Riding a wave

[CheerBear]

I wasn't going to come on here again tonight but I was going through emails and saw a couple of lovely posts on the blanket thread (big thanks @Former-Member). I initially felt a big grrrrr that I ever wrote what feels like total rubbish when I am squished. But then I read that story again and reminded myself that it is not rubbish and that it really is where I am when I have not been totally squished and smashed and broken by life hitting too hard all at once. I'm going to add "read that thread" to my get through it box.

Then your post came through too @Phoenix_Rising and here I am logged on again. I laugh cried that TTT got me today better than my own psych. I have big swear words going through my head for both of us tonight, at being squished on the eve of a public holiday weekend. What's with that? So much huge ugh 😞

It's not ok and none of it is ok. Venus would be a longer day though, and if nothing else, I guess we have that. We also have together-but-notness and that's definitely something else.

You totally rocked the beach. No surprise there.

Now I really am heading out to sit with my hook and yarn again. 2.5 hours to go then tomorrow will be a tomorrow job.

Night (and big thank you).

[Former-Member]

Thank YOU @CheerBear for sharing. I really like the idea of adding "read that thread" to your get through box - I hope it is helpful for you.

I will stop tagging you now, so that you can spend some time with your hook and yarn and hopefully get some rest.

Night 🙂

[CheerBear]

Morning @Phoenix_Rising and anyone in the ocean this morning.

I hope you slept ok. Sleep is tricky for me at the moment but I am finding the funny side of having my tolerance for emergency sleep meds increase as my tolerance for life decreased. At least I can still laugh about things 😉

Today has dawned a tiny bit brighter for me. Being here last night really helped me as did the talking without needing to talk, talks we had in the wee hours. I hope today has dawned a little brighter for you also.

I think your new mission to stay inside your window sounds like a great one. I'm realising that pushing myself too hard (or being pushed too hard by others) to increase my window is maybe not always the best idea. I'll work on that one.

I'm not planning on being here much again today, though I may pop in and out. I know this will pass and I will settle again, and that it's ok to give myself some time until that happens. I have a feeling things will feel a bit easier with routine, and that's only days away from happening now.

I really hope today has some good in it for you. I'll be here, like always, even when I am not, and I am not too far away. I can hear you from here.

See you when I see you (which will be in about 2 minutes when I get my handbag and head out and about with some fish).

🙂

[Phoenix_Rising]

Hi @CheerBear,

My day has dawned brighter too. How awesome is it that we don't live on Venus where we would have to wait 5832 hours for a new day!!!!

I am a bazillion times calmer now that a plan B is in progress for dealing with the super wrong wrong in my world. 

I super hope you are able to get support to stay inside your window rather than being pushed out of it CheerBear. TTT proves that there are helping people out there who get it. And it isn't just her, all the psychologists in the practice are like that - mostly because they are employees of the practice owner who definitely understands this stuff (even if she hasn't got around to teaching it to her practice manager!!!). So that means there is definitely more than one psychologist out there who gets it. You know what you should do? You should stake out one of Bessel Van de Kolk's conferences and interview all the mental health professionals as they leave, to try and find one who understands windows. Methinks those who pay a fortune to hear him speak are likely to be good candidates for understanding the importance of staying inside windows! 

I can definitely see how having TTT help me stay inside my window will make my window get bigger. Constantly being pushed out of the window makes the window shrink. I really don't get how hard that is for people to understand...but apparently it is! 

I'm super glad that I am with you and the LF today, CheerBear. I love that you only had to wait two minutes to see me. 

I am not going to be around here today either. I am playing with data again. I only popped in to see how you were travelling and to let you know my day is brighter. Here's hoping for a bus-free long weekend CheerBear. I'll see you when I see you...which I guess will be whenever you next open your handbag. We've so got this!!! 

[CheerBear]

Hi @Phoenix_Rising ☺

It was great to hear that your day dawned brighter. How has the rest of it been? I hope you've enjoyed your data.

I think your idea of interviewing mental health professionals at a Bessel van der Kolk conference is awesome! Thinking of that led me to Google his upcoming events. He's attending a yoga and trauma event in the Bahamas in March. If we find that eleventy billion dollars before then, want to go? 😁 How fun would that be?! While we're there maybe we could also ask him if he'd like to be a guest for a Topic Tuesday!

