Fear (Or Another Four-Letter F Word)

Posted on by Astrid

Fear. I’ve used this word as a starting point for my writings many times. The idea comes from Mari L. McCarthy’s journaling prompts. The idea is to pick a four-letter F word and write about it or use it as a prompt. Well, I’m doing that now, but I doubt I’m actually going to write about fear. I honestly don’t know what to write at this point and am not feeling anything in particular. That is, I guess I “should” be feeling something, but I don’t know what. Alexithymia. That’s what I believe this is called. Any emotional state for me is “good”, “bad” or “neutral” like right now. I don’t ever feel totally relaxed I believe. There’s always some level of stress or anxiety or fear in my body or mind.

My movement therapist tries to tell me that my body needs to get used to the feeling of being relaxed, because due to my early childhood trauma, it never learned to trust this feeling. That makes some sense, in that I almost always feel like I’m on high alert even when I’m half asleep. Is that even possible? And if so, isn’t it just normal? Do I even know what “normal” is, being that I’m autistic and otherwise neurodivergent, multiply-disabled and a trauma survivor? I doubt it. But if I’ve lived my life like this for nearly four decades, is there any way of changing it? I hope there is, because this feeling of always being on high alert is exhausting.

This is another freewrite I originally typed up in Google Keep, then finished here.

“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.

Resilience and Post-Traumatic Growth #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. For my letter R post in the #AtoZChallenge, I want to talk about resilience. Resilience, basically, is the ability to bounce back when faced with challenges. It is also linked to post-traumatic growth.

First, what characteristics and attitudes make someone resilient? These include optimism, the ability to regulate your emotions, and the ability to see failure as helpful feedback rather than wallowing in self-blame.

Several factors contribute to resilience. Some of these are most likely genetic. Early life experiences play a role too. However, that doesn’t mean that resilience can’t be learned to some extent. For example, you can learn to break out of negative thought patterns, to regulate your emotions, to look for positives during a setback and to see failure as a learning opportunity.

Some people believe that experiencing a traumatic event, makes you less resilient. This isn’t necessarily true though. This is where post-traumatic growth comes in.

Post-traumatic growth is the experience that survivors of trauma are able to develop in a positive way after the traumatic event. For example, they recognize their inner strength for having overcome their trauma, form stronger connections with loved ones as well as other survivors, and find new opportunities for finding meaning in life.

The reason post-traumatic growth happens, is the fact that traumas force a victim to re-evaluate their sense of self and their stance in the world.

Not everyone who experienced trauma, will experience post-traumatic growth, but about half to two-thirds will. Again, whether you will experience post-traumatic growth, is related to how resilient you are in general.

So how do you learn to cultivate resilience? You can learn to reframe challenges as opportunities and, as a result, look at the benefits of stress. After all, viewing stress as solely negative, may lead to an additional stressor, ie. “stress about stress”.

Other ways of cultivating a positive outlook on life, such as practising gratitude and self-care, can help too.

Grief: Dealing With Loss (Of Any Kind) #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’ve been struggling a lot lately again and, as a result, today am particularly late writing my #AtoZChallenge contribution. Today’s letter is G and I want to talk about grief.

Grief can refer to a person’s reaction to losing a loved one to death. That’s the most heard of definition anyway. Grief for a loved one who has passed away can last very long and, in fact, isn’t considered abnormal for the first year. If a person still experiences significantly distressing symptoms of grief more than a year after their loved one has passed, they may be diagnosable with prolonged grief disorder (also known as complicated grief).

Grief, of course, can also refer to the distressing symptoms experienced after losing a beloved pet. It doesn’t matter in this respect that the pet isn’t human; grief can still be experienced very deeply. I mention this because, like I said on Saturday, my spouse and I lost our cat Barry that day.

Grief, however, can also relate to distressing symptoms experienced after a loss that isn’t due to death. For example, heartbreak is in a way grief too. So are the distressing symptoms I experienced when losing my sight and, later on, many acquired skills due to autistic burnout.

Most people will be familiar with the five stages of grief described by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. These stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. In reality though, many people will not necessarily experience these stages in order and they may fall back due to stress. Still, many of the symptoms associated with the earlier stages in this model, made it into the criteria for prolonged grief disorder. Symptoms of prolonged grief include:


  • Identity disruption (eg. feeling as though a part of oneself has died).

  • Marked sense of disbelief about the death.

  • Avoidance of reminders that the person is dead.

  • Intense emotional pain (eg. anger, bitterness, sorrow) related to the death.

  • Difficulty reintegrating, such as problems engaging with friends, pursuing interests or planning for the future.

  • Emotional numbness (absence or marked reduction of emotional experience).

  • Feeling that life is meaningless.

  • Intense loneliness: feeling alone or detached from others.

