Post-therapy wrap-up
Therapy (on the phone) was really helpful today. I gained some nice new understanding of:
(1) how badly some of my parts want to reach out to others with authenticity, a touch of vulnerability and needs
(2) the protector part that jumps in the way of the above coming to fruition. the people-pleasing impulsive talking part who betrays all the vulnerability, the emotion, the “true” me in an effort to keep the whole system safe
(3)the reinforcement that the protector part receives each time I welcome into my life the types of people who will replicate the patterns of my youth.
What I’m left with is this: I want to do it differently this time. I want to figure out first how to distinguish those people who are NOT like my family of origin and who are safe to be me around and then how to let those people in a bit. The first part is crucial to remember because I definitely have “good therapy” parts who think that experiencing my emotions and being vulnerable is the end goal of therapy. But what’s the point if I finally get to that place with people who mistreat me again? No, I have to figure out before hand if my parts feel safe. B. says it’s just a process of being aware of what parts are most “in the living room” when I spend time with people. Examining what comes up when I’m with them. Awareness is not something I’ve been cultivating a lot of lately. I’ve been busy and distracted and ungrounded. Kayaking and yoga are top priorities for the week. Maybe listen to a guided meditation. Best of intentions…we’ll see how it works out.
quick-ish update
First off, thanks so much for the support and positive response to my “return to blogging”. You guys are awesome.
It hit me. It finally hit me. Finally???!! Hey, in the grand scheme of repressing emotions 3 weeks is NOTHING! But it bubbled up. In yoga tonight, the sweat and the “push harder” and the faster faster faster pace of vinyasas and the 94 degree room and the grunts of self-punishment from nearby yogis (who were WAY too CLOSe for comfort – seriously 1 inch is not sufficient space between mats, people!). And I got so far behind with all my wacky accommodations to protect my wrist and I wasn’t staying in any posture more than three tenths of a second because the guy was barking out orders and suddenly I took child’s pose and there it was. Sad. Sad. Tears and sad. And snot and sob and bury my face in my mat. And I let it be there. And then I slowed my practice way down. And then I took early shavasana when the lights dimmed and lay there in the dark, hot tears streaming down my cheeks joining with the tributaries of sweat. I miss B. I miss group. I miss my old yoga practice. I miss the things that helped me get better. I feel so far away from that energy. That centeredness.
And so I’m late in writing and late to bed because I spent some time tonight compiling a list of local therapists to contact tomorrow. I need therapy. And I’d like to set up a phone visit with B. because I need to process with her some of the things that are coming up surrounding our ending therapy. Things like the fact that my “system” is starting to feel echoes of dad hurt – of amputating people of value from my life. I don’t want to slam the door on it. On therapy. It was meaningful. It was momentous. I want to continue to honor that and explore it. And the only safe person right now to explore it with is B herself.
So there it is. A puddle of tears on the yoga mat. That’s good stuff, people. That’s the work.
Listening to my body
or perhaps I should’ve titled this post “Shame on me for not listening to my body”. My wrist, my right very important and frequently used wrist, is painful. This has been a nagging injury that consumed my life February through June of last year, which does not bode well for my level of optimism that this is just a “brief” injury. MRI’s, X-rays, casting, splinting, bracing and a second opinion were all in agreement: diagnosis unknown. Well fuck you, medical profession (which I sheepishly admit to being part of)! Fuck you healthcare diagnostic technology! And a double fuck you to my insurance deductible!
The wrist has been sore now for perhaps six weeks – nothing major – just an occasional reminder that I have a dainty (translation: weak ass) wrist. But yesterday there was the vegetable chopping that went on and on for about forty minutes – whose idea was it to make soup, anyway? The turnip and the sweet potatoes, butternut squash, celery, onion, tomatoes all sliced and diced with an increasing amount of discomfort in a certain joint. I knew I was overdoing it and the excruciatingly dull knife wasn’t helping my cause. But this voice (which sounded exactly like my mother) said, “You can’t stop mid-soup! Suck it up!” So I pressed onward.
If there was a purple heart of soup making, I earned it. I also earned it for papercrafting several years ago when I gave myself a nerve compression injury to my thumb from cutting for about 4 hours during a paper flower craft activity. Oh no, I can’t injure myself in any athletic endeavor or rescuing a puppy from a burning building. Apparently I’m hard-core, X-games worthy domestic. Martha Stewart + Mountain Dew.
