2014-02-20 Thu.
Well Pat has hemorrhoids. I wish I had known this before I had taken her to the hospital. The only positive part of taking her to the hospital is that I got a free dinner out of it. I'd just as soon eaten at home.
I just (20 minutes ago) got home from Pat's. Today went pretty well. At Jenny's we talked about Pat talking to the Montgomery Co. Ombudsman Allison. She seemed as if she would go for it this time. Which would be good for a couple of reasons. One, she might actually get some good from it where she lives. Two if, especially if some good comes from it, it might boost her moral some. This would be great.
Wednesday I ended up sleeping all day. It wasn't hard to do. My stress levels have been pretty high lately.
Last night (early this morning) I had a really strange hypnagogic/hypnopompic dream. When I became aware of it, I had just smashed someone who was on top of me hitting me. I had hit them hard enough that I may have killed them. Since I knew it was a dream it wasn't as bothersome as one might expect. While still in the dream, after I had gotten up I told someone, who's face I never saw, that if they had helped me I might not have had to hit the person on top of me so hard. I woke up at about this time to find out I had grabbed my big cup off of the table and was holding it as if I were choking it. I spent the rest of the night trying not to sleep in the small puddle I had created.
It's kind of strange, if I hadn't become partially awake and had remembered this dream it would probably have freaked me out. However, since I didn't know what was going on before I became aware of the dream and I knew it was a dream, it didn't bother me at all. For me this kind of falls under Lewise's (my last therapist) saying "a thought murder a day keeps the doctor away." If something like this happened in real life I'm not sure I would have hit the person. At least I'm not sure I would have hit them consciously.
I have already shown that under extreme duress I will react without thought. I blacked out for part of a second. Thinking back on the only time it did happen, I wasn't angry at the point I became aware of what I was doing. I was more worried that I was going to seriously hurt the other guy. I had been very angry before and after I actually hit him but, I was truly worried while I was swinging. I almost popped his ear drums and, almost pulled the muscles in my arms and back stopping myself from doing any permanent damage.
I was later told he thought he was looking at the face of death. It bothers me that I made someone this afraid. Yet, part of me is glad to know that I will draw a line when threatened, even if I do it unconsciously.
2014-02-21 Fri.
I'm lying down because I'm a little tired physically and mentally.
While I didn't take a nap it's about three hours later and I'm doing better. I did take a mindless break. I played a couple of games and poked around on Sammy here. Google keeps a list of all the programs you've installed, whether their installed now or not. I don't know where this file is kept but, it's not very big so I don't really care. Any way I removed a bunch of the ones I don't, and won't use. Reloaded some unloaded most of them. Looked at some new ones. You get the idea.
2014-02-22 Sat.
Well I now have sixty-two programs I've installed on Sammy. Of which eighteen are games. This means there is still 3.7 GB out of 5.29 GB of storage space left. I'm kind of getting use to the idea that I really am going to want a unit with more internal storage but, that I can live without it for a while yet.
Yesterday at Jeanne's we talked about a few things I want hash over.
For what ever reason I have a few major problems with typical therapy.
I have no future sense. What this means is unless it can be written on a schedule for the most I can't tell you what I will be doing tomorrow so forget about an arbitrary future.
As an example of this. When I get in a bad way I go to The Center: Posttraumatic Disorders Program. It's both an in and out patient program for PTSD. One of the forms I need to fill out is a Goals/Safety Worksheet. The safety part is easy. The last time I was there:
Goals
What specific goals do you hope to achieve by your participation in THE DAY CENTER?
Within what time frame?
Find out what my lack of desire is about.
Find my block to growing up emotionally.
To be more social and more aware of when I start to be socially phobic.
8 - 10 weeks.
This is more or less the same thing I write every time I go to The Day Center. The only other major issue I left out the last time is dealing with stress. I scanned the form into my computer, not only because my hand writing is readable but sloppy at best but, also so I can cut and paste, change the wording or maybe take out growing up and put in stress. These goals are as generic as possible and yet still be acceptable. Oh the 8 - 10 weeks is kind of a joke, I've never been there for less than fifty weeks, probably not less than a year.
