Sit with the feeling

I remember somebody, a while ago, telling me that when I feel too anxious or too upset or too sad, I don’t need to act. I just need to sit with the feeling. I remember hearing it like it was yesterday but I can’t remember who said it or under which circumstances.

I’m extremely anxious now. I took Xanax, then beer and then more Xanax. I know that is a bad combination but when I feel so desperate two things happen:

1- It’s hard to think before acting

2- I’m so desperate, I’m willing to try anything to help the emotions pass.

So I find myself sitting with the feeling (although it was after acting but before self-injuring). I’m anxious. About what? About B and school. The teacher asked him to do something yesterday and B received different instructions from somebody else and the teacher was upset because B didn’t do what she asked him to do. The teacher has seen B making excuses in the past, so I get her frustration. This time I could see in B’s face that it was really a misunderstanding. I offered to help him after school and we all agreed, but the teacher kept going on and on about how B needs to be responsible for his work and take ownership. I truly get it, but this kid needs a break. Attacking him like that when he is already upset is not going to help and is just going to exacerbate his feelings of self-doubt and helplessness. 

I want him and need him to be successful. I’m worried, probably worried is a better word than anxious right now, about B. I agree that he needs to become more responsible but this is his third week at school. It is a lot of adjusting. I don’t know how much of this is me being a helicopter parent and how much is real concern for his well being. I know most of my worries are about the future but I felt awful leaving him today at school. He seemed so scared and upset, so little. I don’t know how to help him and it breaks my heart to see him suffering so much. I want to hug him and never let go.

There, I guess I sat with the feeling, also wrote about it and that is obviously better than hurting myself to relieve the anxiety or worry. It’s true that I could be just starting to benefit from the Xanax and beer that I took earlier, but I sat with the feeling and I’m past the need to hurt myself. I made it through it and I’m feeling better.

Issues are not resolved and I know it’s going to take time, but the immediate risk was with myself and not with B. Now I can finish with the self-pity party and begin to think about how to help him. 

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If you aren’t happy…

Behind the physical pain

I need to write because nothing seems clear anymore, or it has never been, actually, but has never been as confusing as it is now.

There is a little girl inside me. That is one thing that is clear. She is afraid. Nobody is looking after her. She asks for my protection and I leave her, I disappear and abandon her. When I feel her need of emotional support, I disconnect out of myself. I am scared of her need. Why can’t I be with her? I am afraid of her almost as much as she is afraid of being alone. Is she trying to get my attention? Does she hurt me because she is mad at me? Because she needs my attention? To make me come back to my body? Is that what happens when the pain makes me reconnect? Is she the one who cuts me? Or I am cutting her? Or somebody else or I am punishing myself for not protecting the little girl? For leaving her? Or is she helping me dissociate? because sometimes it feels that way. Am I separating myself from her, to let her know we are not the same person? I am not her anymore and shouldn’t feel afraid. She shouldn’t need to be afraid because she should have me. But then she doesn’t. She doesn’t really have me, or anybody else. The little girl is alone and always has been. Why doesn’t she talk to me? Or why can’t I listen?

The question keeps going back to who is causing the injury? Even when I can remember, I am not always connected to myself. I do feel like somebody else is doing it to me. It’s too harsh to blame a little 5 year-old, innocent, defenseless, helpless. Who is it then, if it isn’t me? But then sometimes it is me. Sometimes I know I am doing it. I feel anxious and can’t cope. Thinking about doing it releases endorphins and helps me feel better because it numbs the pain, just like Xanax or Lorazepam or beer do. It’s like I medicate with endorphins instead of pills. But I feel both, the anxiety and the endorphins. For the few seconds or minutes when I’m actually injuring myself I only feel pleasure and then relief. I feel ashamed for feeling pleasure at wounding my body.

And then there is also hurting myself to feel, to return to my body. It seems like it works both ways. It makes me dissociate when I’m in too much pain; and it brings me back when I am numb, away.

And the girl hurts me to be heard and loved. I feel responsible, feel like I need to be back and love her when she is in so much pain and physical pain is tangible. It’s a lot easier to deal with physical pain – hers and mine. I can be with her when she is physically hurting. Emotional pain is a whole other story.

Is there somebody else hurting me? Is the little girl hurting herself or hurting me?

How can I stop a behavior that is so complex and has so many different purposes depending on what is happening at the time? It doesn’t matter how much I try to understand it, there is always something else that is still unknown. How can I stop it when I don’t do it, when I’m not behind it, when I’m just observing from the outside or being hurt?

Am I causing this headache also because I need the physical pain again, because all this is too emotionally draining?

I can’t solve this in a day, and I don’t think I’m any closer to understanding why I, she, or anybody else is hurting me. But maybe I understand the first step. I need to love the little girl inside me. She only needs love and protection and I should be able to do that. First try to stop hurting her and let her know that I’m here for her, that she doesn’t need to hurt herself or me because I am here for her. She needs to feel loved and maybe I am ready to love her and listen to what she needs.

Family… A source of anger and pain

Anger beyond belief. Self-injured to punish myself for being so stupid, for trusting the wrong people. But is there right and wrong people to trust? Maybe not. The mistakes is to trust.

How do I end up getting hurt by people that seem to be closer to me. People I love and I think love me are the ones that end up hurting me the most, because I let them, because I let the guard down.

I wish I had a normal family – family who all loved each other and supported each other. Is it that hard to always want the best for others? I wish I had someone, anyone, who I knew I could go back to whenever I need, and feel their love, their trust. But no, everything is a pretense. Nothing is real. Everybody is alone.

SI worse than ever

The last three days have been intense. Since Friday things are changing. I know I feel out of control when I cut myself, but the last three days it has been different. I can’t stop. I keep cutting once, and again, and again. I have spent hours doing it and I can’t stop.

I am scared. This is not me. Somebody else is doing this to me. I am not cutting myself but I’m letting it happen. I’m letting her hurt me and I don’t know why. I know I need help and I don’t know how to get the help that I need.

That little girl inside me…

I feel like there is a very afraid little girl inside me. A little girl that lives in a world full of threats and uncertainty. She feels unsafe and needs to be protected. She is coming to me to ask me to protect her and I can’t. I run away, disappear and let her take over me. I can’t be in me for her like she needs and she feels scared and I feel defeated. Maybe that’s when I feel disconnected – maybe the disconnection is me becoming aware that the little girl took over and it’s time to regain control and carefully help her move to a safer place.

Maybe she is the one hurting me. Is she me, trying to hurt my mom?

From doubt and anxiety to understanding and hope

I have been feeling very anxious, mostly about B’s situation – him not doing enough work at school. I feel threatened that he may need to do third grade again. Unsupported because we can’t find the right people  to work with him. Helpless because I can’t control the situation or B. I have an unrealistic need to control everything and everyone around me.

I know what I want B to do. I can’t know if he can do it. I think he can but it’s choosing not to. But maybe he is paralyzed by fear, by the stress that we are putting on him to succeed. It is a lot of presure for a 9 year-old. I want him to react and realize that all this is affecting him . Sometimes it feels like he is trying to punish us by not doing, by acting out. Do we have to back off?

I feel better, maybe because I was able to take A to Basketball practice, or maybe because I realized I could survive without T, or maybe because I realized that what I see as B’s problems is the representation of my needs and not his. I need him to be successful. We need to understand what his needs are and go from there.

First I need to make sure that he doesn’t feel my doubts. I need to transmit calmness and confidence and trust. I trust that he will be succesful and that things are going to work out, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but with patience and love, he may start believing in himself.