So yoga tonight was pathetic. Every posture I had to think about and figure out a not too awkward accommodation. Transitions into and out of postures were wobbly and I’m sure my sighs of annoyance were, well…annoying to others. I cried in Shavasana. Initially because the frustration over my wrist spilled over into hatred of my whole body right now (did I mention I gained weight and am now wearing a fat suit? yes, my thighs touch each other just south of my groin and it is repulsive.). But a few minutes later I was crying because I was staring up at the ceiling with nothing but blank walls in my peripheral vision and I began to feel trapped and alone. The world suddenly felt huge and I felt tiny and unanchored and the vulnerability dripped in hot salty tracks from the corners of my eyes and puddled in my ears.
A different sort of yoga practice
Many of my posts seem to have a yoga slant lately. I guess that just reflects where I am – which isn’t such a bad place to be.
Last night there were only 2 of us at group and it was the yoga-only session but led by B. She offered us a different sort of practice and we took her up on it. We held different “gentle” postures for longer and spoke for different parts that came up so that she could help walk us through unblending with those parts and see what was underneath if those dominant ones could step aside. It was really good and fit perfectly with my desire to deepen my practice. Here are a few of parts that came up:
- comparison to my own high standards part: came up when I assumed a posture I used to be able to do “right” and now can only do about “halfway”. this same part jumps in sometimes related to weight, body image, athleticism. this part is concerned a bit with what other people think but this can be rationalized out of me (i.e. you wear a size 2 jeans – no one in this room would think you are fat; no one else in group can do this posture even as well as you so they aren’t thinking you suck). What my rationalizing part cannot negotiate is my own internalized high standards. This high standards part says things like “I know you’re doing it better than everyone else but that’s not enough – you have to do it PERFECTLY” or “if you did it once (or looked like that once) then it’s possible and imperative that you do it again. if not, you’re a failure”.
-scared parts: these were really a cluster of young exiled parts who were fearful of intense sensations in my body. A protector part would jump in and do a body scan to “fix” everything fixable about the posture to distract from the intense physical sensations (not pain, just intensity). The scared parts were terrified that the sensations were a precursor to some huge emotional release of parts I’ve never even met yet – the deep dark yuck parts.
-intellectual parts: these parts were frustrated that my neck wouldn’t relax and somehow felt that THINKING about it more and WILLING my neck to relax would make it happen (somehow I doubt “RELAX, damn it!!” would make anyone relax). This part was closely related to a frustrated part that doesn’t understand what it means to “breath into a body part” or “breath into the sensation”. Because I am so frequently detached from my body, I can’t even internally find my neck in order to “breath into it” (whatever that means). B. reassured me that “breathing into it” merely means bringing your attention gently to a sensation.
All in all it was a really interesting and gratifying exercise. I love how B. explains that the yoga mat is a microcosm that mirrors our daily lives. These same parts arise in difficult situations – the high standards “do it right” part, the terrified of intense emotions part, the distract from intense emotions part, the intellectual part that thinks I can think my way into control of situations and myself.
I’m not sure that I got all the way separated from all these parts to see what was underneath. But I was separate enough to observe and name them. To ask them why they’re there. And when working with the young terrified parts I felt my Self tell them, “I’m not scared of these feelings. I can handle them. But I’m not going to let you see them until you’re ready. I’ll keep you safe and protected even when I do let you see them.” It didn’t go much further than that – felt a little like a cliffhanger. But I definitely heard that strong voice comforting them, which is huge. My whole system was surprised – “who said that?!” my parts asked in unison.
Attention. Intention.
This week is pretty intense. I have my regular group therapy twice (includes 2 yoga practices in addition to the one yesterday in Boston), individual once, two network chiropractic appointments and craniosacral on Friday. Seems I’m giving my body some much needed positive attention.
I had planned on cancelling my next network chiropractic appt. because I just wasn’t feeling it. The dude who did my initial evaluation didn’t thrill me and I didn’t feel much different. It didn’t feel worth my money. But I felt I had to go to today’s appointment because the weekend prohibited the requested 24 hour cancellation notice. Well, this time it was the dude’s wife doing my actual adjustment and she.was.amazing. Scratch all plans – I’m keeping this up for a bit to see where it could go. I purposely didn’t put any detailed emotional history on my intake, nor any mention of an ED. I didn’t disclose anything to the dude – just that I wanted to open up some emotional flow and gain flexibility in my upper middle back, which always feels stiff. Within 2 minutes of me laying down, the wife puts her hands gently on my middle back and says, “hmmmm. interesting. do you have a history of abuse? we are alone in the office and this is in complete confidence.”
