#so this is just. a post on one tiny aspect of ptsd because i felt like writing it lol

[actual-changeling]

To maybe add onto this post a little bit because I feel like this is something a lot of people who aren't really deeply informed on mental health and/or trauma might not know.

There is four different survival responses: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. The first two are obviously well known but the other two aren't, however especially fawn is dangerous if it goes unrecognized.

I see people write fics in which Ellie goes from fight or flight straight into fawn and it is portrayed as good and healing, meanwhile she is just stuck in a different trauma response. It's just as unhelpful and just as harmful.

The fawn response is focused around appeasing people and keeping everyone else happy because your brain and body tell you that this is how you keep yourself safe. You disregard your emotions, feelings, boundaries, needs, everything in order to make the people around you like you, especially the one you register as a threat. For example, if you are stuck in survival mode and you get into a small, not dangerous fight with someone, your brain will see this as an immediate threat to your safety and slip into the fawning (in this case). You will ignore your own stance on the topic and take the blame for the fight/the problem, you will appease them and give up your position and take on theirs to make them happy and calm again. People very often apologize for things that are not their fault because it is safer to be blamed in a way you can control (and makes the other person less actively aggressive) rather than be stuck in a fight you have zero control over.

We do actually see Ellie fawning in episode nine, she is not only incredibly dissociated but the way she talks is timid and soft, she also apologizes for not being present when Joel points it out (kudos to him for saying "no it's okay" instead of playing into it). If you do not know what to look for, that moment might not mean anything, but it's a textbook fawn response.

Why am I telling you all this? Because writing Ellie as becoming incredibly obedient and "calmer" in how she responds to rules and expectations is a) not true to who she is as a character and b) actively exacerbates her fawn response and reinforces the beliefs and core assumptions of her CPTSD. Fawning means the people around you do not see your trauma anymore/it stops inconveniencing them, so on the outside they think it's great! Look, they're no longer being aggressive or irritable, this must mean they're getting better, right? But then you look at the person and they're terrified to death of upsetting someone and disregard their needs to make everyone else happy and that is the opposite of getting better.

So please, if you write about Ellie recovering from what she has been through keep in mind that there is more than one way to react to trauma and responses that look fine on the outside are usually *not* fine on the inside. Don't just push her from one survival mode into another one because it's more convenient for you, actually put in the work and make her process it, see where she actually ends up once can break out of it.

[valkerymillenia]

Klaus in season 2

First of all, let me point out that I love season 2, I really do. It's a great season for a great show. This post is very critical but it's not a reflection of the whole season itself, just of one aspect.

I know a lot of people are as upset as I am about how Klaus was treated in season 2. He's my favorite and I hated how the writers and characters alike treated him so I'm just here to vent.

Not that everything was awful, no, Klaus is still my favorite, he still had some amazing scenes but...

I get that not every character can be center stage every season when you have a show with 7 main characters, I really do. I'm not upset that Klaus had less protagonism because I know he'll get his chance to shine again and be in the spotlight in the future, but... That doesn't excuse the bullshit that was done with Klaus this season.

Everything around his arc and his powers in season 1 was ignored in return for turning him into comic relief with a dash of unresolved ship angst.

I don't like how his constant suffering is ignored with no catharsis or endgame or acknowledgement, or how his obvious kindness is downplayed by every character.

I don't like how him falling off the wagon was approached.

I don't like how the cult thing was played for laughs and he was called narcissistic and selfish when he was obviously trying to do the right thing (and failing) over and over.

Yes, starting the cult was a bad idea but he clearly didn't mean for it to get out of hand, he was just trying to survive and looking for support and validation anywhere he could in a strange new environment and he tried very hard to end it but they never let him. The cult was smothering him, disrespecting his personal space (and his actual requests not to be touched or to be left alone), invading his home without consent, objectifying the hell out of him, and so on. This would have been perfect to play out a parallel with how the ghosts never leave him alone, it's a sugar coated version of the horrible hauntings in s1, it would have been the perfect way to have his siblings realize how hard he has things, but instead he's painted as selfish and the cult plotline had zero payout or meaning in the overall plot.

I don't like how his powers were either nerfed to avoid stealing the spotlight (and how some of his original comic powers were co-opted by other characters).

I don't like how one of the biggest key points of his powers that shaped 29 years of his life was suddenly swept under the rug this season and treated so lightly.

Seriously, not a single ghost around him other than those two split-second scenes? This guy ruined his life with hard drugs just to escape the constant presence of the dead that are literally everywhere but suddenly in season 2 they are nowhere, suddenly the very thing that led him to desperation (and near death in more than one situation) before is gone, it makes light of his addiction and suffering, it makes his struggle with sobriety come off as lazy.

Remember Hazel and Cha-Cha's ghosts? Where are Five's ghosts? The cult's ghosts? Ghosts are supposed to always be around whether he wants them or not. Remember the how the voices haunted him even in the bath and underwater as soon as he started coming down from the high? Where's that now? Sure, maybe he could have learned to control what ghosts he sees or hears but we saw nothing of that, no struggle, no learning, no evolution, it's never mentioned and Klaus no longer seems to care, suddenly the only ghost around is Ben and the only power Klaus is developing is the ability to physically interact with Ben or make Ben corporeal (and that's all about Ben, not Klaus). Even possession, a power that should belong to Klaus or at least be controlled by him, is given to Ben without explanation.

They gives us a tiny glimpse of Klaus at peace with ghosts and in control of his powers in the opening of the season and then they annul it completely and show absolutely no explanation for it. It's such lazy writing! It's like they don't even know how to write Klaus unless he's high or drunk, it's like the writers see that as his only personality traits and not as something he struggles with.

I don't like how his reaction to Ben disappearing was so glossed over and barely addressed.

They were glued to each other (willingly) for 16 years. Ben was the voice of Klaus's conscience, his only support and his best friend, everyone else mourned Ben 17 years ago but not Klaus, he deserved to mourn and we deserved to see more a 2 second bed scene of Klaus looking kinda sad and a 20 second conversation about the loss of his best friend that was less about grief and more about guilt.

I don't like that he had no role in the final battle, even if they didn't want him to stay the spotlight, they could still have given some role, they could still have given him a chance to fight Lila too (perfect moment to show Lila being freaked out by the dead and give the siblings a glimpse of Klaus's burden), or at the very (VERY) least they could have given a plausible reason for him to not participate (like being injured or disabled early on or having to take care of someone else) but no, he, the trained vigilante and war vet, was just hiding and cowering.

Speaking of which, I get that Klaus is acting like a hippy pacifist in this season and he's crippled by PTSD but there are so many scenes where he should have at least shown his fighting skills for self-defense because you cannot tell me he had no fighting skills, he was trained the same way as his siblings and he was a soldier in an active battlefront for 10 months without dying, he HAS to have excellent skills. They just made him a physical doormat this season, he never reacts other than getting hit, hiding or running.

The Dave plotline was the only thing well addressed and I suspect we'll see the proper resolution to that in the next season.

I don't like a lot of things about how Klaus was handled this season but it's not that everything was awful, I still love Klaus and he did have great parts this season too and some interesting development.

I did love seeing him bond and interact with his siblings, I did like seeing him be incredibly supportive and affectionate to his family (even when they don't notice or appreciate it and even when it's just too further another sibling's plot), I absolutely adore how he dished out romantic wisdom with his sisters.

Seriously, I really did like him being supportive and affectionate- Allison with her love life, the dead Swede, her worries for her husband, the danger of the riot, getting her husband out of jail, etc; Vanya by including her and being affectionate, with her love life as well and by being honest with her all the way; Diego by trying to comfort him after Reginald emotionally devasted him, hugging him and trying to lighten the mood and show affection in other scenes even after all the times Diego is dismissive of him and accuses him off still being intoxicated; etc, etc, etc. Yes, he was rather mean towards Ben this season (refusing to tell the family he was there, ignoring him, using him to impress people or as a shield, etc) but he was also kind to Ben by keeping him corporeal often, letting him possess him despite how horrible it felt, again with Ben's love life as well by acting like a wingman, etc.

Klaus is naturally kind and affectionate, he's caring and protective of his family, his methods may be terrible and he may mess up a lot but his intentions are always good. This season picked up on that from s1 and highlighted it even more. That was a positive thing but the fact that nobody in the family acknowledges this, the fact that they still dismiss him as intoxicated and narcissistic, that was AWFUL.

Klaus is still self-destructive and deeply traumatized but both of those things were glossed over or played for laughs, I could handle the family dismissing him if these issues were given the importance and respect they deserved and there was an endgame or some payoff but... Nope, we got none of that.

Honestly, it just really bothers me that all the serious things established in season 1 were completely ignored just so Klaus would be lighter and less likely to steal the spotlight. I just want the multiple traumas and secrets that he's keeping from the family to be addressed, I want his struggles with his powers and sobriety to be validated and addressed instead of played for laughs or only remembered when it's convenient, I want to family to start showing any little bit of understanding or concern or appreciation for him (if they could do it for Vanya this season then they can do it for him too).

What I wouldn't give for Klaus to just finally snap in season 3 and be the accidental cause of the next possible doomsday just so the family would finally be forced to take him seriously and give him the right kind of support and attention.

[houseplant-central]

if John Green wrote me as a character in one of his novels

Quick trigger warning: this post includes spoilers for John Green's "Looking for Alaska", as well as discussion of writing that glorifies mental illness and suicide.  

My younger sister told me this morning that she had started reading a novel by John Green. No disrespect intended to the man, but I was concerned.

Among a variety of other media I consumed in my pre-teen years, it was likely the anthology of John Green's works I owned that contributed to my obsession with the collective "manic pixie dream girl" fetish of 2013. (An anthology of works that is still sitting on a bookshelf at my mother's house, hence where my sister must have found "An Abundance of Katherines"). Again, no disrespect to the man, but when all of your books (with the exception of "The Fault In Our Stars") have a "quirky" but "tragically mentally ill" teenage girl who is somehow also super fit and always looking attractive (despite afore mentioned mental illness she's supposedly dealing with), who will either pretend to die or actually die by the halfway point of the book to inspire your male lead to go on a soul searching journey-- something's going on.

