Lessons along the way...Mission toward competence

Well now for several months with white knuckle I was set to a mission. Mission is a cornerstone of who we are and what we become.
Security
sense of self
affiliation
mission
competency (watch out for complacency)

Missions in my life were simply to survive, then to live each day in the present. Throughout recovery years it was to stand true to the determination that "I would expose them". Years to mend the body worn down my view of competency ever really becoming a possibility there. Each effort was met with an overpowering opposition.

Daily set to mission marriage and parenting have been some of my greatest missions to date. Those day in day out duties that were as we all know really never ending or often even a crescendo of plateau. Gardening was one design setting my eye upon left the place now for planting and harvest to ebb and flow as the seasons of life. Yet even in that the heat of living in the desert set with the physical challenges faced leaves mission to a "hang in there", let your expectations balance sort of coming to terms.

Years of the joy set to missions of varying types paled as the obstacles would seem insurmountably.
Oh how countless a talent turned skill has waned under the halting lack of confidence or know how to further a continuance of effect.

Mission is something that I had a determination toward yet lacked the skill set to follow through and succeed over the discouragements. These hindrances would I think have been met with a wisdom from an elder toward success.

Mission would hit a stressed out wall when the next step became an enigma.Freezing up what next became a never mind.
Next mission.
Never really living up to that potential of seeing how able talents set to skill could lead into becoming competent. It would often become a 'why bother' sort of despondence.
Knowing that we all suffer like things I chose to speak on these things this morning.

What I have begin to learn
Mission
Setting small goals at first
Setting steps toward each small goal
Like risk mission is a skill that is measured in baby steps, stride being met with the exercise of seeing little things succeed.

There is a saying that I love.

The sage anticipates things that are difficult while they are easy, and does things that would become great while they are small. All difficult things in the world are sure to arise from a previous state in which they were easy, and all great things from one in which they were small. Therefore the sage, while he never does what is great, is able on that account to accomplish the greatest things."

So for me the lessons of a lack of competence have occurred when a step in that process becomes all to overwhelming...

It is then that the choice to continue to skill on the point of halting.

For example

The skills of a jeweler halted 1) lack of merchandising how to 2) not knowing how or even willing to sell my competence for a price. 3) assuming that no one else could be sold into my mission.

The skills of gardening halted 1) learning timing of harvest to table 2) consistency issue due to lack of scheduling 3) letting go because of a need to learn less physically demanding techniques. 4) giving up on ideas and methods to set in place if dependency on others left me wanting. example...waiting for my husband to hook up a drip system...I gained the hoses for free (a mission in itself)...the project stops there. 5) learning how to do it myself.

The skills of a writer halted 1) fear of the family of origin being bothered by it  2) Lack of vision 3) easier to just watch hulu or be entertained then to think 3) needing to set to effect those thoughts or points of interest. 4) setting to priority the mission of service for the greater good over the efforts to express deep thinking. 5) Allowing a thought to flow and practicing better mind focus and thought control.

Now these few examples set as well to the variety of missions that overlap and over power each other. My old balance wheel helped me with keeping areas of interest varied helped. Lists and charts called rebellion over the authority they tried to impose.

Thus a new mission rises...

Gain understanding and knowledge on how to set mission into steps toward accomplishment.

This year I was able to do just that. Setting a balance budget savings added up through little things that honed each line down. I implemented a savings that added up to a recent vacation fully funded and each day calculated into the amounts available. Food/lodging/gas/ticket charges so forth. It took well into the 4th day of the trip to relax and see that I was competent in doing so. The stress of the process was hard on me. 

Becoming more relaxed into mission skills is now a goal of mine. Understanding how that happens through little accomplishments is liberating. Seeing that 'I won't fail at it'. Overcoming the FEAR that the old wall of 'what do I do next' in the process can be climbed or walked around is also liberating.

security

sence of self

affiliation

mission

competencey

A cascade effect...

Affiliation waned when my sense of self faltered. My sense of self faltered when competency was lost due to lack of know how in reference to mission. If doubt that mission can be finished security becomes at issue.

Learning the steps to mission becomes a vital part of maturation. One that I missed out on. Teaching myself as far as I could left me short. Seeking a greater understanding and actually going on a quest to do so will send me far. 

I think of how college work the classes in steps...English 101 comes to mind. English 102 builds upon it. If it were not for the first course we would not be equipped. If we stop after the first or primary lessons we write papers as a child.

It is time to put away a childish way (101) and set out farther into growing up into the abilities (102) that are there for us to peruse. Why settle for the lack of skill gain it.