Of course, people can experience many of these symptoms without having lost a loved one to death. Emotional numbness and avoidance of triggers, after all, are also symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Many other symptoms occur in people who were traumatized in some way too. As an example, I relate to all symptoms when the aspect of bereavement is removed, and not just since Barry was put down. I don’t know whether that makes sense, but oh well.

Parenting Advice From a Childfree Survivor of Childhood Trauma

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today’s RagTag Daily Prompt is “parenting”. Since I’m currently recovering from meeting my parents for my birthday, I’m going to make a list of parenting advice my parents should’ve received. I realize their inability to love me unconditionally wasn’t unwillingness. In fact, the fear that I may have this same inability is one reason I’m childfree. This post is a random list and may come across a bit harsh, but so be it.

1. A family is not a business. It doesn’t have to be run efficiently. Yes, I understand you get impatient with your child’s struggles at times, but this isn’t their problem – it’s yours.

I was constantly shamed for needing too much help and my parents gave up on teaching me basic skills of daily living because I got frustrated and the task didn’t get done efficiently.

2. Challenging behavior does not make the child (especially young child) bad or manipulative. Behavior is communication, yes, but to search for hidden motives behind it, is actually quite arrogant.

I was told by my parents that, by age seven, I had come up with some idea to manipulate everyone into thinking I was different in all kinds of other ways besides blind because I didn’t accept my blindness. News flash: I am those other things.

3. Children are incredibly loyal to authority figures, be it their parents, teachers, or others. When you fight the school or healthcare system over something rather than trying to be cooperative, the child will experience a conflict of loyalty. This means that, just because they side with you eventually, it isn’t necessarily in their best interest.

My parents were constantly fighting the school over my needs, because the school denied my intelligence. Then again, my parents minimized my emotional difficulties. When an educational psychologist who saw both my intelligence and my emotional issues, nonetheless advised special education for me, my parents still weren’t happy even though they’d chosen this ed psych, because they were dead set on me being mainstreamed.

4. Your child is not an extension of your ego. For this reason, they do not have to follow an educational or career path you like. It isn’t their job to make up for your lost dreams.

See also above. From the time I was a young child on, it was clear that, by age eighteen, I’d live on my own and go to university. Interestingly, neither of my parents have a college degree and particularly my mother feels “dumb” for it even though she worked herself up to a management position that usually requires a college degree.

5. Your child doesn’t need to prove their value. They do not need to prove they were “worth raising” by being anything, be it independent, successful, or whatever. If you don’t want a disabled child, a child of a certain gender, or whatever, you shouldn’t have a child.

I have probably said this before, but my parents, particularly my father, seriously think that a child needs to prove they were worth raising by being successful in life as an adult. He didn’t mean me when he said this, “because you’re training for independent living”. Well, now that I’m in an institution with seven hours of one-on-one a day, he obviously does mean me, since the few times I’ve seen him since he’s barely acknowledged me.

6. Love your child unconditionally. This does not mean agreeing with every single decision they make, but it does mean being there for them when they need you. And this doesn’t end when they turn 21. With a few exceptions (an adult child becoming a criminal, for example), parenting is a lifelong commitment.

I am linking this post up with #WWWhimsy as well.

No Such Thing As “Minor” Trauma

Posted on by Astrid

Recently, there was a discussion online I participated in about what caused our complex PTSD. I mentioned emotional, mental and physical abuse, bullying, a few instances of sexual violation and medical trauma. Most others not only went into far more detail than I was comfortable, but also discussed traumatic experiences that seemed far worse compared to those I’d gone through. When I mentioned this, saying reading others’ stories made me feel as though my trauma was minor, someone else commented how there’s no such thing as “minor” trauma.

Indeed, if something was significant enough to have caused C-PTSD, it was traumatic, and this means it was major. I am reminded of something my spouse said at one point when I was seeing a potential new trauma therapist back in 2013 (who ended up rejecting me for reasons not related to me). I was doubting the reality of my trauma. To this, my spouse said that, in reality, something as “minor” as slipping on the bathroom floor, could be life-threatening, so in theory I could’ve developed PTSD from that. I didn’t and I didn’t develop PTSD from any of my countless other falls, but I might have. Of course, this is a bit far-fetched, and of course I couldn’t have developed complex PTSD from falling, but I hope my point is clear: it’s not always easy to distinguish between events that objectively speaking count as trauma and things that don’t.

There are trauma centers here in the Netherlands that adhere very strictly to criterion A (the presence of things that count as trauma, according to professionals) in DSM-5 for treating people with (C-)PTSD. I’m not sure I’d meet their criterion. I mean, yes, I did experience exactly one potentially life-threatening medical event that I remember, when I was four. I was also hit quite regularly, but does that go beyond “tough love”? If it doesn’t, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t meet the trauma criterion for (C-)PTSD.