Case in point, "Looking For Alaska", which (spoiler alert), I am going to spoil the plot of in the next few paragraphs. Alaska has the potential to be one of the most interesting female leads I've ever come across in teen literature. She's enigmatic, ridiculously quick-witted and undeniably beautiful. She's recovering from a complicated family trauma, and has moved out on her own to attend university, determined to carve out a meaningful life for herself, despite struggling with complex PTSD and manic depression.

Except the story is told from the point of view of a young boy named Miles, whose only real character trait is that he's hopelessly fascinated by Alaska. This could still work as a novel mostly about Alaska, but told through the eyes of her first love, Miles. Or as a chronicle of their friendship and love story. But for either of those to work, it would require Green to use Miles' point of view to flesh out both Miles' and Alaska's character. Instead, Miles remains a stand in for literally any teenage boy, with very little character qualities, and Alaska's "quirkiness" and attractive qualities elevate her to the most amazing person Miles has ever come across. Despite Miles and Alaska only being very briefly romantically involved, Miles spends the entirety of the book chronicling his attraction to Alaska and everyone else's love for her.

But it doesn't stop there.

All of Alaska's quirks are considered attractive, including her toxicity to her friends, her long disappearances, and jokes about her suicidal ideation and depression. Her mental illness is glorified as another thing that separates her from the "other girls" which hold no interest for Miles. Ultimately it's this glorification of her mental illness, especially her manic depression, that makes me comfortable labelling this work as one that falls into the "manic pixie dream girl" trope.

But it doesn't stop there.

Because Alaska kills herself. And this only creates more intrigue for Miles, who dedicates the rest of the novel to better understanding her, even when she is gone. Which again, could be quite a compelling, if depressing, narrative. But ultimately Green makes it so Alaska's death only makes Miles more in love with her. The friends who were once side characters express to Miles how much they miss her now that she's gone. The bully characters admit to Miles that they've realized they should have befriended her when she was alive, but could only realize that now that she's dead. Far from a warning that your loved ones will miss you when you're gone, "Looking for Alaska" was "13 Reasons Why" before "13 Reasons Why". It promised young readers that people who kill themselves teach their friends and their bullies their worth: the absolute last messaging any author should be sending to young readers.

This was indeed sub-par messaging for tiny, clinically depressed pre-teen me.

Back to the crux of the point, however. For a long time I was in love with this book, and the character of Alaska. I supposed I looked at her and her family trauma, similar to mine, and thought: "damn, my trauma just makes me cry whenever adults raise their voice, but this girl uses it to be smart, skinny, well-dressed, well-read, a little provocative, AND relatable. I must be doing something wrong." Thus, with Alaska and a collection of Tumblr posts and Arctic Monkey's lyrics in mind, I set about my several year long quest to become just that variety of manic pixie dream girl.

Enter: several problems. I did not struggle with mania, rather sluggishness and a loss of enthusiasm for life outside of novels and the internet; this meant I did not feel like running around in short skirts and knee socks being the life of the party in every situation like Alaska. I wasn't pixie sized; I struggled with my relationship to my body my entire teenage years, and I could never hop up on a table to give a drunken toast like Alaska, it might break. "Dream" is a little less quantifiable, but I never talked to anyone outside my handful of friends, so I had slim chances of becoming anyone's impossible dream. "Girl" I thought I at least fit, for the entirety of high school, but I came out as non-binary in my first year of university; so all together taking a look at "manic pixie dream girl" I was 0 for 4.

Nonetheless aspects of that romanticism of a broken childhood and that touch-and-go relationship with self-identity stuck with me through high school into college, and my greatest fear is either promoting that romanticization of real issues in real life, or in my writing. Because often I look at myself, or an aspect of my life and go "heh, that doesn't sound like a real personality trait, that sounds like something a female John Green novel character would do or say. Get over yourself."

So here, without further ado, is a look into that guilty pleasure of romanticization. John Green would start with something like: "they* liked used books that already had annotation in them." It's always a little detail with him, one that's considered a character "quirk". That's the one thing of his I picked up and is still in far too much in my writing today. A list of quirks instead of an actual character. (But that's a blogpost on writing for another time).

So: "They liked used books that already had annotation in them. They kept a collection of books on astrology, numerology, and tarot. They grew outdoor plants indoors under a lamp they bought from a weed dealer, though they didn't smoke. The plants were mostly herbs, and they used them in cooking. They had houseplants too. Their eyes were deep set. When they wore mascara it smudged near instantly underneath, but it still looked good. They had some sort of tragic backstory, that explained their oversized sweaters, and their late nights and their dark art, but the backstory was desperate and sweaty and felt like fingernails making bloody crescents in hands, and wasn't aesthetic, so it wasn't important. They owned a polaroid camera. They'd read the entirety of Beowulf for fun. They would somedays stare into nothingness for hours on end if uninterrupted, not thinking of anything at all, and be startled by the way time still continued to pass. But that wasn't terrifying, it was only quirky, somehow. They smelled like coffee. They couldn't seem to make themselves yell, even when they were angry or in danger, but that was also quirky, somehow, and cute, and not a huge safety issue. They liked the smell of pine trees."

I think it's important to romanticize some aspects of your own life. If it's important to you, then it's important to you. Liking your own quirks is much better than hating them. And romanticizing quirks like smelling of coffee is valid. But romanticizing your bad or difficult qualities as "quirky" is not good. (A note to fourteen year old me: "romanticize your love of already annotated books! But not your mental illness! Take that shit seriously instead, yo.") And thinking you're going to make your life better or more meaningful by copying Alaska is never a good idea; she didn't have a very good ending.

*they/them are my preferred pronouns!

Edit: I looked up "Looking for Alaska" and realized it's banned in some highschools in Canada and the states. I was about to redact some of my harsh standpoint that it's not a good read for younger teens, who might become too blindly attached to the negative messaging like I did, because I don't think banning books outright for heavy content is ever a good idea (banning books for hate speech is another debate for another time). But then I saw the suggested ban has nothing to do with the glorification of suicide and everything to do with the "offensive language, sexually explicit scenes, homosexuality and unsuitable religious viewpoints", which is ridiculous. I don't think it should be banned in any capacity-- I think reading it now (if I'd never read it before) would give me context for the manic pixie dream girl craze, and be somewhat of an enjoyable read. My hesitance about my sister reading it now is because she reminds me too much of myself at that age.

[meandthemoonlightagain]

small update to no one

1:55am friday morning, sincerely feeling like the world has moderately left me behind. i haven’t felt the urge to journal in months but i’d imagine now is a better time than any to do so. i dropped off of the face of the planet on social media due to my own insecurities but as circumstances may have it, i’m not really missing much. there are a few good instagram posts i wish i could share though. 

over the past 243 days i’ve learned a lot about myself, about love, about selflessness, about truth and about mental illness. not to steal city and colours lyrics here but 

“like the sea, i’m constantly changing from calm to ill.” 

i’m breathing, i’m alive. i’m grateful for that. there have been significant moments most recently which have scared me to death (the irony). i’m glad i’m still here, but part of being mentally well is accepting when you aren’t. it’s not a 24/7 ordeal but i do believe i am suffering vastly from PMDD PTSD and other DD’s i’m sure i can’t think of right now. i’ve decided to end services with my therapist only because he isn’t helping much. it’s more $40 a week to vent to a man with a Brooklyn accent who i love but i leave feeling just as confused as before, just lighter. 

i am now responsible for a tiny human and it’s been rewarding and challenging and opened my eyes significantly. on one end of the spectrum, i’ve never wanted to have my own child more, to feel the joys of a tiny seed sprouting and all the stuff that goes with that. but on the other end of the spectrum, i can see how much i value my freedom and the ability to do whatever, whenever. i am immature in a lot of aspects of my life. this is probably the one i’m most ashamed of. 

i do not understand how to navigate the emotions of my own world never mind those of someone else, but i can also sit there and nail job interviews, deal with clients on a daily basis and help strangers who do not even know who i am to tell me their darkest secrets. i refuse to see the positive side to myself because in my opinion the bad outweighs the good. i’ve always had something wrong with me, i can’t focus on anything else. the most prominent words that stick out are:

whore, slut, worthless, your fault, fat, fat, fat, i can’t think of anymore at the moment. 

i’m terrified of losing those close to me, i’m terrified that i am not enough. 

today the fear in question was whether or not seven years down the line i will be considered not good enough anymore and it terrifies me because of the past. i know he is not his past anymore but i am not confident in my abilities to constantly keep up an appearance that he considers attractive. i don’t even think i am to begin with. i’m struggling with this eating disorder to keep him around. i wish i could feel like i was worth something. 

regardless, i have done a lot of things to ruin a good thing, yet somehow it still remains going and going and going and i’m so grateful for that. i will do what i have to to continue to accept and try to grow. but i do wish that this battle within myself would stop so i could live a normal life. i feel to much. i’m tired of feeling anything at all. 

-B

[whopooh]

Play it again, Jack – fourth and final post of MFMM fics you love to reread

There is no thing as reading too many times, Dot. And of course I can read this on a public transportation if I want to! 

This post is the fourth and final of “Play it again, Jack” – posts that collect the fics we love to go back to and reread.

It has been so fun to hear about your thoughts and to put these posts together. Thank you to everyone contributing!

First I want to start with a comment from @bumblemama that fits perfectly to the spirit of this collection:

Aaaaand another thing... despite having read literally every story on ao3 with the mfmm tag, I realised I couldn't actually remember them all. So I've just gone back to the very start and am working my way through again. There are some lovely gems, and it's really cute to see requests for a season 3, or even a few 'wonder where s2 will go' comments. A good reminder of how perspectives change and stories evolve. There would be plenty that would fit into one or more of the year of tropes, but they somehow seem less consciously trope-ish, I guess because they hadn't been done in this fandom before. Anyway. No specific recommendations just the generalized advice to find page 82 (!!!!) of the fics and work forwards!

@chrismarieisme sent me several lovely recommendations I felt I couldn’t cut up and mix, so here they are all together:

This was difficult because I love so many of the fics, but here we go:

“Be still” by @flashofthefuse – very sweet glimpse of a moment between P&J the night before she leaves for England. It's exactly how I'd hope that moment would be.

“He Calls Her Beautiful” by @ladyroxie – simply exquisite.

“A Perpetual Feeling” by @missingmissfisher – so romantic! The intuitive connection between P&J.