Well kids are up

Mission...loads and loads of laundry

1) make laundry soap

:)

The effects of P.T.S.D. and disassociation

Fight / Flight

Hyper diligence ingrained into the very synapse of the physical tissue of the brain. Trained to focus constantly so constantly that over years it is not even a conscience event.  So that most of the focus of every moment of life is taken up in it. There is a very little percentage left to take in anything else. Then, after years of missing out on all the things going on around me, all the joys and people they disappear. In the fog of those very moments taken away being distracted on keeping safe and creating safety for those around me. I have been so riddled by the Flight/fight defense system ingrained in my brain that not even reason by this highly intelligent woman could will herself out of it. The height of this intelligence and tenacity got me into a safe life and kept me here. But even after 25 years the brain my brain is so hard wired to pursue safety at all cost it has even cost me my very ability to remember the special events with my kids, the names and faces of my friends and the relationships that I could not even relax enough in to remember who they were. Or what our relationship was. Very few folks have I been safe enough that relaxed friendships could occur and remain.

So the solve appears to be intentionally re-wirer'ed. See I thought I had done this but what had been done was actually really 'becoming safe'. Now I need to make my brain hard wire on the fact that I am safe and it can stop. By verbalizing my feelings of every moment into to the pleasures I am experiencing this will be a big start.

So now I have to convince the wiring of my brain to stand down. Physically it must now get intentional focused attention to speak out pleasure experience every moment and how it feels out loud. My Psychiatrist said that the medication itself can cause a slowing of cognitive function. The Disassociation is  actually the flight fight constantly being a sentential relentlessly stopping me from enjoying any given moment. The memory is not created because the synapse are to busy with looking out for danger are possible problems. Literally the ruts in the physical organic brain are stopping the new neuron pathways from forming. Now just like building muscle I have to force the new synapses to form associating feelings to experiences to create memory.

I forgot the appointment I had a week ago. It was a 3 month medication check. I got a bill for the no show. Called today after I got home with the good news from the neurologist. The secretary calls me back she wanted to know if 4:30 might work she had had a cancellation. 

Pretty obvious who orchestrated that.

By the way he gave me grace on the debt and erased it.

So the neurologist wants me to start back up the EDMR, I told the psychiatrist (he is renowned for his work with veterans he handles medications as an MD)  and he warned me to speak to the physiologist about it (p.t.s.d. is her specialty she rewires the brain to stop flash backs). To use care that it not provoke more of the Fight / Flight unconscious response apparently it will be a very fine balance.

The EMDR is to remove the stimulus causing the flight /fight at the same time I must also put huge focus on intentional verbal recognition of experiences at the moment of events identifying pleasurable experiences giving them a feeling name.

So if you already have made it this far in your recovery I applaud you. If your yet on the path and stumbling along I reach out this hand to you.

May this information be a hands up to somebody.

Yes the point is that God does have a purpose in all of this.

Get this the psychiatrist said "(the above) and to Expect and look for miracles". Reminding me that all along many of the things he has witnessed in my life over the years have killed many other of his patients yet I am making it through it all by the faith and grace of God. Cool that he sees it, even cooler that he actually acknowledged it.

My intellect is always unconsciously focused all around me for any dangers to myself or my loved ones . Now I must force this intellect to serve me in another way. Healer heal thy self.

PTSD and Anxiety distroys the brains natural functions

There is a hope! The severity of the PTSD I live with has caused me to have neurological consequences to living in high flight or fight mode for so many years. Every thing from Stress related memory laps to reactionary ill temperament under stress that leads to depressed feeling of behavior that is not in line with my heart or who I really am.

Yesterday after all the many tests ruling out the other causes it is noted that with 80% or so certainty it is the PTSD that is so ill effected my health.
The VA has known about a dug used for seizure disorders that had an amazing effect well a side effect...it makes the area of the brain that is neurologically associated with the flight fight mechanism ease. This ease in effect gives the brain rest. A rest that can cause the PTSD effects of daily life, memory of events and reactionary adrenalin reactions to calm. Giving the brain a break a rest as it were so that your functioning can become normal to the environment. Funny thing that this is the only side effect other than in 5% of folk a rash can occur.
I am on my second day of the first level of the ladder amount build u that will occur over the next few weeks.

I have never been so able to be so calm. I CAN THINK! In the middle of the kids acting nuts I was able to calming reason and express ideas without reactions or stress build ups. It was so cool!
I am not sedated. It just feels like that storm of stress is backed off.
Thinking and cognitive function is often aided with anti depressants in the other center of the brain that is governed with aids of dopamine. This is different, it is actually calm. Most of the anti anxiety drugs are like narcotic so I would not use them unless I was in a real bad way. So to now I will use both the antidepressant to aid in the dopamine production and uptake , and this other to aid in this neuro chemical. I forgot the name of it.