Then again, I’m not seeking to get into one of these centers. Tomorrow, I’ll have a get-to-know-me appointment with the care agency’s therapy practice. They haven’t yet decided whether they can help me or not. I hope they can, because right now I’m feeling rather hopeless.

No Longer Defective #Bloganuary

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s daily prompt for #Bloganuary is to share about your biggest challenges. At one point, I believe I wrote on this blog that my biggest challenge ever is my poor distress tolerance. Right now, I’d like to take it to a deeper level and say that my two biggest challenges are basic mistrust and a sense of being defective. I think the sense of being defective is even worse. This stems from my being an Enneagram type Four – or my being a Four is a result of my sense of defectiveness. In fact, the most distressed Fours are called “Defectives”. The healthiest are called “Appreciators”.

Being an externally-oriented Four – I’m undecided as to whether my instinctual variant is Social or Sexual -, I commonly blame others, be they in my past or present, for my sense of defectiveness. Now it is true that my parents commonly alternated between idealizing and devaluing me, that I was severely bullied in school and that I suffered numerous other traumas. That’s an explanation. It’s not an excuse.

There’s a thing I forgot to list when writing my not-quite-resolutions for 2024 earlier today: to work on personal growth more. I mean, honestly, I’m pretty stable where it comes to the most severe of (C-)PTSD symptoms. I do still get nightmares and flashbacks, but they do not ruin my day nearly everyday. Rather, my main issues are probably clinically classified as personality disorder symptoms, shameful as that feels to me to admit. I may or may not need a therapist to work on those, and if I do need one, I may or may not be able to find one. I can, however, work on exploring my issues on my own. I want to stop seeing myself as defective and start moving towards becoming the appreciator I know I can be.

August 2023 Reflections #WBOYC

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s the last day of the month, so it’s time for my monthly reflections. Overall, August was slightly better than July, but it’s still been quite a tough month. Honestly, it’s been quite a tough year so far.

My spouse’s car broke down a few weeks ago, so we weren’t able to see each other each week this past month. Last Sunday, though my spouse did visit me, it was in my mother-in-law’s car. Thankfully, the car has been fixed for now.

My mother-in-law also only visited me once this past month despite there being five Tuesdays in August and her normally visiting me every other Tuesday. On the 1st, she had to work and on the 29th, a new horse was delivered. The story behind her having gotten a new horse is a bit sad, in that one of her horses, Remco, passed away suddenly last month. I mean, he was already crippled, so could only step around a bit, but still his death was unexpected. The new horse is a young mare called Marrit.

Now on to my own life. It’s been boring. I’ve been mostly waiting to find out more about the move. Last Sunday, my support coordinator told me that I’ll move within six weeks, probably sooner. I honestly have mixed feelings about the whole thing. Obviously, I try to remind myself it can’t be worse than here, but what if it isn’t any better either? Will I be expected to magically flourish there just because it’s not this home? I’m hoping, of course, that I will eventually flourish, but this isn’t going to happen magically. Indeed, this requires work, both on my part and on the part of the staff.

I also, like I mentioned yesterday, have had an increase in flashbacks to my childhood trauma. Of course, I could hope this will lessen when (if?) I’m in a calmer environment, but still I’m pretty sure they won’t disappear without support.

In the health department, I’m doing pretty well. I had a meeting with the dietitian yesterday and she asked me not to lose any more weight. I’m not sure how to do this, truthfully, as I’m eating well overall. There’s also this thought at the back of my mind telling me that I could still lose 10kg and be at a healthy BMI. Besides, I still have quite a lot of abdominal fat and watched some YouTube videos a while back that mentioned the dangers of internal obesity. Then again, the dietitian told me there’s very little I can do about this. The YouTube videos tell me otherwise, but then again my healthy voice is telling me (or at least I’m assuming it’s my healthy voice) that following those YouTubers will just lead to extreme restricting, which will probably just cause me to relapse into bulimia. I’m still struggling intensely with all the things diet culture tells me about what to eat and not to eat to preserve my health and, at the same time, my dietitian has one foot right inside diet culture as well. After all, my food plan was a classic weight loss plan up until I reached a healthy BMI. Heck, the very fact that I mention the BMI here shows how much I’m into diet culture. I want to unlearn this, but I’m not sure how.

With respect to other health factors, I’m doing okay. I walk more than I did in July, have been swimming again and went on the stationary bike occasionally. That being said, I do worry about a decline in my mobility. This could be the YouTube videos again, which told me a loss of arm swing could be a sign of overall decline. I have absolutely no idea whether my arm ever swung at all though. That being said, my drop foot seems to be getting worse too.

