How to challenge your negative thoughts

Thinking of you Sis @BlueBay

How did you go at the doctors today 🤔

Sitting with you ❤️

Hey @AuntGlow

next shift is Monday but normal hours 10-3. Which is much better.
I’m not sure how to be grounded in Christmas Day. I think because my beautiful little A will be with me I think I’ll be ok. It will most likely be hard at night when all kids leave that I’ll be thinking of my dad.

My psychiatrist called me tonight as I emailed her during the day and she wanted to make sure I was safe. She suggested taking a different med tonight and see if can take the edge off my anxiety.

hope you are well. Xxx

Hi @Shaz51

Saw my dr and he checked my BP and it was perfect. He thinks it’s anxiety that is making me feel sick.

I told him that I CANNOT forget my dad and try to get on with life. It’s not that easy.

I rested a bit this afternoon. Oldest son called in for dinner and he went to the beach. He has now just gone home.
hope you are well sis xxxx

hi @Jynx thanks for your continuing support. Xxx

Not a good day today

had a session with my psychologist

did a session on EMDR reg my childhood trauma

contacted lifeline with terrible thoughts

Feeling sad teary helpless and hopeless

Some times I wish I disappeared

I’m tired and my head is not able to think straight

@Shaz51 @Jynx @AuntGlow @rav3n @Appleblossom @tyme and others reading on

EMDR is such a brave process to go through @BlueBay. I know how triggering it can feel to reconnect with those memories. 💛

I am really hopeful that in time, with the reprocessing element, things will shift and feel safer for you. You did the best thing for yourself by reaching out to Lifeline when you weren't feeling okay.

"Feeling sad teary helpless and hopeless", these feelings are completely understandable and allowed to be there. I wonder how you can nurture them tonight?

Hi @BlueBay

I completely agree with what @AuntGlow said about it being a time of nurturing.

I have been in a similiar position that you are facing, but probably not of the same magnitude. It is tough, but it is absolute necessary to integrate your psyche.

I can share my story and the path that worked for me if you wish to hear it. But I can understand if you need a break from your focus to decompress and rally your strength.

Good luck with your journey. I know the travel is hard, but as long as you push against the wind and follow the pain, you'll reach a destination that defies all the abusers and reintegrates your mind.

My very best wishes.

Kind regards

J.

Thanks @AuntGlow @J_1nOz

thanks for your support. I think for tonight I will have an early night.
need to try to process the day in a quiet environment.

nice to meet you @J_1nOz

happy to read your story whenever you feel like it.

@BlueBay Cioa Bella

Feeling a bit similar. I had my psychologist today as well. We seem to be in a similar boat atm. She gave me a beautiful image. Pulling in your sails to make yourself small, so you can sail through the storm.

Hey @Shaz51 @AuntGlow

@J_1nOz Love that you wrote ...it is absolute necessary to integrate your psyche.... think we have a few similar ideas about the psyche and the social world.

Hi @BlueBay

I can tell the main points of my story that I think may have some relevance to you.

The heart of my quest wasn't clear to me at the time, but in hindsight, it can be summed up as making my "public persona" as unified to my internal identity as much as possible.

The initial set-up to my life was being born into a broken marriage between a conservative mother that was belittled and physically abused as a child, and a father that was raised under the fear of his father. These participants were themselves raised by couples coming out of world war 2, whereby through the social crucible of wartime trauma, people that wouldn't normally marry did. It had major ramifications: loss of faith, loss of family connections and emotional instability.

My parents broke up and my mother raised me and my younger brother. We were the type of kids that never had friends over, and never had role models that resembled the one the television. Since my mother was unemployed, we were the poorest in any school we attended.

TW: Child sexual abuse

However, the side effect of all this meant that I was socially isolated and my sense of self was just one of shame. I had no dialogue worthy of expression. In fact, I was so out of touch with healthy social connection, that I only saw one event in person within the first two decades that resembled a healthy social engagement. This event was due to a quirk of fate: the entire year 6 class that I was part of was invited to a sleep over. It was like coming across a different species when I snuck to the top of a stairwell in the middle of the night and discovered a dozen adults looking happy in one another's company. I was entranced...

Consequently, every attempt of social engagement was flawed. I just didnt have any experience and I had no p7blic voice. I attempted to mimick what I thought was a healthy person, but it was impossible to maintain. And the effects of failure were draining and depressing. For instance, I was studying science at uni amd to my dismay, I was the only person that didnt have someone to talk to in the lecture hall. Even though I had always been an outsider, and although my grades were very high, that moment I stood up and quit that course. And this type of stop-start trajectory that was being driven by my internal narrative was essentially my life.

Eventually, everything fell apart. I left my partner at the time, left my job, and my flatmate interceded in my poor state by suggesting my problem was that I was a paedophile. His conclusion made perfect sense. I felt calm for the first time that I could remember. I went off to a state psychologist and told them that I was a paedophile. She told me that I needed to attend a group meeting fir survivors of child abuse. To be honest, my response was total confusion. I even had my arms raised thinking that the next door police station would be informed and they would shackle me. So I really didn't know what to do when I was shown the door.

But being at the group taught me a lot. I heard for the first time the voices and personal narratives of men like me. And the more I allowed myself to embody each part of my fears instead of trying to contain them, the more I could breath. It was like the experience of them lessened the anxiety. Additionally, it provided a place where I could start to practice expressing my narrative nd taking ownership of it.

That was an empowering experience.

There was more, but essentially those parts of my story are much more indirectly the side effects of paedophilia than the points made above.

Taking hold of the shadowed parts of the psyche and giving them a voice is the only way I have found that reunites my fractured mind. I like myself now. It was counter-intuitive at the time, but the parts of the psyche that have hidden gold and strength were all the parts that were encaged by defence mechanisms internal to myself. But once I started to find the first taste of peace on pursuing any pain inside, the faster and more intrigued I became.

That is my story.

Sorry it was a bit of a ramble.

Kind regards

J.

Just letting you know I've added a trigger warning to your post @J_1nOz - lemme know if you have any concerns 😊