Judy2

♥️

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...still so confusing. on the one hand, i am glad that i am finally processing this, and it feels promising to be experiencing such a shift. that's cool. on the other hand, the sadness feels very real, and i wasn't prepared for this. maybe i do want to be comforted now, vicariously for my past self, after all. and not just by myself. maybe i want people to know that i'm sad so that they can comfort me. i had to deal with recovery all on my own, i had no real support, didn't want it cause the prospect seemed so triggering. someone could have said one wrong thing and it would have all collapsed. but maybe i don't want to be all alone with the things i feel now, at the very least. maybe i deserve to share that i feel sad.

♡

i remember last year, when i was at the DBT clinic, and i sat at the table crying, because i'd remembered my dissociations that i had around the time frame shown in the pictures. maybe i felt compassion then, too. but it was also very confusing.

"i have a lot of compassion for my past self." i guess this is progress, but it's SO confusing. there we have it. i would have hated myself for saying that a couple years ago. would have thought it sounds so arrogant. now it feels warm, steady. trusting? something like that, i can't think of the right word. it feels like i'm doing the right, gentle thing.

apparently, now i feel sadness or compassion for my past self? which is something i've never felt before. feels very weird, to say i have compassion for my past self. cause i'm here and i could hold myself, but i can't go back and comfort her now. so what do i do with this feeling?

okay, last comment on this topic: i changed my mind. those pics are hard to look at. i guess what sucks is that i survived this, and now i'd expect myself to be doing brilliant in life, which simply isn't the case. that's something i hardly ever hear anyone talk about when it comes to recovery. there's this implicit assumption (that i assume people have), that you only recover when things are good. (it's what actively kept me from attempting recovery for many years - feeling as though people would misunderstand that part, and how hurt i would feel because of that.) usually, it's the opposite. being healthy feels SO much harder than "simply" (not easily, but simply) being ill. because success or happiness are so abstract, so vague, so undefined. it was easy when happiness was (simply) defined as being as ill as possible, weighing as little as possible, eating as little as possible. Life, in all its facets, is so much more complicated, so confusing. it was easy to live in this weird world that i had explicitly defined for myself as "not real life", where i could safely live in dreams and fantasies...and now i'm living life, i knew it would be hard, and it is indeed hard. and i don't know at what point it will start feeling like choosing this was worth it. i have compassion for my past self and who i was back then. i know she felt very, very deeply about things♡ now i'm crying. in a good way, though.

i wore one of my favourite outfits today and felt very good and comfortable because of it: a dark blue skirt with a white shirt tugged in, plus my pearl earrings and my hair down.

yes, i can see that. that's also why i say maybe the label "trauma" ultimately invites confabulation, which may only re-enact the traumatic blueprint (which may be distinct from the confabulated memory) rather than resolve it. there are documented cases of people confabulating stories of abuse in therapy. every memory i have of my childhood is, at this point, probably only a memory of a memory of a memory - with slight alterations happening along the way. so they probably consist of imagination more than real memories, by now. trippy to think about, for sure. i've tried for a long time to recover some big, traumatic memory...and i don't think it's the way to go. i can be at peace, not knowing exactly what happened.....and just accept the mystery. the past is a funny thing, though:) still interesting to think about, and interesting to see how we relate to it in the present. Thank you! i wish you the best, too:)

i've been contemplating the topic of happiness and while there's been an increase in my baseline level of happiness, generally (but also practically) speaking, i still see some obstacles that i would like to discuss with you. i mean, even when life is good or when we see some improvements, we can still worry about the future, what may go wrong, what may be taken away, what may fail....and if we followed through with that logic, it could technically mean that we can never be happy because there is always a chance that something will go wrong. how do you free yourself from this anxiety? just detach completely? but it's also naive to say that our happiness as human beings isn't tied to certain conditions (health, social bonds, etc.).

ok:)

how do you deal with your trauma?

i'm curious about this concept....maybe a little wary of it, though. is your awareness of trauma meant to justify and/or explain present dysfunctions/suffering? how does the awareness of trauma help reduce suffering, in your opinion? or is that not even the goal? just trying to understand:) i have a book on trauma and its impact on attachment styles sitting on my nightstand and plan to read it as soon as i am done with my exams this summer.

i think i've even noticed an increase in happiness over the last couple of weeks - which is why it got me thinking more about those moments that still feel 'off'. parents: i hide vulnerable feelings from them most of the time because showing them can lead to dynamics that only produce more uncomfortable feelings. friends: mixed. sometimes, i feel comfortable expressing both honest joy/excitement and honest fear/frustration/you name it. other times, not so much. maybe it depends on how superficial those emotions are and how safe i feel in that moment. i think it worked a little differently for me, but i see what you mean:)

yes, i remember. i thought of that recently because there's a situation where i considered implementing your advice.

healthy bmi.

it's okay that i'm sad. maybe it's necessary.

i feel so sad now, and i don't even know why.

now i wanna cry....these pictures have so much to do with how i see myself, deep down, and i'm kind of sad that no one else ever saw me like that, or took care of me when i was going through that. i probably would have felt triggered af if someone had been there to talk to me during that time, but still. it kind of sucks knowing i'm the only one who saw me go through every minuscule detail of that experience, and bystanders didn't even know half the story. they saw how skinny i was with clothes on, but they never saw me naked and from every angle, the way i wanted them to, maybe. i took thousands of pictures during that time.

eventually, i got one random bruise in my face, i didn't know where from. and i remember having a nosebleed. and barely having the energy to get up to use the bathroom, or open doors.

now's the time of the year again when my photos app keeps showing me pictures from six years ago, when i was at my lowest weight. june and july were the lowest. i briefly look, then click away, but i still feel a desire to share these pictures with someone, cause that time was intense and i went through it all on my own.

a friend also tells me i have complex trauma. my parents wouldn't call it trauma but they know about mental health struggles. other friends also know. doesn't everybody have trauma,though? maybe i misunderstood your question.