“yeah”
“this area of your back is where those stories are held.” What is she, Miss Cleo’s psychic hotline? It was crazy. And she was so gentle and reassuring and I felt a very very good vibe. So after being fairly warned by her that the work she does on my body is likely going to open up some very raw and painful places emotionally (yes, that is indeed the point, as scared as I am to admit it), I committed to my next appt.
As I get more committed to the idea of relocating back to NC and the timeline gets shorter and shorter, I begin to think of things about Vermont I will miss and things I will celebrate leaving and never look back.
I will miss the abundance of naturopathic medicine, bodyworkers and fabulously tuned in yogis.
I will NEVER miss slipping and falling on the ice (for the 5th time this winter – and I went down HARD tonight!)
Breathing into it.
Boston road-trip: successful
Visited my cousin and two friends (plus all three’s significant others) and it felt really great to be social and catch up. I felt.very.single. But that’s okay. I’ve got a lot in my life I’m working on right now and I’m on the brink of moving – FOR ME. Making a major decision without the influence of a male partner. That is huge. Monumental. Put a plaque up somewhere, people.
I didn’t make it to a museum today but I did take in a yoga class before scooting out of Boston. It was a free class taught by students in a teacher training program. Basically a pretty strenuous vinyasa class. Because no one knew me and I wouldn’t ever see these people again, I really tried to set the intention of setting aside my “worried about what other people are thinking”, “perfectionist” and “competitve” parts aside. It wasn’t easy, especially since the teacher:student ration was about 1:3. There were lots of adjustments and assists and cues/tips/suggestions. Every 4 minutes it seemed someone was whispering in my ear to move my feet back or lift through my middle back, lower my chin, raise my chin, relax my neck, and on and on. Ack. But it was a really good exercise each time in asking my self-critical part to relax and step aside. That I didn’t have to make the adjustments just because they were suggested. That these folks’ job for the day was to adjust people. I just breathed through each whispered suggestion and decided what was best for my body today. I felt a little surge of pride when I responded to “you could sit up on a bolster and be more comfortable” with “oh, thanks, but I’d rather use the block”. High fives to myself for getting what I needed from the practice.
I’ve recently felt this pull toward yoga teacher training but I’ve simultaneously realized how much room for growth there is in my own practice. Why should I start wanting to give away to others and help them? Right now, this may be the one thing that is truly mine (okay, maybe other than ED and Sam the dog). I want to indulge in my own practice as much as I want and keep yoga a personal endeavor for awhile. So teacher training takes a back burner. Maybe it always will.
Road Trip
I am driving to Boston for the night. I’ll visit my cousin and two former roommates, hopefully take in a museum and a yoga class. I’ll return Sunday night, hopefully with a renewed faith in the fact that I have a life and that I have some people who care about me and enjoy my company. Sam the dog will come with me, which is always a nice antidote to the anxiety of traveling and being out of my comfort zone.
Thursday night group was really good – there were some nice comical moments and I got a good (very brief) cry in. I didn’t intend for it to happen but it did as I described the wound of disappointment that keeps getting re-opened when a member of the group (who was not there – she’s in residential for the next few months) makes plans with me that she bails on at the last minute. I didn’t realize how deeply it stirred up past hurts until the tears and the sobs erupted. Dab dab at the eyes with a tissue, take a few breaths and the flush had faded from my cheeks and the waterworks had dried up. I like this girl and I wanted so badly to connect with her. It felt so fucking good that she seemed interested in the same. And so fucking bad when she couldn’t hold up her end of the bargain. Obviously since she went to residential this week she’s got her own very serious issues that likely prevent her from socializing (whether they be physical, ED, or emotional issues). But B. reminded me that my caretaking part for her shouldn’t shove aside my hurt and disappointed parts. I know that I’m encouraged to bring this up in group when the group member returns because it’s supposedly a really great opportunity for us each to speak for our parts and feel some hurt in a safe and supportive place. Blech. I don’t know about that. I can only imagine what I would hear if someone told me I had disappointed them. B. and C. reassured me that in words in group there was a strong message of “I wanted so badly to connect with her and was so excited at the prospect” that may be positive for her to hear but all I can imagine she’d hear is “you disappointed me” and then….of course….the internalized “you are a bad person” “you are a lame friend” “you will never be better than a disappointment”. I’m projecting, yes. But I don’t want to hurt anyone else, even if doing so expresses my true feelings and protects me. Wow -there’s fodder for about 26 therapy sessions!
