Anxiety plays out as …

A hot and prickly sensation, like hot flashes, that for me often start in the calves or feet. However, it may start in either the lower back or back of my neck. From any of these places, the feeling can migrate to my thighs/hamstrings, forearms, face or upper back, or all of the above.

If not hot flashes, another way to describe it would be like being pricked all over the place by an allergy skin-test pricker.

Most often, these days, it’s provoked by a scenario I posted below, worrying that I will wind up getting “stuck” in this small town, humid, conservative bit of southeast Texas, in a job that simply doesn’t come close to challenging me.

Thinking about fighting boredom, whether at home on weekends or as a result of a slow day at a small office with nobody in here having a thing in the way of common chit-chat interests with me, by surfing the Internet for, well, things besides news stories. Then, becoming more anxious over trying to “fight” the web porn urge. Then, when I give in, becoming more anxious yet, usually with a nice dose of shame on top of that.

Anxiety now plays out as several different types of shame here: Shame about this particular type of behavior; shame about still in some ways perceiving sexuality as “dirty”; perhaps shame that I don’t have “a real relationship”; shame about weakness at not having more self-control.

Anxiety then may increase with worries that I’ll become “stuck” in this type of behavior, “stuck” in the lack of a relationship, etc.

Anxiety is playing out at my new intern counselor, too. Yesterday, I felt I was on fire, the hot flash sensation was so strong. It was accompanied by breathing so shallow as to be halfway to hyperventilating, and lightheadedness when I stood up.

Anxiety is driven by …

Glancing at car prices in the classifieds and wondering if you’ll ever buy anything less than 7 years old.

Reading stories about how little some real estate agents, mortgage brokers, etc., disclose and wondering if you’ll ever buy a house.

Getting another job application turned down because “we’re only looking locally.” (And why didn’t you have that in the job announcement info? And, don’t you get that getting that job is how I get local?)

Not getting a job after two phone interviews, and wondering if missed communication between your former boss, and the would-be new boss, with the new boss ultimately to blame, is partially at fault.

Having to pass on another job possibility when you find out during an initial phone interview that if you are one of the finalists, you’ll have to travel on your own dime to the in-person interview. (As if Bloomberg PR Newswire doesn’t have money for plane flights for candidates, if it’s a decent-enough job, rolling around in its corporate seat cushions.)

Boredom at a small office with nobody in here having a thing in the way of common chit-chat interests with me.

Worrying that I will wind up getting “stuck” in this small town, humid, conservative bit of southeast Texas, in a job that simply doesn’t come close to challenging me.

Frustration

Frustration is …

1. Out-of-state jobs e-mailing, “It doesn’t look like you live in our area.” No shit; I’m trying to get into your area by getting you to hire me.
2. Other out-of-state jobs e-mailing, “We are interviewing local candidates only.” Then why not put that on the webpage for the job in the first place?
3. Yet other out-of-state jobs saying on the phone, “You’ll need to pay to get here for a finalist interview.” Even if your webpage says “no relocation,” it doesn’t say that.

Frustation also is …

1. A computer whose RAM and processor are really better suited for one OS, and one program set, earlier than what it actually runs, and therefore spins its Mac OS X rainbow wheel in do-nothing mode on a regular basis.
2. A computer that half the time won’t print pages out of your desktop publishing program.
3. A network server that sometimes gets in the habit of dropping every 30-60 minutes, or whenever you try to save to the server, or something like that.

Frustration can lead to …
1. Holes in walls
2. And likely many other issues.

Biting the bullet on meds

I finally went to a doctor today. I had done my research pretty well and had thought about just an older tricyclic antidepressant.

Well, the doctor suggested a combination of that and the lowest dose necessary of Celexa for in the daytime.

Recovery... sometimes it's like pulling away a scab

And, sometimes, it has to be done more than once.

Though I am an atheist of some sort, an old C.S. Lewis word picture popped into my mind earlier tonight:

This is Eustace, a relative of the four Pevensie children from “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe,” who is sucked into Narnia along with the two younger children in a later book. From “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” and the scab-pulling incident. Eustace had been changed into a dragon, and Aslan tells him he must rip off his dragon skin as part of his “recovery” to humanness:

"I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly toward me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn't that kind of fear. I wasn't afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it -- if you can understand. Well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it."

"You mean it spoke?"

"I don't know. Now that you mention it, I don't think it did. But it told me all the same. And I knew I'd have to do what it told me, so I got up and followed it. And it led me a long way into the mountains. And there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. So at last when we came to the top of a mountain I'd never seen before and on the top of this mountain there was a garden - trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well. . . .

"Then the lion said -- but I don't know if it spoke -- 'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

"The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know -- if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy -- oh but it is such fun to see it coming away."

"I know exactly what you mean," said Edmund.

"Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off -- just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt -- and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me -- I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on -- and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again."