“The Actor” by @ollyjayonline – Jack & Jane, Pride and Prejudice. What more does one need?

“Merciful Powers” by @scruggzi – Jack, tights, Shakespeare. Ngggh.

“The Wager” by @soupsouffle – fun, witty, deliciously, steamy URST.

@soupsouffle, “The Wager”. Reread by @kanste

A wager between Phryne and Jack about who gives into seduction first makes for great banter and flirting. I love how they both use every trick in the book to seduce the other. This fic has some of the best flirting/banter and some of the hottest smut scenes ever. Do I need to say more?

@omgimsarahtoo, “A Thief in the Night”. Reread by @rubycaspar

This story is just so much fun. I love the beginning, told from drunk!Phryne's POV, and then the lovely moment when Jack wakes up and finds her there in the morning. I love the characterisation of both of them in this fic, and the concept is so cute and so well-executed.

@ladyroxie, “The Sweetest Fruit”. Reread by @kanste

Can I just say I love Peach and this fic has a lot of it. It has no smut but it is sooooo sexy. I love to imagine Jack in the garden, especially on a hot day like today. The banter/feeding is just like them and turns up the heat some notches.

@jackphryne4eva, “Cafe Blend”. Reread by @omgimsarahtoo

I adore the meta nature of this fic – the story is of a female MFMM fanfic reader who needs to find a quiet place to read the latest chapter of a smutty fanfiction. Her anticipation is delicious, as is the small French cafe she finds! There's an element of all of us in how she is struggling against her impulse to hide her obsession with MFMM and its fic, and how she decides to read on, working to smother any shame she's been made to feel. It's got a million tiny moments that evoke the show, and so many spots that could be any one of the Phrack fangirls we know. I just love it!

@aljwritesphryne, “and stealing my heart...”. Reread by @rithebard

.... Sweet story. Jack takes Phryne home to escape her mean father and it is just such lovely touching story.

@evendale, “Finally”. Reread by @scruggzi

Set after “Unnatural Habits”, this was one of the first fics I read and I was fascinated by the exploration of phrack's developing relationship with a much more inexperienced depiction of Jack than in many other fics. Phryne in this is very much the teacher, ushering him into the modern world through their developing relationship. Their characters take on this nice point and counterpoint dynamic, with her representing the age of modernity and him a traditional approach that he's fairly eager to leave behind. It's mostly a very gentle story with some lovely banter and very sweet moments between the two of them and it's very much a comfort fic for me. Something I tend to re-read when I'm grumpy. Although I think I lean towards a more experienced version of Jack's character now, with its setting at the end of season two I think this one works as an interpretation and it fills me full of the happy feels whenever I go back to it.

@firesign23, “Grasping at Shadows”. Reread by @rithebard

Phryne and Jack go back to Paris after the war and are haunted by their past and have a hard time sharing it with each other. This is sweet and special because it touches on their vulnerabilities. And how their love bridges it. It is a lovely tale.

@aljwritesphryne, “A Collingwood girl for an Abbotsford Man”. Reread by @kanste

Phryne and Jack return to the footy field and it turns out very different then in the show. I love the flirting and how determined Phryne is to "win over" Jack.

There is desk sex too.......

@omgimsarahtoo, “The Power of the Feminine”. Reread by @kanste

Another series of fics. I love all the different aspects Sarah put into the fics. There is young Jack having sex for the first time and Sarah manages to make the life of the woman with whom it happens come alive. She also introduces us to all the different women who made Jack the man and lover he is today. Of course there is Phrack sexy time. She gives us a new family member whom I like very much and I hope makes a return sometimes.

What made me especially happy is the Happy End Concetta is getting after Jack. It is such a wonderful heart-warming story for a lovely minor character.

@phrynesboudoir/Sassasam, “Mirrors into Windows”. Reread by @scruggzi

This fic combines all my favourite elements of undercover phrackvestigation and resolved sexual tension. Phryne and Jack have been estranged since her return from London although Phryne doesn't know why Jack's not sought her out since she's been back. After being thrown together on a case involving slaughtered academics they renew their friendship and try to navigate a big change in Jack's life and what it means for their partnership. There are lots of lovely things I could say about this fic but basically Phryne as a professor was a kink I never knew I had and it made me spectacularly happy.

@promisesarepiecrust, “City that works” and "A Whole World in Here". Reread by @balticprincess

These are two of my special favourites. Unusual, but great!

There are three things that I love best in fics I like: Angst, Modern AU and a happy ending. And while the first two are not mandatory, I enjoy other fics as well, the last one is. As I watch only movies with happy endings, of course this goes for reading fic, too. "A Whole World in here" by @promisesarepiecrust is written as a play. Nevertheless you can suffer and rejoice with Phryne and Jack in this one. It is full of suspense and romantic. And angsty. So angsty. The epilogue is lovely AND it is M-rated, as I like it. So, an unusual one, but so good and well written.

"City that works" is a modern AU. Total AU: Jack is the free-spirited rich guy and Phryne the divorced policewoman with PTSD. It works so well, that one. Romance, suspense, will-they-won't-they, sex, love, misunderstandings, fun: all there. So, also unusual, but so worth reading!

lefaym, “Locked Rooms”. Reread by @whopooh​

I have probably read this fic more than ten times. It’s fun and lighthearted, and it captures awkwardness in such a wonderful way. Phryne is sure she is about to die in a cellar together with Jack, and she decides to kiss him, because she “had no intention of going to her grave without ravishing Jack Robinson at least once”. When they are saved by Dot and Hugh, they are found in the most compromising situation, and from this moment on the fic is all about delicious awkwardness, and Phryne not wanting to admit she feels awkward. She tries to push it away as not important but fails spectacularly. Here comes one of the funniest lines I’ve read: “Phryne was not going to be defeated by a small masturbatory lapse in judgment“. Finally, the people around her decides she needs a push in the right direction, and we meet the lovely concept of Aunt P ex machina. 

@omgimsarahtoo, “The Female Gaze”. Reread by @kanste

Why do I like that fic? Well, it has Jack in a shower (a lot). But that is not all. Every single reaction to Jack is spot on and lovely. Especially Elsie has a soft spot in my heart

YouknowmeasJ, “Before the World”. Reread by @scruggzi

I'm am absolute sucker for a fluffy reunion fic and this is one I especially like. Jack catches up with Phryne before she leaves Australia and they scheme together to get the Baron home without Phryne having to fly him because he's driving her up the wall. Some lovely funny banter, a little bit of smut and that nice 'you and me against all obstacles' aspect of their partnership really comes to the forefront.

@phrynesboudoir/Sassasam, “The Nearness of You”. Reread by @rithebard

I love pretty much everything Sassasam writes but I chose this one because it really touched my soul. Jack dies in 1929 on the way to meet Phryne and his ghost finds it attached to her home but no one can see him for years till her a new Phryne Stanley comes along. I love this story because you love Phryne's decedent and you feel so deeply for both Jack and Phryne Fisher's sadness and loneliness. Incredibly touching.

@gaslightgallows, “Creatures of Stillness”. Reread by @rithebard

Again I really love gaslightgallows's stories. But this one just really touches me. Jack becoming a merchant seaman to get to Phryne in a beard and dirty peacoat all he wanted to do was get to Phryne and she was delighted. She loves taking care of Jack and it is a very sexy story but it was what they discover about their feelings that really touches me.

@jeneenp/ CollingwoodGirl, "A Man in Need”. Reread by @kanste

This fic has so much going on. I love the PhrackAngst, how everyone works together to get our two idiots together, and the little glimpse in Jack's live. It has some of my favourite Phrack scenes in it. Phryne convincing Jack to let himself touch (in the train), Phryne being her goddess self and bathing in the forest lake and Phryne teaching Jack how to use his tongue. As a plus you have Dot in detective mode.

@olderbynow , ”Smoke and Fire”. Reread by @zannadubs23

According to my reading history it’s around five hits. I love this for a couple of reasons. It’s light and sweet, but still smoking hot. Phryne who is normally so wonderful at everything, just can’t handle the baking of the biscuits. I like that she wants to try, not because she’s goo-goo eyes for Jack (well, not only that—thought that’s clearly part of it) but because he challenges her. That’s it right there. It hits the essence of what makes them tick and lights our imaginations on fire with these idiots. He challenges her and she loves it. She challenges him and he loves it.

@ollyjayonline​, “For Fox’s Sake”. Reread by @whopooh​

This fic is such a happy place, it’s a fic that kind of sparkles with fun and companionship and teasing and love. Phryne and Jack are bailing out from a fox hunt to instead first save the fox and then ravish each other in a folly. The way they interact has such energy and at the same time lightness in it, Phryne’s teasing about Jack’s slightly higher levels of embarrassment is lovely, and it’s a delightful fic.

@omgimsarahtoo, “Romantic Overtures”. Reread by @kanste 

This is not a single fic but a whole series worth reading. I'm really, really fond of letters and Sarah writes some of the best letters out there. I love how Jack and Phryne get bolder with the letters and how in the later fics they keep up with the letters. I would love to have something like that in my relationship

Comeaftermejackrobinson, “Method in their madness” & Miss Templeton, Twelfth Night series (starting with “A Willow Cabin”). Reread by @rithebard

Reunion in England, "Method in their madness" is another favorite, so lyrical and poetic. It is really a story for romantics which I am and exploring the inner lives of our heroes. I also love Miss Templeton's Twelfth Night series on ff.net. She creates a fascinating arc in their romantic relationship while they professionally solve case after case. Also it is fun. And they both have their vulnerabilities with real understanding and though they don't say it out loud love.

DivineMissP,  "Impact" and "Pure Bliss". Reread by AnonM

Dark, well written hurt/comfort. Jack gets to be a reluctant hero without taking anything away from Phryne's strength.

@omgimsarahtoo, “The Breathings of Your Heart". Reread by @kanste

This is Sarathoo's take on the soulmate trope and one fic I've turned to many times. The concept of one soulmate is troubling but Sarah did it beautiful. I love that Phryne and Jack aren't really convinced of the concept (Jack marrying Rosie, Phryne is doing Europe) but when they need comfort turning to each other.  The picture of Phryne writing over her bruises without the ink gives me so many feelings. To balance it out, the conclusion and especially her last message made me laugh out loud.