Ironic Juxtaposition
It is Eating Disorders Awareness Week all across America. Tomorrow is my birthday.
I attended a presentation given by B. tonight at the local University intended to raise awareness of ED and to promote awareness and understanding of the integrated talk and somatic therapy method based on IFS. I spoke with her a bit before the talk about my job/moving thoughts. She encouraged me to work with my protector parts so that I could get to a Self-led decision – “things will just flow and work out the way they need to if you can get those protectors to relax”. I believe her…it’s just getting those protector parts to relax. Many of them are cart-before-the-horse planners who want to find my dream apartment before I even have a job, know when I’m moving or where I’ll be commuting to. Ridiculous, I tell you – not to mention a huge waste of my time checking craigslist relentlessly. check. check. check.
After some thought, some of my youngest most exiled and delicate parts have quietly begun to ask that they be taken care of in this process. Specifically they have requested that the emphasis in finding a new therapist be on someone who is an advanced IFS practitioner rather than an ED specialist. My parts are fucking terrified that focusing on an ED therapist might lead me down the road to a CBT or DBT based treatment and that does not feel safe for them. Been there. Done that. Those parts don’t want to be overlooked again – don’t want the focus of treatment to be on the firefighter behaviors. Don’t want to over-emphasize the managers. They want to work on the old old old dark and scary shit – as yucky as it may be. They are so grateful that their story is being told and their feelings experienced and don’t want to be exiled again.
In anticipation of all this change, I’m trying to find a way to incorporate yoga into every day. A daily practice. I was thinking that setting aside time to do a 5 minute meditation or pranayama and 3 or 4 postures each day might be an achievable and manageable start. No beating myself up if it doesn’t happen. Just a gentle encouragement to try again. I just need something grounding every day to return to. Something to blunt the edge of anxiety.
Check, please!
The universe was listening today and gave me a sign. Morning individual therapy was spent exploring my parts’ feelings about making decisions in my life. Central to the conversation were my upcoming plans to relocate. I just don’t feel ready to leave therapy or group – they’re working…something is finally WORKING! But a part of me wishes I didn’t feel so dependent on therapy, that I didn’t feel so scared that I’ll fall apart without it, that I could see myself as more resilient than that. The biggest motivation to stay is therapy. The biggest reason to leave is that I’m tired of my job and relocation feels like the only “valid” excuse to leave my current position. But I generated some ideas of other options – take a different local job short-term until I feel like I’m ready to leave therapy and then relocate. I left my session feeling like it’s at least an option but feeling really sensitive to how that would “look” to my employer, co-workers and the parents of my clients and extreme anticipatory guilt about what it would do to the business for the only full-time therapist to leave.
Another part we worked with today was the one that is terrified of making my own decisions because I’m scared of choosing “wrong” or making uncorrectable mistakes (i.e. choose the wrong job, the wrong place to live, etc.). A firefighter part wants to jump in and make me attached to someone else in a relationship – so that the other person factored into the decision – someone else for my blaming parts to scold if I don’t make the best choice. Something to explain away my bad choice. So when and how did this part form that thinks there’s always a right answer and a wrong one? That there is some predetermined path in my life that if I don’t make the right guesses, I’ll stray from and be doomed to be miserable and stupid forever. I’m working towards realizing what my brother always says – “there is nothing you can do that cannot be undone in 5 years”. You can go from broke to having money, you can go from wealthy to broke, single to married, married to divorced, you can move, change careers, sell a house, make new friends – I guess he may have a point. But this black/white thinking part that thinks that decisions are either right or wrong – it’s just trying to protect me and keep me feeling safe and insulated.