Normal vs. Normal for me

This stems from a conversation with a friend in my secular recovery chat room saying she was starting to wonder what a “normal” range of emotional expression might be. Then, I started thinking about having talked about this with my intern counselor earlier this year, and a little bit with my last regular counselor. I told the intern that I don’t even know what’s normal for me, but I believe I’m learning more. I also believe that I can never fully “recover” my pre-abuse, pre-drinking emotional states, or the rest of my self, but that I can get closer. As for those emotional states, I liken the degree of my emotional “blunting” to being like Canada or Siberia during the last Ice Age, weighted down by a massive ice sheet. One the glacial sheets retreated, the land started “rebounding,” or “recovering,” if you will. But, it was a slow process, still ongoing.

“Trust After Trauma”

Subtitled “A Guide to Relationships for Survivors and Those Who Love Them.”

Now, I’m not in an intimate relationship right now. And, my intimate relationship experience probably would about fill a thimble. And, in the small town situation where I’m at right now, without consciously or unconsciously putting up rigid filters, I don’t expect to find “somebody.”

Nonetheless, I hold on to a good degree of hope for getting out of here sooner rather than later, and some degree of hope of finding “somebody” after that next move.

And, as part of that journey, this book offers hope and reflection.

That includes learning a lot more about how childhood-caused PTSD probably has its specific effects on me today, including but not limited to emotional blunting/numbing, anxiety attacks, dissociation, detachment, depression-like symptoms, “picking” at myself (short of full-blown cutting) and more.

White lies aren’t always so “white” – to ourselves

For example, telling people in this conservative, inward-turned small town and county where I now, half-forced, live, that “I’m OK” when they ask is a white lie. To them.

I’m not hurting any of them by it. And, unfortunately, my job as a community newspaper editor probably requires it.

But, I don’t honestly feel I can tell people that sometimes I hurt like hell. I don’t trust.

I don’t trust them to understand me; I don’t trust them to not generalize beyond my hurting to take offense and umbrage on behalf of their city and county; I don’t trust them to listen to me, even if I don’t understand; I don’t trust them not to offer “solutions” that aren’t solutions for me, such as invitations to their churches, etc.

So, I hurt. Politically-oriented friends in College Station, some of whom are some kind of personal friends/acquaintances, help. But sometimes, College Station seems like the far side of the moon.

“I’m OK” is a non-white lie to me, when I’m not “OK.”

Not quite "cutting," but ...

Skin pulling, excessive fingernail biting, etc., ain't much better. Especially not after a long weekend of too much wrongly used time online, plus an apartment A/C that isn't working very well right now ... in SE Texas.

Relationships, women, a mom, childhood, emotions, sexuality

Aphrodite Matsakis’ “Trust after Trauma,” has some suggestions for pre-trauma relationships journaling.

Doing some of that made me recognize that mom’s relationship to me pre-toddler and toddler age was just the opposite it is for most mothers and young children. Usually, until the “terrible 2s,” it’s the child that has problems recognizing the mother as a separate person. With mom, I think she had trouble fully recognizing me a separate person. Some of her infantilizing, calling me her “round browns,” about my eyes, years, no, a decade or more later, reflects that. Combine that with her emotional absence/distancing, even neglect. Add on to that her once or twice leaving the main bathroom less than fully clothed well before I was in puberty, telling people, “don’t look,” plus Tim at least, and maybe Walt, trying to look in the bathroom, pushing me in there once or twice, then later, her keeping the bathroom door partway open at times while not fully clothed, and it’s probably no wonder that, beyond the primary sexual abuse I suffered in childhood, I have such problems with trying to get into a relationship. I’ve got about half a dozen unconscious to semi-conscious, though becoming more conscious, levers that kick in when I get interested in a woman. Now, not all may kick in at the same time, or to the same degree, but, they’re all there. Combine that with dad’s sexual put-downs, and I’ve had a lot to overcome.

Maybe this part of me isn’t a 4, overall, on a 1-10 scale. But, compared to where I was a decade ago, before I quit drinking? It’s at least a 2.5, or a 3.

Yes, the past is past. To the degree I am, or can become, psychologically capable of living in today, rather than yesterday (or tomorrow), fretting over the past won’t help me.

But, learning more just how much the past has affected me, so I know where I need to look at and work on myself today, CAN.

EXILE

When I read that word in Aphrodite Matsakis’ “Trust after Trauma,” it hit home like targeting a bulls-eye.

That feeling I recognized already in college, during late-evening walks, looking at people’s houses and wondering “how they felt,” I now realize described exactly how I have felt.

And, no, eight-plus years of sobriety haven’t 100 percent shaken that feeling.

Unfortunately, as a secularlist, I don’t believe there’s any Land of Goshen, Promised Land or anything else beyond this life as an exile redemption.

Exile.

To the degree I can “heal,” it means carving out my own space, learning how to share it to the degree and ways in which I feel comfortable, and learning how to do that “better.”

Something else to think about in sexual recovery

The WorldScience website reports that the number of sex-related sleep disorders, syndromes, etc., continues to grow.

For those of us who have had flashbacks, there is likely some sort of linkage.