@firesign23, “When I Sorrow Most”. Reread by @omgimsarahtoo

This is one of those stories that I go back to when I just need a moment to cry. It's short, but saturated with emotion, and just perfectly painful to read. It's like those movies you watch, knowing that they're going to tear your heart out and you're going to love every minute. It breaks my heart every single time.

@heavyheadedgal​, “Queen’s Gambit”. Reread by @whopooh​

This is only a ficlet, but I have found myself coming back to it agfain and again. Although Phryne and Jack are only playing chess in this fic, there is still so much happening and so much understanding flowing between them. I love the way they talk about themselves and their possibly developing relationship while they seem to be talking only about the game in front of them.

This was all.  Here are the earlier posts in the series: I ; II  ; III.

I hope I managed to include everything that has been sent to me -- if I missed something, please let me know and I’ll remedy it!

[peaceofpuregold-blog]

Does Petyr Baelish Have PTSD?

@liitlefinger got me thinking with this:

Hmm I was thinking abt this last night and obviously Petyr has so much trauma from what happened to him as a kid but does he have like? A PTSD?

I have a tiny (really just a smidgen) amount of education and training on PTSD and other conditions listed in the DSM-V. Enough to have a .pdf of the thing I nearly forgot was on my computer. Thank goodness, because my copy of the text is nearly 1,000 pages long-ish.

With his consent, I’ve offered to go through the criteria in what I think will be my very first ASOIAF Meta©™®.

Caveat: I am not the type of professional who is legally able to make a proper diagnosis of any kind.

Background: to put it vaguely as possible (as I still prize my anonymity) my day job is working with a very vulnerable population, those with a variety of disabilities although I specialize in particular those with Intellectual Disability and/or Pervasive Developmental Disorder. I have helped those with other conditions, or those that have other conditions in addition to the ones I specialize in. I started out with children, but have moved on to adults, specifically those of 21 year of age and older. We are trained how to spot potential additional conditions and direct them to the specialists who can diagnose them and then we coordinate together to figure out how to help them receive the prescribed treatment post-diagnosis.

Now! On with the criteria! I’ve simplified it a bit, but I’m going to go through each one with what quotes from ASOIAF I can find and with the tiniest bit of generalizing, please feel free to take the latter with a boulder of salt. DSM bits will be italicized.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Note: The following criteria apply to adults, adolescents, and children older than 6 years. For children 6 years and younger, see corresponding criteria below.

Sweet! I found the right page. For reference:

He had a little pointed chin beard now, and threads of silver in his dark hair, though he was still shy of thirty.

-GOT Catelyn IV

A. Exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence in one (or more) of the following ways:

1. Directly experiencing the traumatic event(s).

Yup. Multiple events at that.

Brandon was a man grown, and he drove Littlefinger all the way across the bailey and down the water stair, raining steel on him with every step, until the boy was staggering and bleeding from a dozen wounds. “Yield!” he called, more than once, but Petyr would only shake his head and fight on, grimly. When the river was lapping at their ankles, Brandon finally ended it, with a brutal backhand cut that bit through Petyr’s rings and leather into the soft flesh below the ribs, so deep that Catelyn was certain that the wound was mortal. He looked at her as he fell and murmured “Cat” as the bright blood came flowing out between his mailed fingers. She thought she had forgotten that.

-GOT Catelyn VII

“That was the night I stole up to his bed to give him comfort. I bled, but it was the sweetest hurt. He told me he loved me then, but he called me Cat, just before he fell back to sleep. Even so, I stayed with him until the sky began to lighten.”

-ASOS Sansa VII, Lysa

A fortnight passed before Littlefinger was strong enough to leave Riverrun, but her lord father forbade her to visit him in the tower where he lay abed. Lysa helped their maester nurse him; she had been softer and shyer in those days… As soon as he was strong enough to be moved, Lord Hoster Tully sent Petyr Baelish away in a closed litter, to finish his healing on the Fingers, upon the windswept jut of rock where he’d been born.

-GOT Catelyn VII

NB: In my non-professional opinion, I do not consider the actual betrothal to Brandon Stark to be a traumatic event. Please feel free to correct me, but I couldn’t find anything in the text to support this, but of course I may have missed something. I see obviously some grief, disappointment, and sadness. Considering the situation and his prior feelings toward Cat, I did not find any of these emotions expressed to be of a disturbed amount or manner. Please take this opinion with a hefty grain of salt and do not hesitate to correct me if I’m wrong.

2. Witnessing, in person, the event(s) as it occurred to others.

Nope.

3. Learning that the traumatic event(s) occurred to a close family member or close friend. In cases of actual or threatened death of a family member or friend, the event(s) must have been violent or accidental.

Nuh-uh.

4. Experiencing repeated or extreme exposure to aversive details of the traumatic event(s).

It is known that he has several brothels, where Littlefinger may serve folks of unusual tastes (at least per the show, as of writing this I couldn’t find evidence of it in A Search of Ice and Fire and a brief perusal of the text) which includes those that by simply the nature of their age cannot consent, let alone his own prostitutes where we may deal with anything from enthusiastic consent (I’m not going to knock the legitimate sex workers out there that take good care of themselves and only go through with consenting transactions. They happen, but I get the feeling and have read evidence of it rarely. Still, I’m one of the weird ones who have talked to a few of the healthy ones on my own time with no sign of psychological stress as I saw it or signs of attempting to lie… and a number of not healthy ones due to where I’m employed.), to dubious, to outright not consenting.

Nevertheless this criteria has been met!

B. Presence of one (or more) of the following intrusion symptoms associated with the traumatic event(s), beginning after the traumatic event(s) occurred:

1. Recurrent, involuntary, and intrusive distressing memories of the traumatic event(s).

2. Recurrent distressing dreams in which the content and/or affect of the dream are related to the traumatic event(s). Note: In children, there may be frightening dreams without recognizable content.

3. Dissociative reactions  in which the individual feels or acts as if the traumatic event(s) were recurring.

4. Intense or prolonged psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event(s).

5. Marked physiological reactions to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event(s).

Unfortunately, all the above requires us to have an interview or be treating the individual we may be making this diagnosis for, or requires insight into the individual’s thoughts.

Say… like… maaayyybbbeee… in a POV chapter in this case.

Eh? Eh? GRRM? … Please?

Or he could somehow express these feelings to Sansa. I can’t think of anyone else he’d say them to. Then again, this could just be wishful thinking.

“Littlefinger is the second most devious man in the Seven Kingdoms.”

-GOT Eddard XV, Varys

Either way, unable to determine if criteria had been met at this time.

C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the traumatic event(s), beginning after the traumatic event(s) occurred, as evidenced by one or both of the following:

1. Avoidance of or efforts to avoid distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings about or closely associated with the traumatic event(s).

2. Avoidance of or efforts to avoid external reminders (people, places, conversations, activities, objects, situations) that arouse distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings about or closely associated with the traumatic event(s).

See the above. Unable to determine if if the criteria has been met. But I think we can rule out C2.

“My lords, with your leave, I propose to travel to the Vale and there woo and win Lady Lysa Arryn. Once I am her consort, I shall deliver you the Vale of Arryn without a drop of blood being spilled.”

-ASOS Tyrion III, Petyr Baelish

D. Negative alterations in cognitions and mood associated with the traumatic event(s), beginning or worsening after the traumatic event(s) occurred, as evidenced by two (or more) of the following:

1. Inability to remember an important aspect of the traumatic event(s) (typically due to dissociative amnesia and not to other factors such as head injury, alcohol, or drugs).

The text implies Petyr was indeed drunk when raped by Lysa, therefore does not qualify as he believes he had Cat in his bed that night.

“He looked so wounded I thought my heart would burst, and afterward he drank until he passed out at the table. Uncle Brynden carried him up to bed before my father could find him like that.”

-ASOS Sansa VII, Lysa

If they had any sex thereafter post his fight with Brandon, but before being forced back to The Fingers, I believe would be defined as dubious consent (I don’t know if she became pregnant after that single session). He probably had quite a lot of pain medication to deal with his wounds.

Once more, does not strictly qualify. The bragging he does many years later in King’s Landing about taking the maidenhead of both sisters confirms that he was so impaired on at least that first occasion that he does indeed believe he had sex with Catelyn. There are several examples, but I quite like this one from a narrative stand point,

“Littlefinger had you first, didn’t he?”

-ACOK Catelyn VII, Jaime Lannister

Could just be an excellent example of toxic masculinity. As for his cognitions in regards to his fight with Brandon Stark… More insight is needed.

2. Persistent and exaggerated negative beliefs or expectations about oneself, others, or the world.

3. Persistent, distorted cognitions about the cause or consequences of the traumatic event(s) that lead the individual to blame himself/herself or others.

4. Persistent negative emotional state.

5. Markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities.

6. Feelings of detachment or estrangement from others.

7. Persistent inability to experience positive emotions.

I’m sure Petyr felt like shit when he was hauled away to his father’s land before he donned the mask of Littlefinger, but we need a POV or declaration to another character to be sure.

D2-D7 Unable to be determined at this time.

E. Marked alterations in arousal and reactivity associated with the traumatic event(s), beginning or worsening after the traumatic event(s) occurred, as evidenced by two (or more) of the following:

1. Irritable behavior and angry outbursts typically expressed as verbal or physical aggression toward people or objects.

Umm… Lysa would agree.

Lysa Arryn smiled tremulously. “Only one? Oh, Petyr, do you swear it? Only one?”

“Only Cat.” He gave her a short, sharp shove.

Lysa stumbled backward, her feet slipping on the wet marble. And then she was gone. She never screamed. For the longest time there was no sound but the wind.

-ASOS Sansa VII, Lysa and Petyr Baelish

I mean, she was trying to hurt Sansa, but I theorize that this cool and controlled as a cucumber colored cat dude did this much sooner than he had planned to.

Anything else needs more insight.

2. Reckless or self-destructive behavior.

Chaos is a ladder, anyone?

Wait… What? Is that just a show only thing?! Aww… man.

3. Hypervigilance.

Well, to not be while constructing and carrying out his plans would be expected. To a detrimental level we don’t have enough evidence for yet. Need to be in his head for that or see some symptoms from Sansa. I haven’t found any yet.

4. Exaggerated startle response.

I don’t see anything in the text to support this. Littlefinger has the affect, as I’ve mentioned before, of a cool cat. Cucumber cat.