With Anxiety another area of the brain is enacted. This is rarely addressed. My MD PHYC works a great deal with VETS and has used this treatment for many years. I responded poorly to him a few years ago in my journey thinking that he did not believe me or thought I was crazy because he would not treat me until the dementia was ruled out. He just was being careful not to treat me for something I might not of had. I misunderstood him and was in my wound unable to think clearly with out the suspect mentality of a survivor. The VETS are denied this medication for the manufacturers marketed it for seizure disorders because they can make more money on it so the most of us never learn of it. The VA will not even recognize when he prescribes to his patients that it has this side effect VETS NOT LIVING IN THE PTSD!  Folk like me who do not comet suicide could even heal and be normal in the ability to think function without such a daily struggle.

The medication is lamictal odt
25mg for a week one a day
next week 50mg then wk 3 75 mg and so on until the level is one that has the norm that is acceptable and ease of function restored. I will still have the clonazopine for bad stress episodes.

Now when the brain is left in this stress state...then the stress leaves the relax of the neuro pathways floods it and a migraine happens. This is often what I experience. This is a dream come true and the neurologist will be so very delighted that the damage occurring will be curtailed.

I saw him yesterday. Two days on the lowest dose.
I am so much more myself and who I am in my heart without always feeling like I am fighting to be what my heart says I am. Acting how my heart desired .I was awesome today. Non addictive. It is hoped and has been his experience that the neuro pathways have actually been healed to some degree over a two year period of time. That the brain can actually heal.

There is so much hope.

self commpassion

Having compassion for oneself is really no different than having compassion for others.  Think about what the experience of compassion feels like.  First, to have compassion for others you must notice that they are suffering.  If you ignore that homeless person on the street, you can’t feel compassion for how difficult his or her experience is.  Second, compassion involves feeling moved by others' suffering so that your heart responds to their pain (the word compassion literally means to “suffer with”).  When this occurs, you feel warmth, caring, and the desire to help the suffering person in some way.  Having compassion also means that you offer understanding and kindness to others when they fail or make mistakes, rather than judging them harshly.  Finally, when you feel compassion for another (rather than mere pity), it means that you realize that suffering, failure, and imperfection is part of the shared human experience.  “There but for fortune go I.”                                                          Self-compassion involves acting the same way towards yourself when you are having a difficult time, fail, or notice something you don’t like about yourself. Instead of just ignoring your pain with a “stiff upper lip” mentality, you stop to tell yourself “this is really difficult right now,” how can I comfort and care for myself in this moment? Instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for various inadequacies or shortcomings, self-compassion means you are kind and understanding when confronted with personal failings – after all, who ever said you were supposed to be perfect? You may try to change in ways that allow you to be more healthy and happy, but this is done because you care about yourself, not because you are worthless or unacceptable as you are. Perhaps most importantly, having compassion for yourself means that you honor and accept your humanness.  Things will not always go the way you want them to.  You will encounter frustrations, losses will occur, you will make mistakes, bump up against your limitations, fall short of your ideals.  This is the human condition, a reality shared by all of us. The more you open your heart to this reality instead of constantly fighting against it, the more you will be able to feel compassion for yourself and all your fellow humans in the experience of life.

Read more of the information presented above  

here

the courage to meet the demands of reality

This is a wonderful book to learn how to be human with a thriving adult ability.
A good read ya all.

Well I have been idle sitting by until I was ready to post.
I am getting better.
Here are the beginning steps to the EMDR process.
Once I began to establish a life time line or the event time line the next phase is for me to...

I looked to the ways that I comforted myself and found most of those were harmful and I often denied or felt guilty for those things healthy that did comfort me.

I have learned that I love beauty and MUST create it, I love music and it fills and moves me to center. Gaining understanding and knowledge groves me and seeing life form and grow is all encompassing .
When a seed emerges from the earth it is as if all the hardship passes in that instant.

This week the contemplation is on
Learning what my inner resources are...
I need to have compassion on my own self as I do for the others around me, I need to be trustworthy to my own self as I am to others and I must gain the courage to gain more ground.



EMDR is helping me to get set up through the identifying of some of the faulty messages I have absorbed through the traumas.

I see now that the anxiety stress PTSD is really causing so many of the memory and other problems that leave me behaving and thinking other than how and who I really am.
I am trusting in myself to succeed and uprooting out these lies I have believed.
Trusting myself to have boundaries that protect myself as well.
Giving myself the comfort of those things that sooth my soul.
Avoid all the things that are the false comforts, or at least seeing then for what they are.

I am on my way.

Empowering the Adult

• Grown up (little person in a big body )

betrayal
Scary
mean
secretive
Out of control
powerful
liars
unhappy
Manipulators
absent
nasty
hateful
self-consumed
wicked
angry
Pretend

• Adult (Integrity, asking the precious child, protective, caring, committed, unconditional love, loyal)

Steadfast
safe
kind, gentle
open,honest
self-assured
powerful
truthful,consistent
content, Happy
Negotiators
reliable
chaste, good
loving
giving
Pure,good
Angry, respectful
Reality.


