Hello Anita,

always have been heavily lost in thoughts, so much so, that I couldn’t describe to you the basics of what I walked through. What I saw, heard and felt was all happening in between my two ears. What was happening outside of my brain.. was lost to me. I think that I made progress in this regard, but progress from the extremes of inattentiveness is not objectively impressive, meaning: I would still be a bad eye (and ear) witness to an accident, let’s say.. couldn’t tell what cars would be involved, what make, what color, whether a vehicle was a car or a truck..  what happened, etc.

I can relate to this so much. I think the fact that you have made any progress from extremes of inattentiveness is impressive. I know how difficult it is and how much work it requires.

I remember first being attentive in very early childhood, and with time it worsened. When I got a new doll and a new desk, I looked at it from every perspective, knew the colors, the texture, being very much engaged in every thing that I had in my room. With time I lost any interest in all that. Fantasies overtook me.

emotional trauma, such as in childhood, literally damages/ injures the brain, causing “dendritic atrophy“: a wasting away of neurons in the brain.

When as a child you are overly stressed for way too long, the stress hormones themselves injure the brain!

I googled it and saw the video and pictures explaining. Thank you for sharing this, Anita.

This really saddens me. How abuse changes/destroys a person forever. I always thought my memory issues are due to genetics or not training memory enough.

I have constant elevated cortisol levels. I visited doctors but they say it is how it is. Maybe the reason is that I get scared every day, for example when I hear a phone ringing I get this weird feeling in my stomach, like adrenaline rush but in a bad way. Similar when people approaching me, etc.

When I think of this feeling of fear I have several memories when I was the most scared in my childhood. . I am still not ready to process some of them, although I may have mentioned one here on this thread and once with a psychiatrist I was seeing. Maybe I will describe it here soon for processing purpose.

Last week I found my notes from 2017/18. I took them so that I would not forget. Most of them were similar: “my mother is lying on bed looking as if she was suffering.. with her eyes closed, her hand covering her eyes dramatically … sighing.. ” “again she is on her bed, 5 pm, in her pyjamas, she did not eat, did not turn on tv, lying with her eyes closed… only because I asked her day before what have I ever done to you?!” …”I woke up in the middle of the night and went to bathroom, she was there, sitting, wasn’t moving.. I asked what are you doing here? She didn’t respond. I touched her and asked again. Again no reply. I was scared”  “She came back from work, I was in the kitchen, she passed me like I wasn’t there. I asked whether she wanted soup. No response. Now she is lying on the bed, sighing. Sometimes I feel I am going crazy.”

I took those notes and even I took a picture of her lying on the bed so that I knew it really happened and I was not crazy. I still have this picture.

I noticed a lot of things, still realizing some of them. How I was emotionally addicted to certain emotions because of her. Emotions through which I could connect with her, like anger. Whenever she was angry/not speaking to me I could start complaining at something/someone and she would get angry-excited, speaking to me again. That worked only sometimes of course but still.. those were moments I saw she was.. alive and present again, therefore.. I was too. I gave up addition to this feeling, it was hard because I had to let it out this anger somewhere, I was so used to this emotion. I still try not to get caught up in angry venting, reliving bad situations that happen to me. It gets easier.

I realized how different voice and face expression I made when I was with her (children-like, pleasant voice – this, similar as my tic, was a shield from her anger).

I see it’s almost 6 am your time. 2:54 here. Looking forward to read your response Anita.