5. Problems with concentration.

If Lord Baelish knew how to juggle he could do it blindfolded with a great number and variety of things of all shapes and sizes; some on fire, some sharp and pointy in a number of ways, while standing on a ball, doing the hula-hoop, and playing the 1812 Overture in its entirety on a kazoo.

Currently not supported by the text.

Except for the juggling bit.

A master juggler was Petyr Baelish.

-ACOK Tyrion IV

6. Sleep disturbance.

Need a POV or a sneaky Sansa.

Technically since for this section only two were needed to pass here. He is short of making it by one. He might satisfy more with further evidence, but at the moment we’re again at the not supported by the currently released text impasse.

F. Duration of the disturbance (Criteria B, C, D, and E) s more than 1 month.

Need more data, see above criteria noted.

G. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational,or other important areas of functioning.

Honestly, considering how well the man functions in his society to the point of being promoted up the ladder to the Small Council, despite his low-birth and the other obstacles he had to overcome, I’m inclined to say does not at the present time meet this criteria. His mask is tight, but everything we have evidence for thus far does not state what he’s like beyond Sansa’s brief musings on the difference between the attitude he presents to her when she believes she can ascertain the difference between the mask and the man. What she perceives as Petyr could just be another mask, even if it is a smaller one.

Note that we also do not know precisely how long ago he started his climb. I could definitely see that he might have had to take some time to put his foot on the first rung. So he could have possibly met this criteria in the past. Unfortunately, as I’ve said many times before, need more data.

H. The disturbance is not attributable to the physiological effects of a substance or another medical condition.

Specify whether:

With dissociative symptoms: The individual’s symptoms meet the criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder, and in addition, in response to the stressor, the individual experiences persistent or recurrent symptoms of either of the following:

1. Depersonalization: Persistent or recurrent experiences of feeling detached from, and as if one were an outside observer of, one’s mental processes or body.

2. Dereailzation: Persistent or recurrent experiences of unreality of surroundings.

Considering that Sansa admits:

And sometimes it seemed to her that the Lord Protector was two people as well. He was Petyr, her protector, warm and funny and gentle … but he was also Littlefinger, the lord she’d known at King’s Landing, smiling slyly and stroking his beard as he whispered in Queen Cersei’s ear… Littlefinger was only a mask he had to wear. Only sometimes Sansa found it hard to tell where the man ended and the mask began. Littlefinger and Lord Petyr looked so very much alike.

-AFFC Sansa I

And how it appears to her he seems to be able to take the mask on and off at his own behest so that it’s hard to tell them apart, this really doesn’t meet the criteria for disassociation; but I could do a short meta about how he doesn’t meet this definition or the dissociative disorders currently in the DSM-V. The Depersonalization  and Derealization symptoms will again have to wait for possible reveals in the future.

Note: To use this subtype, the dissociative symptoms must not be attributable to the physiological effects of a substance or another medical condition (e.g., complex partial seizures).

Oh! That’s me! But the terminology is out of date as of this year.

Specify if:

With delayed expression: If the full diagnostic criteria are not met until at least 6 months after the event (although the onset and expression of some symptoms may be immediate).

Say it again with me.

NEED. MORE. DATA.

So, to summarize: Currently only one criteria has been met for a potential diagnosis of PTSD. The rest we require more data to determine whether or not he does as we need more insight via a POV chapter or what he may reveal to Sansa. If this is done verbally to her instead of with body language or clearly noted with certain nonverbal cues which may conflict with what he may be saying it will be difficult to determine if he meets the criteria or not.

Honestly, I’ll admit that what I could give references for during my first run through of this Meta©™® with the books I had and what I could find in ASOIAF this was a fun and insightful exercise.

For reasons I will not disclose here I have been diagnosed with PTSD for unfortunately meeting A1 on several occasions. It has been interesting to compare what criteria I most definitely met, but with treatment I have been able to manage or outright worked out of different subsets. I still meet them all enough to have the diagnosis, but have made significant progress, but it made me a bit proud.

[momsongblog]

Part Two: How to release your angry mama button

One evening as I was shopping by myself in Target, I overheard and saw a mom with two littles, a boy and a girl, both probably under the age of four.

The girl, the younger, wailed. The mom pleaded with her: "Why are you crying? What do you want?!"

Then later, to both children she shouted: "No, stop doing that. Put both hands on the cart. No. Both hands. No, okay then we're not buying the pajamas!" as the mom flung the clothes on the ground.

The boy in the cart sat frozen, blankly staring. The girl started to cry again and reached her hands out to mom.

"No, I'm not picking up you. Sit down," she commanded with crossed arms.

As I walked into the next aisle, I started to cry.

I cried for the nonreactive little boy, cold and afraid. I cried for the conflicted little girl, longing for connection. I cried for the exacerbated mom, frazzled and alone. I cried for myself because I have been there.

I have been that little boy. I have been that little girl. And now some days I am that mom.

I grew up in an angry household.  No, my parents were not always angry, but for a portion of my childhood, it felt like they were.  My mom’s anger was like a bubbling cauldron over a fire, sometimes simmering, but always hot and ready to pop.  My dad’s anger was like a gunned sports car at a traffic light, zero to sixty in three seconds, but only when pushed. Consequently, I remember my childhood home as tense, loud, uneasy.

Neither of my parents meant to live in anger—one struggled with Borderline; the other with Alcoholism—so when I became a parent, I wanted to be more mindful of my anger.

The problem is that the more I fought against the anger, the more it won.  I would tell myself, I’m not going to get angry today or douse it with gratitude, What do I have to be angry about? I have a beautiful home, a loving family, and a comfortable life.  But still, I would explode at my almost two-year-old son—yelling, spewing four-letter words, acting hastily and harshly—sometimes several times a day.  A situation would set me off, and the angry mama took over.  I felt powerless to stop the demon inside.

Sometimes I shamed my son for triggering me: “If you’d only just listen!” and “Why do you do that?!”

Worst of all, I hated seeing my baby boy’s reactions: panic, pleading, or paralysis.  I condemned myself as a horrible mother and person. I couldn’t bear the thought of my anger hurting him since I was once him—on the receiving end. I thought, my son would be better off without me.  I don’t deserve to live.

Exploding.  Stuffing.  Ignoring.  Projecting. Self-Shaming.  Despair.

It was a horrible cycle.

I had been in psychotherapy on and off for years which did help to diffuse my anger temporarily, but that was before my son was born.  Starting with my son’s arrival I felt almost continuously on edge like my anger button was permanently turned on.  

“I think you have post-partum depression,” a good friend suggested after I confessed the alternating feelings of raging fire and engulfing water inside me.

That label didn’t feel right.

For the first year of my son’s life, I read parenting books and articles trying to collect the strategies that would help me respond to my son in constructive ways.  Finally, I found a blog article describing childhood trauma triggered as a form of PTSD.  Becoming a parent evidently brings back all those subconscious memories and feelings from childhood, so children literally do activate their parents’ anger buttons (albeit inadvertently for the first few years). Further, a person does not have to survive childhood trauma for this psychological mechanism to occur; many people are unhappy with aspects of how they were raised, and that frustration can be triggered just as readily in the form of anger (instead of PTSD).

However, since my childhood felt traumatic, I found a PTSD specialist who has helped me address the root of my anger.  Using the emotional tools she gave me, I created a three-step technique at home that has helped me tackle the anger triggers individually.  Whether your childhood had a few rough patches or was mostly rough, I would like to share this with you.  Each time I have used the technique on a particular trigger, that anger button has been released.  The tiny two-year-old cannot push it anymore.

First, I picked out a special journal and bought a box of my favorite pens to make this action feel purposeful, intentional.  I also asked my husband not to read this journal because its purpose is for me to process, not to inform.  Writing this way also requires utmost privacy so that all emotional guards can be dismantled.

Then each time I got mad, I went to write in my journal.  Sometimes my son would only be self-entertained for a moment, so that’s all the time I had to write.  I would finish during nap time or during free moment spurts throughout the day.  Sometimes I had to finish despite my son’s pleas for attention, so I could get the “angeries” out entirely before engaging with him.

Here’s my three-step journal writing sequence:

1.       Venting

Everything I’m thinking and feeling, I let it out by writing: the expletives, the accusations, the name-calling, the negative emotions, all the things you don’t mean to say when you’re angry but you sometimes do—and then regret it.  I stop myself from feeling bad about feeling bad. This stuff needs to be acknowledged—just not said out loud.

2.       Validation

Next, if I can recall how this trigger is connected to my childhood, I emotionally go back in time and tell myself as a child what I needed to hear: I write to my younger self that it’s okay to feel ________ about ________.  I acknowledge every feeling and reason behind it.  I verbally give my younger self a hug and permission to cry.  I don’t judge or punish my younger self.  I give my younger self space and support, compassion and kindness.

3.       Verity

Lastly, using a bird’s eye, neutral view, I speak the truth: what is objectively happening here?  I see my son as misbehaving, being obstinate, willfully disobeying.  But at two years old, he is still impulsive, gaining independence, unable to emotionally regulate.  Then I try to put myself in his toddler shoes: why might he have reacted that way?  Is he hungry, tired, frustrated, or needing reconnection?  Is he in the middle of an intellectual leap? Reading about early childhood development is helpful when trying to empathize with a little person. My education is in adolescent development and I’m an only child, so this information is entirely new to me.  Some books I’ve found invaluable are:

·         Little Hearts Series by L.R. Knost

·         Positive Parenting books by Rebecca Eanes

·         Any parenting book by Daniel J. Siegel

·         Positive Discipline books by Jane Nelsen

It’s normal for our kids to push our buttons and arouse our anger.  Often these feelings of frustration and powerlessness stem from our own childhood whether we struggled with a few aspects or with most of our young life.  It seems ironic that optimism and gratitude do not extinguish the angry flame; instead acknowledgment and self-love are the fastest routes to inner peace.  It takes courage, and it takes effort; however, the three-step journaling process has been my shortcut to being a more balanced, happier mommy.  If you struggle with anger more than you’d like, I invite you to grab a journal and start writing!

