“One Chance!” Still Haunts Me…

Posted on by Astrid

Today, I’m feeling like writing but am uninspired, so I’ve been checking out a ton of writing prompts and the like. I’ve been fiddling with various notetaking apps too so that I can finally write snippets without them needing to be finished right away. I know I could do WordPress drafts, but I for whatever reason don’t like that. I’m now trying out Google Keep.

One of the writing prompt series was Halloween-themed and the question was about my most recent nightmare. I can’t remember and, thankfully, I rarely get vivid nightmares anymore. I do get snippets of conversations that replay in my dreams. “One chance!” yells the staff trying to force me to accept her new colleague. Those two words haunt me. I have had this experience before.

I recently learned that PTSD nightmares do not necessarily involve the details of your trauma. I don’t know whether the Redditor who said this, based this idea on the DSM, as I’m fairly certain that in the criteria for PTSD, nightmares do need to be trauma-specific except in young children. However, even just reading that someone else experienced vivid dreams that aren’t necessarily connected directly to their trauma, feels validating.

When I was living on my own, I experienced extremely vivid dreams almost nightly and, even when those dreams weren’t directly connected to my trauma, they were disturbing nonetheless.

In a somewhat similar fashion, the staff’s comment haunting me, in itself, might sound rather innoceous. I mean, I know that it doesn’t necessarily take physical or sexual abuse for someone to be traumatized (again, contrary to what the DSM says), but if this comment were a one-off experience rather than a symptom of the rather traumatizing power dynamics involved in institutional care settings, it wouldn’t have stuck with me. Or it might have, but it wouldn’t have had the negative connotation it has now.

There’s a reason secondary triggers are a thing. I often feel shame about the numbers of triggers I have. Usually though, when the context isn’t in itself distressing, I’m able to point out that something is a trigger for me and move on.

Not with this one, but then again it was actually a boundary that was crossed. If this had happened with three people who aren’t professionally related, it’d have been considered a form of harassment. I still struggle with this concept: that what is considered “normal” in a care setting, would be considered a violation anywhere else.

Shame and Guilt: How to Deal With Difficult Emotions #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today for my letter S post in the #AtoZChallenge, I want to talk about how to cope with hard-to-deal-with emotions such as shame and guilt.

First, what are shame and guilt? Shame is a complex emotion that usually arises when you think you’ve failed. Shame is not really focused on the specific action that causes you to feel bad about yourself, but rather it is focused on your identity. As a result, shame can cause you to feel inadequate or worthless.

Guilt, on the other hand, is an emotional response to thinking you’ve done something wrong. It, unlike shame, is linked to the specific mistake you made and it as a result often prompts you to try to rectify it.

Put simply, shame is an emotion that prompts people to hide, whereas guilt prompts people towards justice.

How do you deal with shame and guilt? First, identify what shame feels like for you. For instance, where do you feel it in your body?

Then, identify your shame triggers. Shame and guilt are both triggered by specific events. However, shame often leads us to feel like we as people are flawed, rather than us having simply made a mistake. As such, we often lose sight of the specific situations that trigger us to feel shame. Try to identify these.

Then, identify and challenge the specific thoughts that cause you to feel like you’re altogether bad. Shame can be helpful in pointing out ways in which you’ve failed, but these mistakes do not make you a failure as a person.

Finally, right the wrong. Do what it takes to rectify the mistake you made that caused you to feel shame. For example, if you’ve damaged another person’s stuff, buy new stuff or give them money or whatever. At the very least, apologize. And do the work necessary to prevent you making the same mistake again. Going into hiding out of shame doesn’t do any good. Admitting your guilt and making amends does.

There are other difficult emotions I could’ve mentioned here, such as bitterness and anger (except that these don’t start with the letter S). These are in a similar way related to each other that shame and guilt are: while bitterness leads people to inaction, anger leads people to fight for what they believe in. Anger, of course, can turn to the extreme of rage and then be inappropriate, but in general it’s healthier to be angry rather than bitter. In every situation, it is recommended to watch for all-or-nothing thinking that can lead you towards hopelessness and self-defeat.

Thieves!

Posted on by Astrid

When I was little, my parents would store their sweets (usually licorice but sometimes other sweets too) on a shelf just within my and my sister’s reach in their pantry. I’m pretty sure they’d tried putting them in higher places but we’d just climb up stairs or other furniture to reach them.

Invariably, on Saturday and Sunday mornings, when my parents slept in, I’d lead my sister to the pantry and we’d steal some sweets. Yes, I am pretty sure I took the lead.

I obviously thought they were unaware. That is, until one day when I was five and had just learned to read. There it was, on the sweets shelf, a paper that read “BOEVEN” in large print. This is Dutch for “crooks” or “thieves”. My parents never actually confronted us about grabbing their candy except on this one playful occasion.