By the age of six or seven my answer to "What do you want to be when you grow up." became I don't know, with one exception. When I was twelve I met an woman at Boston University, who became a very good friend. She was doing a psych. paper, interviewing kids. One of the questions was "What do you want to be..." my answer was happy. Happy did not mean not sad, rather it meant a normal-healthy life. A life without PTSD, depression, avoidant personality disorder, or even ADD. I'd never even heard of any of these but, I knew my life had already been messed up. The main point here is by six or seven I had lose a sense of goals, achievements, a future sense.
At this point in time my only wish, hope, or dream is to live without the stress. Without the stress I could probably deal with the rest of it. However, to deal with the stress I have to deal with all the problems that cause it.
There is a part of future sense I do still have however. Anticipation. This is a two edged sword. I can anticipate seeing Jeanne, This usually makes me smile. Even if (though very rarely) I don't want to go to therapy I see this as positive. Even if I don't want to do therapy I enjoy seeing Jeanne and, we usually end up doing some therapy anyway. Anticipation of having to take care of my mother is almost always stressful. If nothing else it's a forty mile round trip just to where she lives. Most of the time you can add at least thirty mores mile to it.
Maybe I will write about driving someday. Let's leave it at, having a drivers license only means someone has decided you can operate a motor vehicle, it doesn't mean you know how to drive. This is a rant that can be funny in an odd way but, I get carried away and stressed out by it.
Anyway back to future sense. Yeah I can think it be nice... or whatever. Yet, I can't take any of it seriously. I'm to firmly rooted in the present with an inability to not be hypervigilant . (I wouldn't want to lose my hypervigilance it has saved me a lot of trouble. Though I'm learning to filter it some It can also be a lot of trouble.) Now is my world. With little room beyond the next few minutes for what might be. I have a past that showed me not to expect anything good or bad, because things happen. Here's a very apt and funny story:
I was a courier delivering packages usually within a fifty mile radius. One day at 17:00 (five o'clock) my boss hands me a package that needs to be delivered before 08:30 the next morning but, someone will be there by 07:00. This is one of those fifty mile radius runs.
He then tells me, "You have to be back by 09:00."
I asked "what if something happens and I can't be back by 09:00."
He says "what could happen"
"I don't know."
"No really what could happen."
I say "I don't know. There could be a hole in the road."
He smiles, "OK if there's a hole in the road you can be late."
The next morning I get the package delivered with plenty of time to spare. As I get back onto the highway traffic starts to crawl. I'm driving in first gear, two miles an hour. Half an hour later I see a cop car stopped in the third lane from the right just sitting there. Fifteen minutes later as I pass the cop car I see a hole almost as wide as the lane and, roughly eighteen inches deep. When I got to a pay phone I called the dispatched to let him know I was going to be late. He had heard the whole conversation between my boss and I.
He says "What about what Stanley said."
I started laughing. I could almost see him staring into the phone smiling as he says "No. Really" and starts laughing himself.
That night after work my boss comes up to me and say "When did you get in this morning?"
I couldn't help smiling as I told him "9:15" then I just lose it as I explained about the hole in the road. He did get upset about it but, there was nothing he could do.
So as I said "things happen." Since a lot of therapeutic techniques are goal oriented my not having a future sense kind of screws thing up.
Trying to teach me how to deal with depression and other symptoms. Visualization techniques and such are wasted on me. I know what to do to take care of myself. One of my favorite lines is distraction not dissociation. Still if I can't get something out of my head I will go to dissociation to keep myself safe. When I can get in touch with someone or get myself too the hospital then I'll come back. My only problem with this is since all of me shares one consciousness I have to cut off all of my emotions and, this makes things more stressful. Still...
I don't need to be told what to do. I need help figuring out what my triggers are. How to know when my stress and anxiety have gotten to the point where I need to stop and take a Xanax. When I'm here at home I can deal with these things. Out in the world though (other than therapy) there's too much input from all directions sight, sound, and touch. I ignore smell and taste ninety percent of the time, even when I eat. My sense of smell works just fine but I've learned to ignore it.