I get to work and the first conversation I have is one in which our director informs us that she will not be taking her salary for the forseeable future because we cannot afford payroll. CHECK, PLEASE!! There’s my valid reason. I’ve said for a long time that the writing was on the wall with the financial situation of our clinic – but not making payroll is the END in my book. Me leaving doesn’t put a nail in the coffin – the coffin is already nailed shut, but nobody seems to want to face that fact. So the universe has sent its sign and I listened – I’m going to get in touch with two local places that I know are hiring. It would be the same type of work and setting as what I’d be doing when I travel – so it’s a good training experience. Not sitting around waiting to be laid off seems like a good enough reason for a decision to be made!
Group therapy was amazing tonight although yoga was shitty. My wrists are sore again – my right in particular. I went through 6 months of really bad right wrist pain beginning this same time last year – was in a cast, a brace, a splint, had an MRI with injected dye into my wrist joint – NOTHING uncovered the source of my pain or made it better. So, needless to say, I’m pretty frustrated that it appears to have returned.
I’ll talk more about group at a later date – pretty exhausted and have to get some rest before my big trip tomorrow. Uncertain as to the availability of private internet time – I’ll try to post if I can but if not, I’ll be back Monday night.
PS – If another job doesn’t materialize, I’ll sell all my wordly possessions except my dog and my banjo and we’ll hitchike around following the Avett Brothers…..mmm.
Food confessions
In yoga, the pose that you are most resistant to is often the one you most need. Not to say that you have to force yourself into full lotus, just spend some time in asanas that challenge you – that perhaps you dread in an instructor-led class – that you never include in your home practice. I love forward folds – they are my yoga forte and I could do them all day. But their counter-poses – heart openers – I could live without. Interestingly enough, when yoga was just yoga to me I didn’t understand why I might be so resistant to bending my torso in a different direction, especially when it didn’t appear to be a physical limitation that held me back. Now, as I’ve grown in my understanding of the practice, I realize that heart openers release a lot of emotion. And I’ve found myself feeling very sad, even teary-eyed at the end of group yoga sessions that were heavy on heart openers. With time, I’m getting more comfortable with these postures and feeling less resistance to them, and perhaps to the emotions they unleash. So it seems the yoga + therapy model of ED treatment is working for me.
So all of this is a grandeouse introduction to the topic I so so so so have not wanted to broach – on this blog, in my head, or by any other means. But I can see that I need to face the discomfort in order to figure out what’s underneath. I have been struggling lately. Not with purging. Not with restricting. But with mindless eating. Ugh. Even just thinking about it makes me feel disgusting and powerless. I’ve never been one to “binge” thousands of calories in one sitting. But I’m a grazer who, lately has gone wild. Somehow a meal isn’t enough. I find myself following up dinner with 3 snacks. Some of them are even healthy – but obviously I’m not hungry for them in the physiological sense. Ew. I’m getting really anxious just talking about it because it is such a revolting display of lack of self-control, awareness, health and everything else that I value.
The beauty of blogging is that writing can bring me some perspective on what’s going on in my little world. And as I typed the paragraph above, a phrase popped into my head begging to be typed… “It’s like I have vacated my body”. The SAME phrase which has been my descriptor recently when describing how I am in the beginnings of relationships with men. I, me, my thoughts/desires/emotions just vanish leaving a large void to be filled…by men and apparently by food. Now I’m feeling quite self-conscious of sounding like a cheesy Intro to Psychology textbook’s paragraph about Bulimia. But it feels kind of true.
These snack-fests feel like binges and come with a wave of shame and disgust afterwards. They’re the same type of eating experiences that lead to purging — except that I haven’t felt strong urges to do that lately (HELL FUCKING YEAH, RECOVERY!). It is as if there is no “stop” button at the end of a meal. And I’m also snacking to the point that I’m not feeling hungry – pretty much ever. Hunger is a huge anxiety trigger for me – both because of ED and because of my long history of gastrointestinal problems. So there are probably multiple contributing factors to my grotesque eating patterns.
And not that I’m letting ED take back the steering wheel, but I hear it’s voice calmly stating, “see, this is why I have to purge. because if I just let you keep doing this, you’d be fat.” And my fear is, that it probably will. I’ve always had ED tactics to keep my weight in check but now that I’m “in recovery” there are no purges or 5 day fasts or half-marathon runs to combat this eating. So I’ve got to face the eating.
So where do I go when I vacate this body? How can I prevent it? Is it true dissociation or just cruise-control mindlessness? What’s triggering it?
Ugh. I can’t believe I talked about this. I feel like crawling in a hole now.