In reality though, I still wasn’t truly aware that my parents knew. In fact, I remember one day when I was about fifteen, my parents had left like eight hamburgers on a plate in the kitchen and I sneaked into it to eat one at a time. My parents never confronted me and it wasn’t until a few years ago that I realized they must’ve known. That is when the shame at having eaten this many hamburgers caught up with me.

This post was written for Friday Writings, for which the optional prompt this week is food. It is a an autobiographical piece.

No Shame in Hope

Posted on by Astrid

I have been wanting to share more faith-based posts for a while, but didn’t quite know where to start. Today, I read the second weekly meditation in Hearing God Speak, an enneagram-based book of devotionals by Eve Annunziato. It is a meditation on suffering and the everlasting presence of God through it all.

“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:3-5 NIV)

I have known this passage for several years, even before I became a Christian. I have probably written about it before. After all, the fact that suffering produces perseverance, really resonates with me. As Annunziato points out, enneagram type fours like me feel most alive when we dwell on our feelings of pain and suffering.

As such, Annunziato challenges us to move towards praising God and seeing His presence in a new way. As such, the line about character and hope is more important to us Fours than the line about suffering producing perseverance.

I don’t think I’ve ever even seen Romans 5:5 and that verse in particular speaks to me now. I, after all, often fear joy and, by extension, hope. I am not yet sure what it is about joy I fear, but it might be a feeling of being less alive if I’m not suffering.

God’s love, however, has been poured out into my heart through the Holy Spirit. This is something to rejoice over, not to be ashamed of.

Indeed, it is interesting that Paul uses the word “shame” in this verse. I had no idea it is this emotion I often feel when I’m hopeful or optimistic, but it is.

I mean, even when I’m doing pretty well, I still say I’m doing “okay”. I remember a fellow patient in the mental hospital did the same and he did this so the staff wouldn’t think he was well enough to be discharged. I didn’t consciously do this, but on a subconscious level, I probably did. And still do, despite the fact that there’s no reason I’ll ever be kicked out of long-term care.

Honestly, there is nothing wrong with feeling hopeful, joyful and optimistic. In fact, it is what God is wanting for us in His honor. For this reason, Annunziato encourages us to praise Him even in the midst of our suffering! Because suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope is nothing to be ashamed of, because through the Holy Spirit, God’s love has been poured out over us.

Linking up with Scripture Blessing, Let’s Have Coffee and Recharge Wednesday.

Moving Beyond Shame

Posted on by Astrid

I’ve been struggling a lot lately. I feel shame over a lot of things. Then again, my husband said that shame is only useful for the one second you realize you should’ve done different. Then you need to move on.

I just read a part of Bobby Schuller’s book You Are Beloved in which he tells me that God’s love is the antidote to shame. Jesus, he says, did not act out of shame. Maybe he didn’t even feel it. He didn’t care about his reputation, inviting the lowest-status people of his time to eat with him. Schuller notes that eating with someone in Jesus’ time on Earth means seeing them as equals.

Jesus regarded people who didn’t believe they belonged, as equals. Of course, he is God, so we can never measure up to that, but we can rest assured that he loves us no matter what.

God, help me move beyond the feeling of shame towards an experience of peace. I know You love me for who I am. Please help me see this with all my heart. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

This post was written for Five Minute Friday, for which the prompt this week is “Beyond”. I didn’t set a timer, but I think I did a pretty good job of doing this piece in five minutes.

Thankful Thursday (July 23, 2020): My Care Team

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone! How are you all doing on this warm Thursday evening? I’m doing a lot better than I was earlier this week. I could actually do an early gratitude list, as there’s more than one thing I’m grateful for. A simple list wouldn’t do justice to how huge these gratefuls are though. Let me share. I’m joining in with Thankful Thursday.

First, I still need to update you all on my appt with my nurse practitioner and CPN on Tuesday. It went better than I expected. The outcome is that my nurse practitioner is going to talk to the psychiatrist and see if he can find us a psychologist to do trauma therapy and work on our emotion regulation issues. I don’t remember all the details of the meeting, but at one point, I/someone in me blurted out that we’re in Facebook groups for dissociative disorders. I quickly added that really that’s none of my nurse practitioner’s business, but still we feel a lot of shame surrounding this.

Then on Tuesday evening, a discussion erupted on Twitter about the ISST-D’s guidelines for diagnosing and treating people with dissociative disorders. There’s this article from 2001 that’s still being used to weed out alleged fakers. It uses such things as being open about your DID or trauma to people other than a few close confidants, showing no obvious shame when talking about your trauma, being in support groups for DID, etc., as apparent proof that you’re fake. Now I must say I’m still conflicted about going the actual trauma/DID assessment route, but this did trigger us. However, my support staff are on my side.

