benny Hill stuff. You can’t say it isn’t amusing.

YOU. ARE. HIDING. I want you all to look at me. Look at me. YOU ARE HIDING BEHIND THE HUMOR. THIS IS NOT FUNNY. (grumble grumble). Honestly? It has to be funny. Otherwise we will start to cry and we will never stop. She will end up in the nutward and this time they’ll never let her out. Well I wouldnot let that happen, that you would never get let out. You may very well end up there for a
Short prior of time or two as we dig thru this but I will not allow you to be committed for the rest of your life.

This is going to be very, very hard. Yes. But you need to recognize that it is very painful stuff. The things that were done to you were simply ghastly. GHASTLY DO YOU HEAR ME? Ghastly.

That is the reality of the thing. Have you ever cried about it?God no. Why not? Because that would make it real.

It is real. You have physical scars, many physical scars, right? He wasn’t a beast only to you, right? So we KNOW that it is real. (gotta get outta here). I want you to promise me tha you will not laugh about any of this until I see y’all on Monday. We can’t make that promise. Come on, lightenup. IT’S FUNNY GOD DAMMIT! IT’S FUNNY IT’S FUNNY. IT HAS TO BE FUNNY BECAUSE THERE’S NO OTHER WAY TO SURVIVE!

Sigh, writes furiously. This is your homework for the weekend stern look. Do you hear me? This is your homework for Monday. I want you to think about normal human reactions. I want you to think that a normal human reaction to what you’ve been thru is horror. And fury. And deep sadness. (so you see we’re inhuman after all bitch).

We don’t have anybody who has that job. Well then. Assign an empty to it temporarily if you have to (empties just sit around waiting for something to do, adaptation to new circumstance). I want you to think about it though.

So. Must be about time to go, eh? (it’s not time to go but we gotta get outta here). So. How many Irish grandmothers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Don’t mind me I’ll just sit here in the dark. Have a good weekend (bitch, what a killjoy).

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