I have learned to analyze things that have happened and, stay emotionally present. Jeanne has helped with this in some way. She doesn't try to overtly control where I go. She stays with me when I analyze rather than tell me what I'm doing, telling me this doesn't work. It's not like I'm trying to apply algebra formulas to emotions. Maybe by staying with me she helps me keep my emotions involved in my searching and keeps me on track. From time to time this analyzing turns on a light and I get another piece of how things work in my head.
One time Jeanne got me out a verbal wondering (think Billy from the Family Circus comic strip). I don't , nor do I want to remember how she did it. The next time I saw her I told her she was sneaky. She got a good laugh and, I had to explain what being sneaky meant.
I just had the image of two people sitting close together pouring over something on a table, analyzing whatever it is their looking at. Each with a hand on whatever the thing is. While the other hand is following a tracing or something like that. Discussing it in soft words because they are so close together. Very intent maybe even professional wouldn't be to strong a word but, you can tell they like each other, their friends trying to figure how something works so they can improve it.
This brings to mind something, my two people aren't trying to fix what they're analyzing anymore than Jeanne and I are trying to fix me. I'm not broken. I was made this way. Yes the people who made me this way didn't necessarily want what they got. However, they made me what I was before I took over and started to change the things I didn't like. The hard part was I had no idea of what was wrong and, probably wouldn't have had any idea of where to start even If I did know. I was only 12.
I'm wondering if the term re-wired is even correct. At least for people like me. People whose trauma started at a young enough age they might not have been able to walk or talk. Basically we're all born with the same brain. As our brains develop the neural pathways get laid down, so to speak. So rather than my brain being re-wired, couldn't it just have been wired wrong in the first place. I'm not saying re-wired shouldn't be used as a general term. Adult onset of PTSD definitely re-wires peoples brains to some degree.
Even talking about re-wiring my brain gives me a different point of view into what I'm trying to change, improve metaphorically speaking.
Thought patterns, electronic schematics, flow charts, and computer programs are all analogous. All of them can be difficult to analyze. Tracing lines of reason to find where and when an event occurs and, where to change it to change the outcome. It's just that with people you need to add in the emotional factors, which can't be mapped. This is why I try to analyze the way I work, the way I do things. I'm not able to do this by myself because I'll lose the emotional component. The emotional part of me got crushed down so much it is sometimes hard for me to tell you if I’m feeling anything. This can get worse when I hyperfocus or get lost in a book. I've gotten better with hyperfocus the computer. Learning to tell frustration and anger apart. Seeing the little accomplishments not just the I DID ITs. With books it can be harder. Sometimes it can seem like what I'm feeling is just an extension of the story. Like an ad for TVs. "The picture is so real you'll feel your hair move in the breeze." This is where I need help understanding why this happens.
Yesterday Jeanne and I talked about attachments. It was a carry over from Tuesday the 18th. (See 2014-02-15 Wed.) I have a kind of fraternal/maternal attachment to her. I love her in a fraternal/maternal way. I put fraternal first because she feels more like a sister. Yet, there are times Little might like to curl-up in her lap and be held, comforted. Also she kind of fills the mother part teaching me about what I feel. This attachment is what makes it possible for me to stay aware of my emotions when I do my analyzing. I talk about what I'm looking at, finding pieces and with Jeanne's help figuring out where I was in my head. I guess this is why she wants me to figure out those pesky 10 point scales.
While thinking about 10 point scales. I think my problem with them is trying to apply arbitrary feelings and measure them on a linear scale. My emotions don't feel linear. They feel logarithmic most of the time. This is also true with physical pain.
Yesterday I said to Jeanne that I can see changes in me. How I'm different from even five years ago. I think this has something to do with her. Maybe it has something to do with her being a Jungian. I don't know what it is but this past three and a quarter years seem to have been more productive than any seven or eight ysars before. I learned more at The Center but, I haven't used it until now, or something. I was just thinking one of the differences is she is more supportive. When I tell her some of the ways I deal with problems or stress she makes sure I know I did the right thing. The way a parent good would encourage their child. Sometimes to the point of being impressed at least I think she is. Little me of course eats this kind of stuff up. I can't remember ten times in my life when my mother did this. I don't doubt my mother did it more than that. However. if she did it fifty times I'd truly be surprised. Little me, 12 year old me, and Big me all need this kind of stuff, especially Little and 12 year old. If I took a Xanax she tells me I did the right thing. (I take very little Xanax. I don't think I've had twenty milligrams in a year. I started taking it in 1995.) For Big it's not so much the pride of being told I do the right thing, though that is important to anyone. Even Big has rarely been told that I do have good techniques for taking care of myself. Everybody needs this kind of thing all of their life.
