Dear Alessa:

Thank you so much for your thoughtful and kind words. Your support means a lot to me, and I’m truly grateful for your encouragement. ❤️

My weekend was quite relaxing, thank you for asking. I’m glad to read that you were doing okay this past weekend, and hope that you are doing okay this Monday as well.

Your reflections on avoidance and confronting feelings are very insightful. It’s true that finding a balance between not getting lost in pain and accepting our feelings can be challenging. Viewing our feelings in a more positive light is a valuable approach.

Dear Jana:

It’s a profound decision to choose to work with your nature rather than against it. Your thoughts on vulnerability and tenderness resonate deeply. It does take immense courage to be vulnerable, and it’s understandable to feel exposed and at risk. Learning to protect oneself skillfully while maintaining compassion is a delicate balance, and it’s wonderful that you’re working on this.

I’m grateful for your kind words about my self-esteem and self-compassion. I’d be happy to share more about my experience: I used to feel devasted, overwhelmed by criticism, it felt like Danger. And so, I responded with two of the three responses to perceived danger: Flight (running away) or Freeze (feeling paralyzed, stuck, trapped). Most often, I froze and didn’t know how to respond, later to run away: end contact with the criticizing person, or run away before I get to be criticized.

My feelings of shame and guilt were so intense and persistent that any criticism was too much to bear. Fast forward, my feelings of shame and guilt have significantly lessened and my empathy for others has increased, so.. on one hand, criticism- the non-abusive kind- doesn’t feel dangerous anymore, and on the other had, I am not locked within myself, frozen. I engage with others and that makes all the difference.

anita

Dear Jana:

You are welcome. It’s completely understandable to feel overwhelmed or freeze in the presence of dominant individuals, especially when their behavior is aggressive and confrontational.

“you say ‘A’ and they have to say ‘b'”- do you ever find yourself as the one who has to say b? Do you ever find yourself as the aggressive, confrontational person.. ever?

There were times- far in between- that I was that person, the dominant, aggressive and confrontational one. I wonder if anyone’s behavior is strictly, consistently one (passive, submissive) OR the other (aggressive, confrontational)?

anita

Dear Jana:

It was Tues 3:05 am when you submitted your post a few moments ago, your time; Mon 6:05 pm when your post appeared here, and 6:20 pm when I submit this post. I will reply further in the morning. I hope you sleep restfully, and that I do too 🌙😴✨

anita

Hi Anita and Jana

I settled on understanding the meaning of the emotions.

I remembered something that my old therapist said.

Negative emotions are not bad. They have a purpose. Anger is there to let you know when a boundary has been crossed.

I have been feeling anxious and I wondered what the purpose of anxiety was. To highlight a threat or danger. It can also be related to fear of loss. For autists particularly, uncertainty. The difficulty is that anxiety can misfire when there isn’t much of a threat. This is what happens to me a lot because of my PTSD. Hyper-vigilance.

I’m learning that I don’t often directly think about my feelings. I tend to focus on other things and not even notice. I have to look for the hidden underlying reason. Then when that is acknowledged the feeling passes.

I’m glad that you had a good weekend, Anita. I did too. Thank you! You deserve encouragement. You have achieved so much and are an inspiration to everyone here! ❤️

Ah well there was a pirate code of conduct. And one of the characters tried to use that to their advantage. And the pirate refused to co-operate and said they are more like guidelines than actual rules.

I’m working on handling conflict too, it is pretty tricky! I feel like internal validation is important. I feel like the more I do that, the less I need others to meet my needs, I guess because I have already met them. I am okay with doing my own thing and other people doing their own thing. I feel like that is healthy for me. Letting things unfold in their own time naturally instead of trying to steer the ship as it were.

I’m also working on understanding myself and others more. I’m pretty straightforward and honest. Which is not the best combination when it comes to conflict. Even with good intentions, it is easy for people to feel hurt. So I’m trying to learn how to be less blunt and when it might not be so helpful to share something.

I also have a tendency to emotionally shut down to protect myself in conflict. People often interpret that as me not caring. Which isn’t true. I’m a complex person and I don’t ever stop caring about people, not even during disagreements. As you say Jana, I just don’t like being vulnerable when I’m at risk of being hurt. I still have a lot of positive feelings for others when I express that and I feel rejected during disagreements it hurts.

There are some complex communication skills that I would like to learn, indirect communication and positive confirmation.

I’m glad that you no longer feel that others know more about yourself than you do Jana. 😊

Whilst I do find outside perspectives helpful. I feel like there is a vast inner world that other people are unaware of. Also, every person views us differently. Depending on when they meet us, they can hold onto views from the past which isn’t their fault, but there is a lot of growth that they are unaware of.