[brittieslifeasiknowit]

By Catriona Ogilvy I write about Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) April 4, 2017 Nothing can really prepare you for parenthood, but when a baby is born premature the excitement and anticipation of a new arrival is dramatically interrupted. Shocked and numb, you find yourself in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) with little or no warning. Neonatal intensive care — a scary sounding place and one you are unlikely to chance upon. For eight weeks I visited my baby every day, trying to become a mother in the most medical of environments. Incubators housed tiny babies at the very edge of life, and all around me monitors beeped and alarmed as they seamlessly chimed with the uncertainty of our journey. Given the nature of NICU, the pain of leaving your fragile baby each day, the feelings of emptiness and grief, the uncertainty and ups and downs, the lines, wires, monitors and alarms, not to mention the security buzzers at the entrance of the unit or the constant rigorous hand-washing, it came as no surprise to me that parents who have experienced premature birth are at greater risk of postnatal depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I remember the moment I first felt panicked and sick with PTSD symptoms; I was returning to the neonatal unit for my baby’s four-week follow up. Walking out of the car park and into the hospital I could feel my heart pounding in my chest and hear the beats and flow of blood throbbing in my head. I was dizzy as the sounds and feelings morphed into the beep, beep, beep of monitors and the hum of the ventilator as air filled my son’s lungs. I closed my eyes to block out the panic, but all I could see were wires and the mechanical rise and fall of my baby’s tiny chest. I felt sick to the bottom of my stomach, as if my entire body was shutting down and there was nothing I could do to stop it. No one warns you about the flashbacks though. PTSD often presents itself once you are home. The support network of the hospital can disappear overnight and you are left to wonder how on earth you made it through. Family and friends with good intention assume the difficult times are behind you and the idea that discharge home would be the end of your neonatal journey suddenly seems farcical. The usual ways to access support were closed to me, with well-meaning questions at health visiting clinics or baby groups only intensifying negative feelings of anger, jealousy and grief. For me, the reality of becoming a mother in NICU was so far removed from the “norm” that I become isolated, unable to connect with local mums and the experiences of other families. For a long time I believed I was alone in my thoughts of loss, anger and grief. Fearful at want people might think of me I remained quiet about the flashbacks and struggled day-to-day with anxiety. I still remember the enormous wave of relief that engulfed me reading for the first time another mother’s account of life after neonatal care. It may have been the early hours of the morning reading her blog, but suddenly I wasn’t alone anymore and what’s more, I discovered I was in fact quite normal! You see, more than 40 percent of NICU mums experience postnatal depression (compared to 5-10 percent of mothers who deliver at full-term without complication) and more than half report symptoms of anxiety and PTSD. Yet, like many aspects of mental health, PTSD following neonatal intensive care is rarely spoken about, and mums, just like me, hide away.

We Need to Talk About PTSD in NICU Moms | The Mighty

This hit home to me. I wasn’t in the NICU but the Pediatric Oncology Unit. I was there for 7 months, Friends that I made have died, and I almost died. 

When my doctor said I was done with treatment and to go be “normal” I didn’t know what to do. I could barely walk anymore. My life changed. I wasn’t in school for the past year. My new friends are gone and my old friends moved on.

Everyone thinks because I don’t have cancer that everything is okay again. Where do I go from here. I have huge survivor’s guilt. I get dreams and flashbacks of being back in treatment. I get nightmares of relapsing. 

I haven’t seen any cancer survivors talk about PTSD so maybe I am alone in all this. I feel alone since everyone keeps dismissing it.

I just want to get better this is why I am excited for an oncology therapist.

[singloom]

2016 Anime Challenge Revisited ~ January

Okay, loves. After a teeny, tiny delay, I'm slowly starting to revisit the shows I watched last year and reassessing my thoughts on them. We will be starting with January and working my way up, starting with Sword Art Online EXTRA EDITION, Sword Art Online II and Monster Musume. I also rewatched Attack on Titan Series One, Tiger & Bunny and Tokyo Ghoul in January.

Sword Art Online EXTRA EDITION

There is really no way to mince words here, it's a recap movie of the first series passing itself off as a film with a mini quest slapped on right at the end. No, really. Kirito retells his Aincrad and Fairy Dance experiences to a secret agent man for the benefit of the audience and guess what the girls do? Go swimming in cute swim suits and reminisce about their encounters with Kirito, the irresistible Powerhouse of the virtual world. Of course they would. What else would girls in an anime do? Personal character growth is for the guys, naturally. And learning how to swim to take part in an underwater quest doesn't count. And Lisbeth, what did they do to you? The short story at the end where the gang take part in a quest that involves taking to the ocean in search of a missing egg was the only new content, but it felt more like something that should have been an episode rather than an excuse to draw out an extended feature.

I really do have mixed feelings about Sword Art Online as a whole. I'm not a hardened hater of this series because I see great potential in the initial premise (death game in an online world) and the early days nailed that completely, but shortly afterwards, something happened. It became something different that threw me out of that experience of terror and fear, which blew the immersion big time. With a combination of asspulls that didn't belong, issues with pacing and personal dislikes that somewhat affected my enjoyment of the show, Sword Art Online is one of those shows that definitely rests in the Your Mileage May Vary category. I really cannot say I love the show, but I don't hate it either. When it's good, it's good, but when it falters, it does so big time and that can be hard to tolerate, especially with regards to the way it treats its female characters.

I think Sword Art Online is an anime I will continually revisit to try and make sense of it's shortcomings, but also what it does well, and I want to reassess aspects that can be troubling and major issues for viewers. Expect plenty of posts about this in the future.

Sword Art Online II

Personally, I liked SWOII marginally better than the first series. While it still has some issues like asspulls that seem silly, there was nothing that terribly hindered my enjoyment of it. I liked the Gun Gale Online Arc where Kirito once more takes to the virtual world to investigate claims of a player that kills other players in real life by shooting them in the game. We also get Sinon, a sniper girl, who plays GGO as a sort of immersion therapy after a traumatising childhood incident causes her to fear guns. The portrayal of PTSD is very interesting in the way it manifests. We also get two more minor arcs - the Calibur Episodes and Mother Rosario Episodes - which I quite enjoyed solely for the fact we get far more exposure of Kirito's friends. You want more Asuna? More Klein moments? You get them. This is what I feel SWO should have been, more fleshed out supporting characters rather than a One Man Show, adventures and quests with elements of danger and overcoming personal hardships.

Mother Rosario was definitely the stand out in Season Two with plenty of heart, a chance for Asuna to finally shine without Kirito hogging the spotlight and one of the most heartbreaking but inspiring storylines that center around a Guild with a personal goal. If SWO continued with this promising direction, I would gladly watch it and have a good time, but only time will tell. It's just disappointing that shows like this are considered the best despite their glaring flaws that are too troubling to overlook for overtly analysing bwees like me, while obscure niche shows with lots to offer are overlooked.

There, I said it.

Monster Musume

Very much a Your-Mileage-May-Vary sort of show given how racy the fanservice gets. It really does get uncomfortable in the more graphic scenes (especially the scenes with younger looking characters,) so it really depends on how you deal with that sort of thing. I also personally find some of the double standards in the show somewhat difficult to stomach and when things get into the Dark Comedy territory. However, I did enjoy the basic premise of Monster Musume, set in a world where humans and monster co-exist and a special Interspecies Bill bans harm between the races, but also bans sexual relationships. Enter Kurusu Kimihito, who ends up playing host to a group of monster girls - Miia the Lamia, Pap the Harpy, Centorea the Centaur, Suu the Slime, Mero the Mermaid, and Rachnera the Arachnid. All who really want to be with the unfortunate(?) boy. With an Interspecies Bill that forbids consummating relations between humans and monsters, and an innate ability to woo every single girl in the show without trying, what's a guy in a harem show to do? As mentioned before, I really like the premise of the show, as well as the attempt to really flesh out the biology and explanations to the behaviour of the different monsters. It's also surprisingly sweet at times and the lead boy is actually kind of refreshing. He isn't your chaste virgin, but rather a boy who's aware of his sexual urges and attraction to things that excite him, but he tries to remind himself of the consequences and practises responsibility (although, that more comes down to the fact he'd be arrested if he did anything.) If you're looking for a harem anime centred around cute monster girls with plenty of fanservice, this might be your cup of tea.

That and the theme song is quite cute and catchy. <3

Rewatch

In January, I rewatched Attack on Titan, Tiger & Bunny and Tokyo Ghoul, all in dubs. It was a first time watching Attack on Titan and Tokyo Ghoul in the dub, which were quite enjoyable (as for T&B, it's one of many, many rewatches, love that show.)

Attack on Titan

is all about human eating titans and the underdog humans that defend humanity from their bitey ways. If you've been on the internet at all, you'll have seen it at least one. THAT WALL. THAT GIANT STEAMY MUSCLE MAN CLINGING TO IT. AND ALL HOLY HECK BREAKING LOOSE. I still enjoy this show for its darkness, the characters you root for while faced with the very real possibility that they will be nommed on and those opening theme songs. They are perfection in sound and animation. Give it a watch.

Tiger & Bunny

. That show I name drop all the time in the hopes that ONE OF YOU WILL ACTUALLY MIND IT AND WATCH IT. I fell deeply in love with this show from the get go way back when it released and I'm still head over heels with those heroes and such a loveable cast of very real and flawed people. Super heroes endorsed by REAL COMPANIES compete for points by performing heroic duties for the entertainment of the city they serve to protect. Enter Kotetsu T. Kaburagi, a middle aged, widowed, single father, hero struggling to keep up with the changing times, and Barnaby Brooks Jr, an up and coming new hero with good looks and popularity. The two are forced together and an odd couple act ensues as they take to the city of Sternbild and clash more than they do with the villains. It's all very endearing and heartwarming, a perfect blend of comedy and drama that keeps viewers engaged and emotionally attached (I know I was.) I struggle to do this show justice because it's as close to perfection as it gets for me and it hurts that it doesn't get more love. Give it a try. You won't regret it.

Tokyo Ghoul

. What is it about flesh eaters this month? Another rewatch, Tokyo Ghoul is all about human hungry Ghouls that struggle to blend into human society and one boy who is thrust into this world against his will. Ken Kaneki is this poor soul who becomes half-human, half-Ghoul after a rather...unfortunate transplant operation. His attempts to hold onto his humanity and protect his only friend, Hide, are heartbreaking as things inevitably get a whole lot worse. Lots of bloody action and plenty of heart moments available here.

