#95 Frustration!!!

It is beginning to dawn on me that I cannot tolerate frustration in all its myriad forms. My mother didn't teach me because she was unable to handle her own. If I got frustrated, she got physical with me.
While my brain is going round and round about how terrible a situation is, how rotten people are to me, and how it is all going to end in catastrophe the agitation grows bigger and bigger. I can’t interrupt the babble in my head to inject some reason. There are no volume or intensity controls up there. The on/off switch is in my body.
I know that if I inflict physical pain on myself, the frustration will instantly disappear.
Self-injury is the off switch.

#94 All My Own Fault!

Everything bad that has ever happened to me, I have filed under, "Rylee's Own Fault."
My mother built this filing cabinet for me before I could even talk. Everything went into it.
From my earliest days, a favourite phrase of my mother's was, "you made your bed now lie in it."
No matter what distress I was in, apparently I had brought it on myself.
No matter that I could not remember or understand what I had done exactly, I was solely responsible for my predicament.
All the shame, humiliation, helplessness, abuse, terror, suicidal panics, poor choices, self-injury are locked away as "Rylee's Own Fault."
Until now, it has been very difficult for me to work through the painful parts of my past because I was so well indoctrinated.
All I can think about is that it was my own stupid fault!

#93 Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are.

#92 Creativity

If your creative endeavours pay for food and shelter, then your art is likely to feel like work, at least some of the time. However, even though, I do not pay the rent with my paintings, for some reason, I allow my art-making to become hard work. I don’t enjoy the process as much as I would like to because I always have my eye on the end product.
It is work, because it supplies me with things that are nearly as important as food and shelter. If I do a good job, my art will bring me visibility, connection, admiration, and self-worth. The very things that I was starved for growing up might come my way. I barely enjoy making art anymore, because I am so hungry for the good feelings I might get if I can please people with the result.

#91 A Lifetime of Fear

People who felt safe in their childhoods never really lose that sense of trust in the world that their parents were able to provide for them but those of us who lived with coldness and recurring chaos never lose that fearfulness. It can be dialled down to a nagging worry or a kind of free floating anxiety. During stressful times it gets dialled up to full blown panic or real terror.

Every morning we wake up to the fact that nowhere is a safe place for us.
We go into the world battle ready. We go into the world alone because we have not learned to trust. We go into the world without the skills we need to negotiate with others and to navigate our journey.

We will do almost anything to escape the constant fear and what we do angers and frightens others. We are weighed down with psychiatric labels and get stuck in the system.

We are frightened. We are lost. We are alone.

#90 The Hiding Place

I have been an analyzer all my life. I've insisted on a logical explanation for everything that crossed my path. As long as I can remember I have been in my head trying to figure stuff out. Even though I seldom come up with definitive answers to the who(s) what(s), where(s), when(s) and why(s) of everything, the constant questioning serves to distract me from my feelings. The constant thinking has become my security blanket. It has turned out to be a safe place to hide.

#89 Flashbacks

I think everyone has some experience of flashbacks even if they don't use that word. We get a peculiarly clear memory of something that we were not thinking about or a rush of feeling comes from something we hear or smell. These can be pleasant or unpleasant.

Flashbacks arising out of long ago traumatic events are always horrific and shocking. Without prompting, my mind will produce snapshots of people or events from my past and my body is instantly flooded with fear. Something insignificant in the real world, or on television, will leave me swamped with panic or rage. These flashbacks can contain what seems to me to be new information but is probably just information newly released from where I buried it long ago.

The triggers vary and, unbidden, my body gives up a distressing memory or replays overwhelming emotions from the past. The present is gone and I am trapped inside an experience that I did not believe I could survive the first time around.

And here it has come back again.