The patterns I still carry, the ways old experiences can show up in the present, and my effort to sort out what I am remembering from what is actually happening now. Recovery, pattern recognition, regulation, and slowly gathering new evidence.
October is the beginning of the hardest time of year, for me, the season of my birthday and all of the festivity and expectations for holiday cheer and joy. My depression is most clearly evidenced in my lack of joy and vitality. I have lived most of my life this way(though at times better able to hide it). Depressed and joyless, not entirely void of laughter, fleeting moments of pleasure or satisfaction. But without peace, joy, by this definition is…
In sharing the ugliest parts of my experience, I exercise my gift to make others feel seen. For those who have not found the words or the safe places to share experiences that either defy articulation or are generally socially unacceptable, my sharing allows them to feel seen, heard, known, and unalone. Not just in things that have been done to harm me, but in my own harmful thinking and reactions to confusion, pain, and lack of safe connection. My absolute lack…
So based on my boys’ father's recent behavior/mood, I assumed he either had managed to wrangle some female attention from someone other than his sisters or mine or found the right kind of pot. Who knows.. maybe just his brain chemistry was level for a minute, he cycles pretty regularly. His non aggression never lasts and I continue to try to find a pattern outside of the striking similarity to my sister’s moods and attitudes…reward, fawn, flatter, subtly or overtly criticize, condemn…
While I absolutely do not want another Pandemic shut down, I do experience some smug schadenfreude feelings about what THE SHUT DOWN does to narcissistic types. Particularly those who refuse to adhere to safety precautions and mandates, while simultaneously hating the disruption to their lives, the most. Additionally, I confess to feeling pleased by the idea of what shutdown does to folks with insatiable appetites for affirmation. (I believe this is reffered to as narcissistic supply). Without daily contact with people to…