[sarahburness]

How Embracing and Loving My “Negative” Emotions Helped Heal My Pain

“When depressed, simply be depressed. Don’t get depressed about your depression. When depressed, simply be depressed. Don’t fight it, don’t create any diversion; don’t force it to go. Just allow it to happen, it will go by itself.” ~OSHO

For a long time, heaviness and dark feelings were very familiar to me. In a strange way they were comforting; I felt safe in darkness. The light felt more painful to me, but I also wanted to change because I wanted to free myself from the limitations of staying in the dark.

I first started struggling with depression when I was young. From an early age my mother told me there was something wrong with me, particularly when I dared to express “negative” feelings, like anger. It became a mantra that filled my mind all the time. This one statement pervaded my entire life and dramatically affected the choices I made and didn’t make, well into adulthood.

In my early forties, after much searching, I hit rock bottom. I was lying in bed, wanting to die, my thoughts telling me how wrong I was as a human being, when another thought popped into my mind: “What if depression is a gift?”

Depression had felt like this never-ending darkness that clouded everything in my life. Even at times that I should have seen as positive, the depression prevented me from enjoying them. Depression was an old friend, one I not only tolerated but believed was the whole of who I was.

I found my identity in feeling like a failure, and not moving forward meant that my identity was correct; I was confirming that this was who I was—until I understood that I was meant to be so much more than this depressed woman, sad, sorrowful, constantly grieving and frustrated. There had to be more to life.

Instead of looking at what was wrong with myself, I started looking at the feelings that came up, noticing that my aversion to them was not only perpetuating them, but was affirming that I was not worthy of love, acceptance, or even acknowledgement.

I could no longer fight who I was. I had to start looking at myself as a whole, including the pain and trauma, so I started to imagine that my repressed emotions were small children—and not just any small children, but orphans.

They lived in a large orphanage, where nobody cared for them and the only adults that came in to see them were mean, critical ones who would beat them if they showed anger or leave them to cry if they were sad.

There were many children in there, cowering in their cribs, with no one to hold them or reassure them that they were safe.

Some of my “orphaned children” were shame and embarrassment. I’d felt these feelings many times in my life, and they’d prevented me from sharing my skills or even recognizing that I had any at all.

I also had angry orphaned children who had been made to believe that anger was negative and bad, not positive fuel for creativity and healthy boundaries.

And then there were my sad orphaned children, who had not properly grieved the loss of their father, who’d passed in my late twenties.

These parts of me didn’t need to be alienated; they needed my love, care, and attention.

I’d orphaned these feelings because I didn’t want them to be part of me, but because of this, I lived a half-life for a long time. Rejecting my feelings, ironically, fueled my depression, because you can’t selectively numb your emotions. When you numb any, you numb all.

Instead of embracing these suffering children, I’d created diversions to avoid them.

As a child, I used food to avoid feeling lonely, rejected, and broken. In my teens and early twenties, I was a binge drinker, consuming huge amounts of alcohol four days a week to repress my emotions. As an adult, this meant too much coffee and sugar, or I overworked to avoid feeling anything.

At one point I used “positive thinking” to distract myself from these neglected aspects of myself. This was probably the most powerful distraction, because by thinking I needed to be grateful and happy all of the time, I was automatically rejecting all other emotions.

It was easier to pretend than to make friends with these aspects of myself.

I eventually realized that I couldn’t do this to myself anymore. I no longer wanted to lie or consider a huge part of my nature, my shadow, wrong.

Self-compassion and self-acceptance are so important if we are to be balanced human beings. If we are unable to acknowledge and accept the pain inside of ourselves, how can we ever expect that things will change? How can we be less judgmental of other people if we judge ourselves harshly most of the time?

Embracing pain isn’t easy. It takes courage and commitment to take this transformative path, to begin to reframe depression and other mental health issues as a gift, as an awakening, to help us return to who we really are, which is loving, kind, compassionate, and accepting.

Though the darkness had felt safe, I eventually realized that I was afraid of the light because it illuminated those dark corners where my orphaned emotions live.

It was time to stop fighting my feelings and give them a new home in my heart. Here’s how I did just that.

Embracing My “Orphaned” Emotions

1. Acknowledge.

The first thing I had to do was to acknowledge that I had been avoiding my pain, and to accept that it was okay that I did this. If I beat myself up for deserting parts of myself for so long I’d just be putting further shame or blame into that orphanage.

I had to accept that sadness, fear, anger, and rage were healthy emotional experiences, sometimes necessary, and that I’d previously rejected these feelings as a way to protect myself until I was ready to face who I truly am.

If you’ve also abandoned your most wounded, fragile parts, decide to break the cycle now. Acknowledge what you did but also why, and have compassion for yourself.

2. Get to know your feelings.

Take the time to get to know these pain feelings, but do so as an unconditional mother would, without judgment, without needing to fix or make the feelings anything other than what they are. When sadness or sorrow comes up, take a quiet moment to witness this child within with loving attention.

3. Accept them as gifts.

Our feelings are not there to make our lives miserable; they’re there to show us what may not be working in our lives, or what needs to change.

When I accepted that depression was a gift, I began judging myself less harshly and embracing the feelings I’d repressed for so long. Essentially, I started accepting all of myself.

I’d gotten comfortable viewing myself as a failure, and I thought my unconventional life confirmed that’s what I was. I was living with my best friend who was in his seventies. I was single, poor in my eyes, and unattractive. I believed that because I didn’t have my life together in my forties—I didn’t have a home of my own, a partner, or a successful career—I wasn’t acceptable or enough as I was.

My depression was a sign that I needed to change how I viewed myself. This enabled me to see not only that I am enough as I am, but others are enough, exactly as they are right now.

Instead of stuffing down your depression, anxiety, shame, loneliness—or whatever emotion you’re tempted to resist—ask yourself: What message is it trying to send to me? What would I do differently in my life if I listened to this emotion instead of suppressing it?

4. Remember it’s not a race.

When I first started owning my shadow I found it challenging to stop my avoidance practices, but I initially tried to rush through this process. I thought I could immediately accept all feelings, whenever they arose, without ever giving in to my old habits.

I eventually realized I had to be kind to myself and to take each new step as mindfully as possible. I also had to understand that I would probably fall back into old habits at times and accept this was all part of the healing process.

It takes regular practice and persistence to welcome those unwanted emotions time and time again. It takes time to internalize that it’s not about getting rid of any feelings, but about welcoming them as part of self-love and personal growth.

5. It’s all about trust.

Becoming aware of our painful emotions is only one step. Until we are able to fully welcome and embrace them, life will trigger us to love them further. Things will happen that evoke all the feelings we want to avoid—challenges in our work, relationships, and other aspects of our lives.

We can turn back and ignore the triggers, or we can trust that whatever shows up is meant to teach us unconditional love. It takes faith and trust to love shame, anger, and fear. We need to trust that this is worthwhile and that we’re capable of re-parenting ourselves in a more wholesome way.

—

I know that my old ways of avoiding and distracting myself from the pain never worked—that I had to go through it, to go beyond it, and that going beyond it does not mean I will never feel sad or despairing again. I will, but I can do so from a place of trust, knowing I will be okay, because I now understand that all of me is lovable, and I am enough exactly as I am right now.

About Kelly Martin

Kelly Martin is the author of When Everyone Shines But You, a mental health blogger, podcaster "Kelly Martin Speaks" and radio producer of the new mental health and music station Peace Within Radio. Kelly is on a mission to help those suffering with depression, anxiety, and PTSD feel good enough exactly as they are. Visit her on Facebook / Twitter.

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The post How Embracing and Loving My “Negative” Emotions Helped Heal My Pain appeared first on Tiny Buddha.

from Tiny Buddha https://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-embracing-and-loving-my-negative-emotions-helped-heal-my-pain/

[trishgibsontx]

how to heal by protecting your inner child

photo by Jennifer Santaniello

we are comprised not only of our 2018 versions of self, but of ALL years in existence of self. conjure the image of a paper  mache doll and imagine you are infinite dimensional and tangible flutters in it. since we are not one-dimensional, we are walking around all day and night with past versions of self. most of us have barely integrated ANY of these selves. this is evidenced with the tactile, 3d reality that we are still connected to. we seek outside of ourselves for “healing” and “help” because we are too afraid to look at what is already there…

each of those paper mache flutters represents a memory, a dimension/aka specific point in time, and other persons. our emotions are informed by our ego (survival) messaging, which is informed by our *experiences*. when we suffer unconscionable abuse or experience, we automatically fragment in order to psychologically survive. the structure of that fragmentation looks like big walls around our synapses that connect the emotional and intellectual processing of said experiences. we then walk around with labyrinth-type walls around our day-to-day experiences, having trouble integrating some of the most basic functioning around xyz aspect of our lives. for each of us, the aspects can be extremely different; yet with severe PTSD we will share in common certain denominators…

the denominators include all aspects of moving forward in life. they show up differently for each person and they show up in every category. for example: achieving a dream via actualizing a talent or gift; pursuing and enjoying a romantic partnership; losing weight or optimizing physical health. when we suffer ridiculous abuse, it is the chemical within the BODY that sends a signal to the brain to “stop”. and so, we usually just stop. we can not be smart enough to find space around this. my CBT with individuals centers around finding this space, as we pursue the unconscious mind and bridge it with the conscious and current self. which requires “remembering”… which is typically shrouded in PTSD…

last night I had another personal breakthrough psychotherapy session. I’ve been having pointed breakthroughs over this last month or so. so, perhaps I have been in another personal cycle of evolution and that is why I have not written many blog posts as of late. during this particular session, we noted one of my most shameful cycles: holding myself hostage to people, places, and things. yet this particular cycle is one that has been so present since my first breath, that I did not acknowledge it until last night. at least not in this new way. imagine that!? anyhow, it is the cycle of having nothing and no one. sound strange? I know. it sounds strange writing it. for example I have a thriving business. I have tons of friends. I have no shortage of interest from romantic prospects. I earn an excellent income. I am in excellent physical shape. I appreciate the way that I look. I feel spiritually FULL. I can wake up happy every single day (because of the work I have already done on myself). what could be missing? this: I have been trained to be left with absolutely nothing, and especially nothing that does not first belong to someone else.  I can see that my therapist is very protective over me. because I have never been protected in life (speaking in logistical 3d terms). when I garner something for myself, my adrenals (the hallmark chemical adrenaline in the body that says “this is unfamiliar! so this is dangerous!”) work overtime to discard all of my fruitful efforts by disintegrating their byproduct. more on that in a bit…

after a strong hug and two kisses from my beloved therapist, and a warning to please stay away from all in the past that has set me up to die (spiritually, emotionally, psychologically and then physically), I randomly turned on Kenny G’s “Songbird” and headed home to ponder such a magnificent session. I would also like to note, that digging into trauma and releasing unfortunate patterns does not color my over-arching emotions or present-day conscious life/reckoning, at least on the surface; meaning that as a result of deep therapy and self-seeking, I do not become depressed or feel inadequate — in fact I feel the opposite…relief and Universal support…as I subsequently realize that my tiny brain and body could not help themselves back then, but they can now. at any rate, “Songbird” was apparently a huge hit in my young life and upon hearing it, I began to recall more repressed memories. tied to the very thing that I unlocked last night in therapy.