I'm so glad TTT is so helpful. It really does help to remember helpful helping people exist. My lifejacket was one of them. My psych can be very helpful (but very unhelpful sometimes also). This bus was one about a potential change in my diagnosis/es when I meet the psychiatrist. That didn't go down well with me and it won't go down well with me if it happens. It's a Monday thing though and today is Friday even though it feels like Saturday.

I'm glad you have a plan B. I am hearing you with this being a can't tell wrong, wrong thing which I understand. There is a lot I wish I could know but I can know without knowing. I also believe the most important thing is what impact it has had and is having on you, which I can hear and see and feel. I dont need to know what it is to hear that part.

Today has been calm and has had good here. It feels like rest for a hurting head and it feels like a got this day. I think I am in my window today and it feels much better like this.

I really hope your day has been one with good and calm too.

[Phoenix_Rising]

Good evening @CheerBear,

My day has been nice and peaceful as I've mostly spent it in a state of flow playing with data. Yay for flow!!! 

Every now and again I have been getting giant panicky waves related to the super wrong wrong. It caused me to reflect on how much this stuff is stored in our body. In my thinking brain I feel much better now that there is a plan B, but I can still super feel the yuck feelings that plan A triggered in my body and it hurts. Thus I have spent a bit of time under my weighted blanket today and cuddling turtle and rocking and doing all those things that help icky body feelings feel better. Methinks you understand icky body feelings that come from being squished by buses. 

Going to the Bahamas to find a helpful helping person and to ask Bessel ven der Kolk to be a guest at Topic Tuesday sounds like a super plan to me @CheerBear!!!! We should definitely do that. 

Do you have any thoughts about why a change in diagnosis seems like such a big bus for you, CheerBear? I had this conversation with TTT the other day when we were talking about the whole BPD vs c-PTSD thing. Even though we agreed that they are one and the same thing and that c-PTSD is a preferable name for it, I recognise that having BPD is part of my identity and it would definitely bug me if someone tried to rebrand it as c-PTSD. I can see how irrational that is, given that, as I said, I am firmly in the camp that believes they are just different names for the same thing. I guess that's what comes from having worn a label for your entire adult life, hey! 

I agree that it super feels like Saturday - which is really weird given that every day is the same in my world anyway! 

I am super SUPER glad you have had a calm day with good in it, inside your window. 

I think it is truly amazing that you can hear and feel and see the impact of the wrongness of the wrong without needing to know. It seems so very strange to me that you can do that, while some of those who know cannot. However, some can, and thus plan B is in progress (though stalled due to the darn long weekend). 

I super hope our weekends continue to be calm and good and within our windows, CheerBear. I will be playing with data again tomorrow so I am hopeful of avoiding buses. 

Goodnight my most amazing not-friend. 

[CheerBear]

Morning @Phoenix_Rising. It's now Saturday even though it feels like Sunday. We're doing it ☺ Big yay for flow. I did yesterday in flow in parts too with some sparky blue pretties.

I can relate to your panic waves. They're my "jolts" and it is pretty incredible how powerful they can be. They happen to me often and while I can recognise them and to an extent can control how they play out, no amount of thinking brain can stop them and sometimes they do get out of control. I find them disruptive and tiring. I can very much see how super wrong wrong could trigger panic waves 🙁 And how much trauma is stored in the body.

I meant to ask whether yoga is happening again this term? I am hoping I'll get there again soon. And your volunteering and violining gig - are they back soon?

