My Personal Challenges for 2022

 2022. It's crazy. 2021 felt like it went incredibly fast and yet felt like it took 5 years. The weirdness that comes from socially isolating and being forced to spending most of your time at home. This isn't something I am new to, thanks to all my illnesses, but I was starting to emerge from the last depressive episode. Plus usually my partner isn't home.

I've been working on learning what I actually enjoy doing since I began therapy and stopped repressing so much. I've gotten better at grounding which means I dissociate less. I still struggle with emotions, both understanding what I am feeling and being overwhelmed. I feel like I've made progress with slowly sifting through my hobbies and joys from before trauma therapy and learning what I truly enjoy.

Painting

I  know I definitely love being creative and painting is part of this. I want to try some mixed media painting, drawing and sketching before painting, and painting on different surfaces. I've decided I am going to attempt to do one painting project a month, but I don't want to be too ambitious in case my mental health interferes so I am aiming between 8 and 12 pieces for 2022

Winston Needs Medicine and It's Triggering

 I have two rabbits. Winston and Hazel. Hazel is the youngest at around 4 years old. Winston is my oldest, at roughly 9 years, and MY BOI. Back in 2012 I was socially isolated and not coping. Instead of adopting a dog, as I was going to do with my ex, I went with a rabbit.

I didn't realise back then I had CPTSD and my hypervigilance was off the charts. I love dogs. I love all animals. I just couldn't be around dogs because they would trigger my startle response with their barking. I thought it was the ME/CFS sensitivities at the time, but now I know better. I was intensely startled every time a dog barked.

Long story short, yes there is more story, I went and adopted a rabbit. It wasn't Winston. It was my beloved Fiver whom I named after Fiver in Watership Down by Richard Adams. Fiver saved my sanity at the time and unfortunately he passed away after six months of me adopting him. That's a trauma story I am saving for Mrs Yellow.

I was still socially isolated, suffering from depression, and quite unwell after Fiver passed. I lasted two weeks before the lack of sound little padded feet made started to drive me madder and I adopted Winston in 2013. That's a long time to have a bunny companion. He has been there for my depression, kept me going when I was suicidal, gave me a reason to get up in the morning. We bonded hard when I adopted him. I have been dreading him getting older...

Emotional Dysregulation? Maybe

 It's common for someone with (C)PTSD to have emotional dysregulation and issues with expressing their emotions. I know I do. I've always struggled with expressing my emotions. When you're a child and you're told your emotions are bad, or are punished for expressing them, doesn't it make sense to have an issue with expressing yourself?

When I was a child I was told my emotions were bad, I was punished for expressing them, I mostly received negative reactions to them whether I was sad, angry, frustrated, or happy. This continued for many years, after childhood, but by my adolescence I had learned to suppress them. I had learnt suppression is a good thing, it keeps you safe. Unfortunately, when you bottle them up, the emotions would be let out in extremes. To the point where I would make others uncomfortable or scare them. I myself would be frightened of their intensity and my inability to get a grip on myself again. 

I questioned, during my late adolescence and times of drawn-out emotional suppression, if I was a sociopath. I didn't understand then what was going on. Why didn't I have emotional responses like other people? Why wasn't I feeling anything at times? Emotions, to me, can be incredibly confusing. Most of the time I am questioning what I am feeling and the reaction I am having. I've become detached as a way to cope.

Unhealthy Emotions and Flatness

 Late last year Dr Green switched my medication from Zoloft (sertraline) to Aropax (paroxetine). Zoloft was working great in the beginning, but after some time it became apparent it wasn't working well enough. The doses were either too intense or too low and there wouldn't necessarily be large changes. I'd dissociate more often, have jittery highs, get mired overlong in the lows.

After switching between the two and having the Aropax settle down I became confused about my emotions. I felt flat. I've been dissociating on and off since I remember so I wasn't surprised to be feeling like a robot sometimes. It wasn't that. It's not the emotions are missing, but I feel as though I can't truly feel them.

I've mentioned this flatness to Dr Green during our last two sessions. I've been so perplexed by it. What is this? I wondered if this was the Aropax. Was it the zombie feeling people sometimes described when they went on anti-depressants? 