I feel like you are someone who has a rich inner world and there are a lot that some people might not take the time to get to know properly. I think that you’re a very wise and gentle person. I understand what you mean when you say that you have always been submissive. It is rare to meet someone as peaceful as you.

My guess is that lot of people don’t understand you and misinterpret your actions because you are so different. People often only understand what they haven’t experienced themselves.

I would guess that you probably do accidentally hurt people though. Everyone does because we are all so different. It is easy not to realise it when you have good intentions. There can be an assumption that others would see our good intentions and how much we care. But unless we are very straightforward and explicit in telling people this, it is easy for them to misunderstand and make assumptions.

I could easily be wrong about this, these are just some things that I have learned myself recently. What do you think? ❤️

It has been really busy recently, so sorry for not having a lot of time to write. It takes me a lot of time to think about things that are very meaningful.

Hi Anita

I’m sorry for the delay in writing, it has been a busy week.

That is very sweet of you to say! You certainly have a way with words. Thank you for your kindness, it is touching. I’m glad to hear that it was helpful to process and understand yourself some more. ❤️

I know that you will go from strength to strength in whatever you set your mind to. 😊

That makes sense with everything that you’ve been through. It is a shame that it is not properly recognized in America yet. I’m really sorry that she treat you like that. No one deserves that, let alone a child and to receive that kind of treatment from a “parent” when you deserved to be protected, loved and cherished is a very difficult way to grow up.

I’m similar with the hypervigilance, being afraid of being hurt by others. It is not an easy thing to deal with.

Good luck with everything! Not that you need it. I’m confident that you will succeed.

Hi Anita

That is very kind of you. Thank you! ❤️

I noticed that for me, these things are worse in the middle of a ptsd trigger. I don’t know if you have experienced that too? It is like um two triggers being on top of each other.

It helps me feel safe to be alone when things are like that. Do you feel like that too? Or are there differences for you? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, I was just curious what your experience was like. As you say, knowing that you are not alone in these experiences is helpful. It is nice talking to someone who understands what it is like.

Dear Alessa:

“I noticed that for me, these things are worse in the middle of a ptsd trigger. I don’t know if you have experienced that too? It is like um two triggers being on top of each other.”- it’s like an escalation that happens for me, well, more like it happened, it’s way slower now.

Within a PTSD moment, upon sensing treat, there is an escalation in the perception of danger that way exceeds the actual danger. It can be the irritation that I am feeling right now in one of my big toes. in my mind, I escalated it into having neuropathy and the irritation lasting forevermore, every moment of the day and night.

It all comes down to having grown (inward) with a woman (mother) who escalated situations: a word I said as a 6 or 7 year old, not intending harm, and her response: “I will murder you!”, and two adult women holding her on both sides as she struggles to free herself and murder me. This is one of the most, if not the most impactful memory I have of her.

It is no wonder that an irritation in my toe escalates to a chronic, incurable disease.

Yesterday, in real-life, I somehow (not proud of saying so) indirectly- through snide remarks- confronted a person who has been behaving- long-term- in harmful ways toward others, having a charming facade but in practice, a bad person in quite a few ways. Now that I am thinking about it, the reason I was indirect might have been a way for me to try to prevent a catastrophic reaction on his part.

It all boils down to (and “boil” has a real meaning here) the expectation of catastrophe. And I believe that you relate, growing up (but inward) with what is clear and present danger. I mean, a child doesn’t have the capacity to perceive the threat of murder as anything less or other than a threat to kill, to murder.

“It helps me feel safe to be alone when things are like that. Do you feel like that too?”- yes, this is why I have been alone most of my life and why being alone is still something I do every day. I call it alone-time, taking the time to not be threatened by others.

“It is nice talking to someone who understands what it is like.’- this is your last sentence of your most recent post. And my initial alarm this late morning, as I read your words: “oh, oh, next thing Aleesa will say is: NO YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT IT IS LIKE. I THOUGHT YOU DID, BUT YOU DON’T! AND YOUR PUNISHMENT IS…”.

Well, “your punishment is: I WILL MURDER YOU!”

This one memory, in combination with many other memories, is imprinted in my brain, although less intensely than it used to be. Yet, still, the words of a mother, a mother who happens to be a monster, run deep.

anita

Dear Alessa:

I found myself smiling reading your post, enjoying your dark humor. Funny to me that the story involves sardines because I must be one of the only people in the world who eats a can of sardines per day, every single day, in olive oil (not in tomato source). I will reply further tomorrow morning (Mon 4 pm here, Tues 4 am where you’re at).

anita