Yeah as people get older they need less and less but... I never got enough until I got older, in my in my late twenties or thirties. I know I come across as bragging sometimes because I just figured something out. It's because I didn't get the encouragement I needed as a child. I don't need to be told how smart I am, I have a very high IQ. I know this, despite having learning disabilities. I need to be told how wise I am. That I do make smart decisions. That I've learned how to take care of myself despite not being taught how.
As I just said it's not so much the pride, it's the recognition. I know I've done a good job, I'm still here. (I'm not afraid of dying. The thought of being maimed terrifies me.) People need to know when they have done a good job of doing something so important.
I was taught very few of the techniques I use. The only one I can think of is a breathing and visualizing kind of exercise I use. It's an energy transference technique.
You start seated in an up-right position with your eyes closed and your feet flat on the ground. I sometimes do it lying on my back with my knees up.
As you breath in taking a long slow deep breath through your nose. Imagine you're breathing in through the top of you head. Opening you brain, letting it air out. Rinsing out the toxin in you body.
When you exhale breath out through you moth trying to expel more air than you took in. Imagine you're exhaling through your soles. Pushing all of the non-sense, stress, and toxins out of your head and body into the ground.
Do this two or three times or until your tension begins to ebb. Don't let yourself get light headed.
Now reverse the process. Breathing in through you nose, This time imagine you're breathing in through your soles. Pulling the grounding strength of the earth up into yourself.
When you exhale breath out through your mouth. Pushing the empty rinsing air out of your head. So all that's left is the grounding energy of the earth.
Do this as many times as you did the first part.
The idea of how this works to calm down is obvious. The only problem I can think of is if someone thinks "but I haven't moved my feet. Won't I be sucking that same energy back up?" Well energy moves fast and the earth is big. Beside it's kind of like CPR, you breath out almost as much oxygen as you breath in. In this case you're breathing in more energy than you breathed out. The only other thing is making sure you don't get light headed. This can make you feel like you're high, which spoils the whole effect of being grounded.
This is the only visualization kind of thing I use. Sometimes I feel as if I can see energy. I'd say too many hallucinogenics and I have done a lot at a time but, not very often. However, I've never hallucinated. It's more of a spiritual thing with me. While I'm pretty good at visualizing things, I have to do it with my eyes open. When I close my eyes I see all kinds of chaotic patterns. Very distracting. So when I visualize things I can see the real world in the background. Not as distracring for me but, it is hard to imagine myself in a visualization. In the case of the breathing exercise it's more a feeling of the energy than a seeing. This I can do.
I've been at this most of the day. Thumb typing when I get tired of sitting up and typing on the keyboard when I get tired of lying down. My thumb typing has gotten a lot better today. Anyway time for a break. Maybe I'll have more before Tuesday.
2014-02-24 Mon.
This came from a Google+ page.
If you would consider this man to be co-conscious (except for the missing piece) I can tell you all about co-conscious.
This is going to start to get complicated. I just made a change to this om my big computer my Windows 8.1 box (Mary). So I'm typing this in a text editor because I'm pasting in tomorrow morning. This is why I want to do all my writing on Sammy. So I broke my own rule just because I don't want to sit up, wake Mary up, and copy Test 2014-02-20 Thu. (that's this weeks Test) back here with the text and picture I added.
This is not being lazy because I have to do more work now. I should have copied the text and picture over here like I usually do and, done it right the first time. This is what I get for not paying attention. This is why I made my three step thing. Pay Attention, Evaluate, and Then Do. O'well ^¿^ (that's a sigh).
I doubt I can print all of these these since I probably can't even see them on Mary. Besides I like having them here and, I can show them to people. So here are the ones I have made from and for Sammy:
(I changed my mind and made a screen shot on the android. The top four work just fine here but, the lower four turn into ?s and nothing else.)
Well it sleeping time. Nighty nighty.