as listened to the song, a feeling washed over me that my young self in 1987 was sitting there with me. she must have heard that song 1000 times on the radio that year, and I only last night for the first time had any recall of what that time actually felt like for her as a being. I tried, consciously, many times already, to remember her. that doesn’t work. and if it were that easy, we would all be running around as stable, happy, healthy and extremely successful individuals. and so point is, that the epiphanies that had surfaced in therapy made it safe enough for her to join me on my ride home. I rode all of the way home with her sitting by my side, and I cried for her. I cried for her, because I missed her. it has been so long since it was safe enough for her to be with me. I thought about the constant reminder of my therapist, to stay away from that which seeks to destroy me in life — a decision that I actually made, on my own, prior to even entering therapy (which has been the most gratifying and abundant experience imaginable over the last few years). when we create distance between us and that which seeks to destroy us, it is only then that our inner child is even remotely safe enough to peek his/her head of the door and down the hallway. if the hallway is busy, or if we are still in trauma aka denial of true inner self (meaning we can not move forward in life in one way or another!), the child will go back in. these are my metaphors, by the way, the ones I see visually in my mind’s eye, when I explain this process. last night that particular dimensional self not only poked her head into the hallway, but she walked into it and down to my 2018 door.

the agreements within that child ran so deep. she had agreed to be silent for fear of being hit at random, either across the face at dinner or punched in the stomach or dragged out of bed by her hair in the middle of the night while in an otherwise dead sleep. did you know that’s an actual effective form of torture, designed to completely control a person and their mind? the agreement to be silent contributed to her fear of press and media opportunity until recently. the agreement to be silent was present when she was an actor on ABC, and it took every spore of energy just to show up as the fear of dissolution of self seemed imminent once her episodes aired. like most things in life though, she felt this fear and did xyz anyhow. these were steps toward obliterating that fear and getting to the layer underneath the fear. other fears in that child that I met with last night: she had agreed to have absolutely nothing for herself. if everyone around her was not completely happy, then she did not deserve to have anything. she had agreed to have nothing for fear of being either shamed, or completely ignored and abandoned. when she was an actor on ABC, she was told to keep the news “under her hat”, because “people don’t want to hear good news in a bad economy”. into adulthood, she believed that she should silence all part of herself. all of the messages that young girl who met me last night straight out of 1987 had received were not only corrupt and corrosive, but still very active in recent conscious memory. I talked with her about why she was terrified of having abundance. since she had agreed to have nothing so early on in life, this agreement was later met with reinforcements throughout her early 20s whenever she attempted to provide for herself. during multiple attempts to provide for herself, those controlling the agreements from a very early age made certain to destabilize every single attempt. nearly every attempt to be a sovereign being was met with chaotic abuse, and punishment through mind-control games and jealousy. over the past number of years, this version of her/myself would find any way possible to disintegrate personal resources that should have been enjoyed by the fruits of very hard work. yet, she could not see how she was disintegrating these opportunities in order to FREE herself from the enactments of the only patterns and messages that she ever had around personal resources. in restricting personal resources, there was the notion that she would always have to work — day and night — with no break ever. the fear associated with this pattern was tremendous, and last night she met with me to remind me of their entry point. and in order to even meet this 1987 child, I had to make myself extremely vulnerable and raw with someone whom my unconscious mind still probably does not fully trust. it’s ok, I’m conscious of that

in order to make myself vulnerable, I had to go right to my shame over this past month. as humans we typically bypass ANY and all feelings of shame. if we didn’t, none of us would have ANY problems at all! so it’s either go right to the shame, or repeat the pattern for life. now, shame is elusive. it’s covered up with other people’s fake words and actions, designed to keep us there. shame is an illusion, but if we are young enough, we will buy into it. and we will keep buying into it in order to survive for the rest of our lives. until we become conscious enough to see it for what it is worth. most people I know have shame. in fact, I do not know anyone who does not carry deep and repressed shame in one category of life. it is important to note that in order to identify this shame, we have to admit the one thing that we can not stop doing. for some of us, it is an eating disorder, substance issue, or OCD issue. for me it was none of the above; for me, it was the fact that I could not stop giving. and, in fact, it went a step beyond giving — it went into the territory of truly having nothing for myself. and so my shame was centered around finding ways to make sure that I was left with nothing, no matter what I’ve done in life. the illusive thing with shame is, that we can THINK on the surface whatever we want. we convince ourselves, and we can even convince others. but underneath that surface are the things that make us hurt in secret. for me, it has been a pattern of withholding from self. I’ve made certain to spread my resources so thinly that even though I could have purchased a house or two at this point, it’s been more important to make sure I focus on getting rid of it — OR ELSE…or else is the ultimate, unconscious threat, and it is as real as this blog post. I could not stop holding myself hostage, only to have to (perceivably) keep working for the rest of my life — and with no outside support. it is only when our inner child is under true threat of annihilation that we can cover the enactment with shame, and then hide it from ourselves and the world. this is because shame saves our lives — it saves our lives by making traumatic events OUR FAULT. as I always say: it is easier for the psyche to feel safe (i.e. feel shame) than to see the truth…the truth being, in this case, that the traumatic events and unthinkable abuse were not actually my fault.

last night the little girl explained to me that she had no choice in order to survive her environment, than to decide she would die if she had anything for her sovereign self. and although I felt like saying to her, “haven’t we been over this!? I mean, we have had SO many breakthroughs, why this suddenly NOW and not sooner?”,  I recognized that her will to live was something to be respected and touched on delicately. she just wanted to live, period, even if she had to do so in a most uncomfortable fashion. she did not know, that there was another way…(*I*, the 2018 me, did not know, that there was another way)…a way besides draining every cell in her body to accommodate…someone else. I’m speaking about extremely unconscious levels, by the way — the levels Oprah spoke about what she struggled with weight. it’s the unconscious level that is buried so deeply, no drug or chemical or ashram or meditation can reveal it. this is the bottom concrete level of our very being — the last foundation before we drill through it and completely integrate all aspects of our conscious and unconscious minds on a particular theme.

the most illusive aspect of getting there ^^ is thinking that there is actually no other possibility — so it can even be extremely frustrating to discuss with a therapist. and it is a chemical so tightly locked that we literally can not hear another person when they spell it out for us (I have seen this countless times in my sessions). it is the chemical of survival. and when it is the byproduct of severe PTSD, we have a really low chance of accessing it, because we are so afraid of it. despite logic.

so, how do we heal by protecting our inner child? we first have to find the things that make us feel childlike. that’s actually not that hard. I’ve already outlined above some of the ways that we hold ourselves back. other things to look at are chemical disorders (like bipolar etc, and really go in and address them outside of taking a pill), specific fears (like being alone, can’t be single), or addictions (to people or things). though I feel grateful to have escaped all of the latter, I was still a sucker for making sure I was always left empty in life. but I had to first note that which made me feel childlike, which was depleting myself in ALL ways — as that was the one, consistent hallmark of my childhood. nothing like coming up empty could call the important part of my inner child into that room last night to have a chat with my therapist and I. and although there are too many supporting examples and traumas to count in accordance with explaining it, it was the most simple, surface and basic example that I had to greet. I was allowed to greet it because I opened one of my most guarded vaults, surrounded by pure shame, masquerading as protection but actually existing as severe punishment for being who I am.

if you think any of this sounds simple, or that we can meet ourselves on the external plane and work that way, you are wrong. true healing runs super deep, and we all need it (especially men). our resistance of such turns into all kinds of other things/shameful behaviors that are actually not very elusive to us OR those around us. sometimes they take the form of illness. but they all start and end in the mind. if we are to actually go there, deep into the sea of the unconscious, we find that we were little. we were defenseless. we were not supposed to do better at that time, because we could not. and so we go ahead and make ourselves safe, safe enough to heal, in two ways…

we must first be far along enough on our journey to acknowledge who and what is not good for us. I do not care if this is a relative, a friend, a family friend, an employer or anyone else who is abusive. if we are in communication with them, our odds of being completely healthy are none. if we can get this far, then we have taken the first step of clearing the hallway for that little girl or boy. after we have cleared the hallway, we get to the fun part. we get to the part that tied us to the abuse in the first place: the pattern. whatever that pattern was (again I’ve outlined many examples above). the little girl or boy now feels safe enough to tell us why the pattern is there. if we can brave the feeling of shame that has covered up the truth or the true origin of the pattern, we will see that it was never ours and it was never about us. and we will finally give ourselves permission to stop hurting ourselves. and we allow those who hurt us, to now feel the one thing we have carried on their behalf: HURT. we release the fear that if we have xyz, or if we are free from xyz, that we will die at the command of those who decided we belonged to them and that their sickness belonged to us.

last night I gave myself and my 1987 self permission to have things for myself. I gave her permission to share herself with the world, but to have things. to have anything at all. and in doing so I changed my childhood again. which changes today. which puts me one step or even many steps closer to a completely new life that my eyes and heart have dreamed of but never seen. and my life is pretty great despite it all. I’ll keep making sure of that.

  The post how to heal by protecting your inner child appeared first on © The Medical Intuitive Blog: Healing Elaine®.

from Trisha Gibson http://www.themedicalintuitiveblog.com/2018/05/19/how-to-heal-by-protecting-your-inner-child/