There are a few things to the diagnosis bus. There's the idea that lots of years of working with my clinical psych could be overridden, and what that says about lots of years of work and/or how it's possible for diagnosis to come about in an initial appointment or shortly after. There was an argument about CPTSD in it too. And the biggest ugly parts to this are yucky developmental history things that I don't really talk about. I haven't spoken with psych about it and it is instant shut down if they try. They have some gappy, incorrect, partial history that was given during my first catt encounter which has led to what I am thinking are assumptions and theories as I have seen them in scary letters between people like my psych, catts, gp etc. I really do understand my life and the way stuff can play into other stuff, and I seriously object to people making assumptions or pushing people to talk about certain things in certain ways. That doesn't sit well with me and I have a feeling you may appreciate that. But then again, there is part of me that wants to work through this some more (I did a little with my lifejacket person but that couldn't last) as I have been getting lots of positive encouragement that shows me that understanding early history can help understand and therefore manage present banana brain issues too - wonder where a good sized chunk of that is coming from 😉

Long story short (and sorry for the long story) I feel a mix of frustrated and scared. Seeing any new someone is scary and psychiatrists really do scare me, so a new someone who is a psychiatrist is like double scary. I'm proud that I am even thinking about this. But Monday is for Monday and I'll cross that one when I come to it (with a pocket full of pocket crew and a 'please catch me if I fall' plan).

I hope you find your data flowy again today. One good thing about long weekends (and weekends) is that I find less buses seem to be driving around. I don't like stalling and needing to put things on hold very much, but I do like that there are less 'well that just happened' things happening. It seems a lot easier to stay inside a window without things throwing us out of them!

Hope your day has good in it and our days are calm ☺ Thinking of you lots.

[Phoenix_Rising]

Hi @CheerBear,

This is a bit of a quick flyby just to check in and check that you haven't had any bus squishing. I agree that weekends (and especially long weekends) tend to be safe non-bus times. 

I am still playing with data. I have to get it done before I head off to change the world on Monday. I super wish I could tell you all about my change the world adventure. I will share the bits I can when I can. I figure I might tell you the general geographical location of where I am when I get there, and then after I've left, I will tell you more about where I was. Alas, I can't share the actual world-changing bit, but I'm planning to do something fun on the Monday (world changing doesn't actually start until Tuesday) and I will be able to tell you about that after I've done it. Yay for being able to do things together but not and share the doing of them after they're done. 

Panic waves/jolts super suck. Yep, trauma is definitely stored in the body!

Yoga-ing will be happening sometime soon. I hurt my arm, that's why yoga-ing hasn't been happening. It is super bugging me. Violining starts this coming Friday - yay! My volunteering gig is still a few weeks away as they give the kids a bit of time to settle back into the school routine before starting. 

I totally hear what you are saying about the diagnosis bus. I think it would be super unhelpful for a psychiatrist to suggest a diagnosis contrary to that of your long-term psychologist, after an initial meeting. I can super hear the scariness and frustration around this. I guess I should be grateful that I am so unbelievably "borderline" that pretty much no one really ever questions it (we just debate whether it should be called BPD or C-PTSD). 

I believe that understanding early history is superly duperly important in understanding and thereby managing present banana brain issues. I wonder where you've been getting positive encouragement about that from - must be from some super wise individual. 

I guess the tricky thing is that a MH professional can only develop a hypothesis about the issues based on the information they are given. If the client doesn't share something, then this cannot be considered when coming up with a diagnosis. Sadly, MH professionals aren't psychic (I super wish TTT was psychic!!!!). Sadly, if we want someone to help us fit together the pieces of the puzzle, we need to give them the pieces. I know how super super super hard it is to give them all the pieces - especially if you have done it a bazillion times before! I so badly wish you could still have your lifejacket. 

I love that you started a sentence with "long story short" and then apologised for the long story. 

Ok, well I need to get back to playing with data so that I can get it done before I go to change the world! I am super looking forward to doing the change the world adventure with you together-but-not. I love how I often get the thought of "I must tell CheerBear that" when I'm having adventures. It superly duperly helps me to feel less alone in the world. I'm super glad our oceans collided. 

I super hope you are having as calm and as bus-free a day as I am. 

[Zoe7]

@Phoenix_Rising I am in the process of starting a new thread for TOR - so the ANC thread can stay 'on track'... but before I do that I wanted to show you the renovations I have made to your corner! If you 'approve' the new renovations then I will include it in the new Octagonal Room - if there are any suggestions or things you would like added/subtracted then let me know... yours needs to be the first 'corner' as the whole concept of TOR began with you 

[Phoenix_Rising]

Ooooh that sounds SUPER exciting @Zoe7.