I did finally get the eczema on my legs treated. I also got a slight infection on the skin of my earlobes, where I had my ears pierced in early July. I’m currently on a course of an antibiotic ointment, so hoping that’ll work.

In the crafty department, I haven’t been very active. I did create a lot of unicorns out of polymer clay, but they were all done using cutters, not sculpted. I intend to paint them and use them as gifts for my fellow residents when leaving this home.

I’m linking up with What’s Been On Your Calendar? (#WBOYC).

Opening Up About My Trauma

Posted on by Astrid

Last Monday, I was going for a walk with my one-on-one for the moment when we saw a few clients and staff she knew (she’s a temp worker). She wanted to “say a quick hi”. That turned into a fifteen-minute conversation between her and one of the other staff, which eventually turned to clients with severe challenging behavior being taken on outings off grounds and then, when they act out, staff being filmed by bystanders when restraining the client. This discussion triggered me, because it led to flashbacks of the times I’ve been “guided” (as staff call it) to my room. More like physically moved by several staff at a time, and the fact that I wasn’t officially restrained (because that probably only counts when you’re pinned down to the ground), is solely due to my lack of physical strength.

I asked the staff, admittedly more curtly than I should have, to not have these discussions in my presence in the future, as it was triggering me. She told me I was making it all about me and if I wanted to offer an opinion I should’ve made sure I listened to the whole thing because now I was twisting the truth. I told her about the time I was shoved to my room and staff threatened to lock me up in there. “You probably deserved it,” was her response.

This led to a whole chain reaction of triggers, in which I started to doubt the validity of my trauma-related symptoms. Didn’t I deserve the harsh punishments my parents gave me? I know at least back in my day an “educational spanking” was legal. In some U.S. states, child abuse isn’t even child abuse if it’s used as punishment.

I can’t go into the details of the punishments I endured as a child, and I’m pretty sure they’re not necessarily illegal. Does that mean they can’t have caused me PTSD?

That evening though, I was having intense flashbacks and decided to open up to my staff for that moment. She happened to be one of the staff who’d shoved me to my room on Friday and threatened to lock me in there. I had to admit – even though I don’t believe it – that I deserved to be physically moved to my room. I mean, the reason was my dropping the F-bomb while in the communal room (and then refusing to go to my room on my own when told to), which, well, truthfully staff do all the time.

After I’d given examples of the way my parents treated me, my staff seemed quite shocked. I honestly don’t understand this, as she restrains clients everyday and never even cares about the impact this has on them. I mean, I know, staff restraining clients is legal, but then again does something have to be illegal to be traumatic? And if so, where’s the boundary between an “educational spanking” and child abuse? Or does it have to be unwarranted? In that case, I must say, my parents acted out of a need to show who’s boss because they’d felt powerless over my behavior. I did, indeed, try to excuse my parents’ actions by explaining about my own behavior. The staff didn’t seem impressed.

I know, in my heart, that the truth is that restraints can and do traumatize clients too. I know I experienced trauma while in the psychiatric hospital because of being locked up in seclusion against my will. I know I still experience emotional trauma. And, of course, I’m more sensitive to this due to the trauma I endured as a child. But it isn’t black-or-white. And this is confusing.

Poem: Home Is…

Posted on by Astrid

Home was
At my parents’
Who were there and yet weren’t there for me
Hurting me in ways I feel I can’t express
It wasn’t safe
Or maybe that’s just me

Home was
On my own
Barely holding on by a thread
Surviving but that was about as far as it went
It wasn’t doable
Or maybe that’s just me

Home was
In the mental hospital
Where I stayed for nearly a decade
Only to be kicked out again
That wasn’t forever
And that wasn’t me

Home was
With my spouse
Again, barely holding on by a thread
Managing life by sleeping and panicking
It didn’t work out
But maybe that was me again

Home then was
In the care facility in Raalte
About as unsuitable as they come in theory
But it was near-perfect in reality
And yet, I left
And that was me (sort of)

Home then became
My current care home
With harsh staff, chaotic clients and poor quality of care
I wasn’t abused (not really), but that’s about as far as it goes
It doesn’t feel safe
But then I wonder, isn’t that just me?

Maybe soon home will be
The future care home
The big unknown
Will I feel sort of happy there?
No-one can tell
But it’s up to me

To make myself feel at home

This poem may sound a bit self-loathing. It isn’t intended this way, but I couldn’t express as concisely how I feel about my various “homes” and particularly the way people have told me I approach them (ie. the idea that I’m never satisfied anyway because I’m looking for perfection) without sounding this way. This is definitely not my best poem, but oh well, it shows my conflicting feelings about the fact that I’ve never felt “at home” anywhere.

I’m joining dVerse’s OLN. I’m also joining Friday Writings. The optional prompt is “muscle memory”. I guess repeating that I don’t feel at home anywhere counts.