No.

From Therapy to The Future

 I just had a full day of therapy and I feel like my brain is about to explode. I need to stare into space for an hour to process. A full day is appointments with my psychologist and psychiatrist, 2 hours tops, but holy shit it's enough to melt my brain. 

They were really good sessions, but I think the reason my brain is melting is because of the topics we discussed. It's really hitting home for me how disruptive and erratic my life has been. I've been living day-to-day, taking everything as it comes. I've needed to in the past and it's what I am accustomed to. Now I've been presented with the idea I can create goals for my life and strive for something in the future. It's just.... WTF dude?

This is where I am in my life. I've been working so hard on reaching the goal of normalcy, stability, well-rounded health for so long I haven't truly believed I could get there. Now I'm almost at a precipice where these possibilities are somewhere on the horizon and every time it comes up my mind is blown. I'm starting to think my head actually hurts after these moments because my brain is being forced to change. It needs to change for me to actually accept all these ideas can be a part of my life. It's flooring. I don't know what I want to do with myself. Part of me wants to cry.

I'm sure this sounds dramatic to someone out there, especially when their life has been full of stability and consistency. That doesn't throw me at all. I'm actually happy for those people, but to me they are also unicorns. We're talking about a unicorn life here. Unicorns all over the place. Unicorn city

Catching Up

I've been distracted lately. Or maybe the right term is busy. In a good way, mostly. 

My back has decided sitting at the dining table to type is not cool. I'm doing physio three times a week and a bunch of exercises three times a day. It's kinda made me not want to type or blog, but today I am taking over my partner's desk as she is in the office. I felt inspired.

I finished a great psychology book, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson, and began a new one, Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey. It's a big deal for me after the anhedonia and depression. I realised the other day I had begun a trilogy in January 2020, made it to the sequel, only to lose reading momentum at page 378. 378! That's some effort and yet apparently not enough for me lol. So, yeah, big deal for me.

I've officially started a book club. We're getting things underway, have chosen our first book, and have set the date for our first meet up. I had a book club years ago which I ran for two years. Unfortunately I was so triggered at the time, and unaware of it, that book club wasn't a fun experience for me. This time will be different and I'm quite excited.

Dissociation isn't a Joke, but Gratitude is Sweet.

Following is a combination of topic and dissociating. You're welcome to read all of it or skip to the topic of gratitude by scrolling down to this highlighted colour.

While I was typing gratitude in the title the 'D' on my bluetooth keyboard decided it would pop out halfway. I use a bluetooth keyboard as my Mac is 10 years old and the built-in keyboard stopped working awhile ago. A year ago I probably would have seen this as a shitty thing. I'm used to things not working out right, but that's a subject for another post. I say, before I digress way down a rabbit hole.

Anyway, so gratitude. I've noticed when my perspective is stuck somewhere after going through a downward spiral I am far less open to suggestions and advice. I even have a post coming up about being defiant and combative with advice. Talk about a rabbit hole! I had to switch over to this draft half-way through because holy shit.... Alice hit the landing zone and fell through another hole. 

I'm triggered today. It's coming out in a tangent/dissociative mood. I will attempt to be as concise and on point as possible. I promise not to unleash my full Alice Brain on you, but this is what it's like when you have PTSD, OCD, blah blah, and are trying TO DO THE THING.

I need a moment. And after some very mindful eating....

Anhedonia!

I am excited.... I'm having a moment. In my first post I mentioned there is a condition I have and couldn't remember the name of it. Was having a brain fart. For days, apparently. All I could remember was there was an "A" and a "H."

In the original post I said I would post about it when I remembered the name, so here I am.

It's Anhedonia!

anhedonia

/ˌanhɪˈdəʊnɪə/

Learn to pronounce

noun

PSYCHIATRY

inability to feel pleasure in normally pleasurable activities.

THIS^ has been my life for the longest time. It's weird, I didn't really know the impact of it until things began to improve. Albeit marginally, but still improvement enough for me to have an "oh?" moment. 

Literally. 

I don't remember what I was doing, but one day I was in the middle of something and I felt enjoyment from my activity. It was fleeting, but it was wonderful.

I FELT SOMETHING DIFFERENT.