We were still recovering from the shame about all this when we heard the main good news I was planning to share here. I got a higher care profile allocated to me by the long-term care funding authority. I still can’t quite believe it, but I’m so happy. The application hadn’t gone out till last week, but this afternoon, my staff got a call that it’d been approved. I’m still waiting on the letter in my government inbox confirming it, but this is really good news. I now have the highest care profile for blind people in the long-term care system.

I was feeling a bit disconnected when I heard the news. Like I said, I still can’t quite believe it, but it’s such amazing news. I’m so glad my staff were so perseverant that they actually applied for this.

Looking forward to hearing what you all are grateful for today.

We Ordered Some Beads

Posted on by Astrid

I’m feeling pretty uninspired to write today. I’m still feeling upset about last Friday’s meeting with the nurse practitioner. I mean, I don’t want to claim to have a dissociative disorder, even though on this blog I do sort of claim this. At least, we claim to be multiple. I’m not sure we fully are, but we’re definitely not fully singlet either.

We sent an E-mail to my assigned support worker explaining our issues with the nurse practitioner’s comments. She might forward it to my other staff and maybe the behavior specialist too. The behavior specialist replied to her E-mail from last Friday that I could ask my nurse practitioner why he thinks ACT is proper therapy for me and why he doesn’t want me to do EMDR. Some of us were pretty upset at her reply too.

Today we were upset at not being able to do much with respect to day activities. It rained all day, so we could only take one walk. Other than that, we sat in the living room or in my room. At the end of the day, our crafty part came up with some ideas. We might try making some bead jewelry. It doesn’t have to be professional-looking, but it could be cool.

So I ordered some beads at a store called Creadream. I originally intended on ordering glass beads, but ended up going with plastic ones. They were cheaper and the store had a larger variety of shapes. I got some round beads, some cubes, some rectangles and even some butterflies. Some of the purple ones were on a discounted price, so only like €0.66 for 25 grams (about 45 beads I think it said).

I also ordered some wire and elastic, including memory wire. This is a type of metallic wire that is shaped like a coil that fits around your arm. It can be used for making bracelets. I forgot to order pliers to cut and bend the wire with, but I or my day activities staff might be able to find some later. I also forgot to order a beading needle.

I think the littles will definitely enjoy working with all the different shapes and colors. Of course, we can’t see the colors, but we have some memory of what they look like. We ordered mostly purple ones, like I said, but also some pink, green and I can’t remember what else.

Now I constantly feel shame when I refer to the littles or write in first person plural or the like. I know I can’t fully be myself with mental health professionals, because they aren’t my friends, but why can’t I be myselves on here? My CPN knows the address to this blog and has occasionally read it, but yeah.

First Few Days in the Care Facility

Posted on by Astrid

So I haven’t written in nearly a week. I wanted to, but on Monday, was still adjusting to being in the care facility. On Tuesday, I felt really off. Then yesterday my husband and I traveled to our new house, the house we bought, and to the solicitor to sign the paperwork. That was somewhat of a hassle, as I cannot make a signature that looks remotely like the one on my passport. So for this reason, the solicitor had two coworkers sign in my place. Thankfully though, the thing is now finalized and we’re officially homeowners!

My adjustment to living in the care facility has been harder than I imagined. On Monday, I did pretty well. Tuesday I started day activities. It was a good day weather-wise, so I was able to enjoy some time outside.

Then tuesday night I suddenly was overcome with shame about my care needs. It all makes me so confused, since if I truly function emotionally at a 16-month-old level, I probbably shouldn’t be able to feel shame. And yet I do. My father’s voice is in my mind like all the freakin’ time. So is my former psychologist’s.

Yesterday, my husband came to pick me up for the official stuff at 11AM. We returned to the care facility at around 6:30. I did okay other than obviously missing my husband. I rationalized that away though. He told me he was a little disappointed in how far the journey is from our new house to here. There will no doubt be a solution, for example me traveling to our house by train and ParaTransit taxi. Still, the conversation did upset me.

I’m constantly facing this bit of cognitive dissonance between the parts of me that are severely disabled and truly function at a young child’s level and the parts that can be married and have a normal life. I can’t and don’t want to disown either, but it’s a huge challenge finding the middle ground.

Besides, even if I wanted to, I can’t go back to my life before moving here. The old day center has a pretty long waiting list and they’ve most likely filled up my place by now. I don’t have a room to myself in the new house. I can’t go back to community support funding from long-term care. Now of course if I truly could disown the severely disabled parts of myself, I might’ve been able to find a solution to at least the last of these problems. Long-term care funding is available to those who live at home too, after all. Maybe I just need to admit that I’m too darn selfish to actually choose my husband over proper care.