Hint when and where your behaviors catch you being a "grown up" look to the Adult behavior that is opposing and do it. Apologize. own it! and go on. Look at those adult attributes some education is in order. HOW? for example do you negotiate?

EMDR a timeline

This morning I will begin the EMDR to help the PTSD symptoms. How in so many ways I wish the lies spoken over me were so...I mean that I would give anything if my youth was not mine. The denial and outright silencing of the truth by others is too much for me. If it were not for an elder sister it would be unbearable at times. Yet I stand convicted in neglecting her just to stop from thinking about what we both know is the truth.

I do not want to open myself up again to the fellowship of keeping others secretes while I am judged based on lies and the denial of the truth. It forces me away and it is tearing me up inside.

Last night an assignment that I have neglected was addressed. I was trying to find a list I thought I had and in so doing was reintroduced to some difficult documents. To begin the EMDR a time line needs to be developed. My appointment is today. I have yet to be able to bring myself to do it. It has been two weeks. I just want it to all go away. Leave it all behind.

There is a saying...
"well how's that working for ya?"
Truth is that to do the work will hopefully stop the stress form debilitating me with PTSD effects that seam so incongruous to my present moments.

There is a song by Cat Stevens...

" seagulls sing your hearts away cause while the sinners sin the children pray...Oh Lord how they pray and pray for that happy day...for that happy day."

I made a promise that if I do not let them make me like them. If I don't let them make me go crazy... that I would give myself a life someday...when will I know I have kept that promise . When can I stop? When will this stress disorder stop?

I told my husband that I do not think I can do this...For many many years after remembering and trying to deal with Carolyn's murder I just shut down to it all.
Telling about the murder seamed to of hindered those professionals, I felt it hurt them to know it to hear it. God I do not want to hurt anyone by telling them and then knowing that their mind has those images in it because of me.
At least with the EMDR I do not have to speak them out loud.She just does the thing? while I am recalling the event. I do so hope I only remember and not regress. I feel panicked. Alone and isolated in the knowledge of the wicked truth of what I have experienced and all the while a sibling acting as if non of it ever happened...their own survival denial that dear God I do not want to shatter for the very same reason.

My Mother told me before she died to tell...tell all...One elder sister and two brothers all confirm so many of the things surrounding the places and events of my youth they confirmed the perps and assured me that all I have told is true...but this one sister is convinced I think that if she can just make it all go away it never happened...if it is to all go away that would then take my very life breadth to do so. That is what it is like being near her. I have to stop being me and walk on the ground tip toed watching out for her cleverly placed land minds that set me up to her covert mind games that demine and reduce me to shut me up. How do I have relationship with that. Loving me seemingly and I think she does...but keeping the truth in her check to keep it far from her.

Folks these are the harder things often in recovery. Walking softly as not to break a denial that might cost an others sanity if she truly faced the past events. Whats the point...to prove that I am right? Well history , documents, testimony from many other people have already done that. Absence seems my only recourse. Yet I so love her and long to be able to call her a trusted friend.

Now I am being asked to remember it while the EMDR technique re programs my brains response. I am so scared to feel it all over again. The neurologist and several others speak so highly of this therapy. They say it is the governments main technique for helping the VETS deal with PTSD after coming home. We never forget but our brains store it differently and then the chemicals in the brain react totally neutral in recall or triggering moments. It is said to remove the trigger so the memory can be stored properly. Trauma stops the transport of data into storage verses fight/flight response.

I went through the art work and saw the images I rendered of the stone table and it sickens me. What a risk to see if this will help.

Trait ascription bias

Trait ascription bias is the tendency for people to view themselves as relatively variable in terms of personality, behavior and mood while viewing others as much more predictable in their personal traits across different situations. This may be because our own internal states are much more observable and available to us than those of others.

This attribution bias has an obvious role in the formation and maintenance of stereotypes and prejudice, combined with the negativity effect.

A similar bias on the group level is called the outgroup homogeneity bias.

Negativity effect

In psychology, the negativity effect is the tendency of people, when evaluating the causes of the behaviors of a person they dislike, to attribute positive behaviors to the situations surrounding the behaviors and negative behaviors to the person's inherent disposition. The negativity effect is the inverse of the positivity effect, which is found when people evaluate the causes of the behaviors of a person they like. Both effects are attribution biases. The negativity effect plays a role in producing the fundamental attribution error, a major contributor to prejudice.

The term negativity effect also refers to the tendency of some people to assign more weight to negative information in descriptions of others. Research has shown that the negativity effect in this sense is quite common, especially with younger people; older adults, however, display less of this tendency and more of the opposite tendency (the positivity effect).