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selkiespot

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Everything posted by selkiespot

  1. selkiespot
    @PlumSundae I do like that... You have a point, for sure. Sometimes I feel like my OCD also latches onto "fixing" parts of myself to fit seemingly endless standards. It's hard for me to fully understand that I already am worthy of much of anything, honestly. Thank you for the input... it's much appreciated.
  2. selkiespot
    I don't think you're something I'm ever going to see the end of. I sit in front of these tired memories and find you there, even still. I can look at fact after fact in my mind: No one is responsible for being victimized. It isn't reasonable to expect that doing something differently would have changed the outcome. They would have done it either way. Doing something "wrong" still doesn't justify someone else perpetuating assault. It isn't reasonable to expect perfection. No one is perfect. Imperfection is natural. Abuse shouldn't have been such a predominan
  3. selkiespot
    I'm proud of you for holding on, Rabbit. I feel for you. Please continue taking up however much space you need. You're deserving of so much. I know how difficult it is to believe that things will improve. You are doing do well in moving forward anyway. You've come so far, and I'm so proud of you for that. Please continue reaching out for support whenever and wherever you need. You are indeed worthy of support, and of life. You deserve to heal. Sitting with you in this. Wishing you well, as always.
  4. selkiespot
    I said something without thinking yesterday. I don't remember what it was. I was sober, and I was happy. I was laughing. That's all I really took from it. It didn't make much sense at the time to me, either. I usually fixate on what I say without thinking, scrutinizing it for any potential misgivings, any error to chastise myself over, and I'm coming up empty-handed. I just kept the feeling, mostly. Is that good? I don't say all of this to brag. I know what you do for a living. You're a piece of me, after all... Maybe integration isn't as complete and spontaneous as I wished it was.
  5. selkiespot
    It's been difficult to find you again. After getting sick, and getting so caught up in my own head about getting better, I feel like I've lost a lot of myself. At least I'm still here to pick up the pieces. After all that's happened, I know that those pieces don't really go away. There are a lot of lies that I think I internalized about you. About us. Every time that you gagged when just trying to eat dinner - something well outside of your own control - and were met with anger. Frustration. Violence. Rage. When the most patience your struggle was allowed would be a bitter "Okay, fine. Yo
  6. selkiespot
    I also feel this rage sometimes. I've had pieces of me who only ever seemed to feel rage much like Lucy's. Honestly, it scared me too, when I realized that those feelings were there. I thought that it meant that I was dangerous, or bad. It scared me a lot. I still wonder if some of those parts of me are still dissociated away somewhere, though they may not be... It's hard to say nowadays. The thing is, survivors are... so much less likely to ever be violent towards others. Feelings like this are often very big, which can make them even more difficult to cope with when we feel like th
  7. selkiespot
    You feel broken nowadays. At times it's been difficult to even keep water down, lately. Even though you're able to, all you tell me is how much it hurts. I know. I'm sorry. I tried. I kept trying, over and over. They say that the body can remember things better than the mind. I do think of things like somatic flashbacks when it comes to that, but there's more that I think of, too. More that you keep on display, either internally or externally. I remember when I poisoned you. I do... Especially because it happened so often. It was so long ago, now. Over a decade, at this
  8. selkiespot
    @PlumSundae @ShyUnicorn @rabbitprotectsme Thank you all... I deeply appreciate your replies. Thank you... At this point, I feel a bit too disconnected from my parts to know that for sure, either. Though I do feel consistently very surprised when people I've confided in seem not to care at all about what my trauma "says" about me. The people who, like you all here, either make an effort to interact, to offer support, or to stay close after I've told them... or who otherwise note that nothing has changed between us in a way that I can genuinely believe. It's difficult for me to ima
  9. selkiespot
    I just wanted to say that I'm really proud of you for recognizing this in yourself. It's not an easy thing to acknowledge, and I'm glad you're doing the work to process and notice your own emotional needs, because you're absolutely right. I've also had the experience of noting various parts & wanting to support them despite it being draining, difficult, or even destructive to my current self. I think that there is absolutely a point where something has to give, and we have to stop and say, "Alright. I hear you, but I need time to attend to my own needs right now, too." I think t
  10. selkiespot
    There are so many things that I need to do. So many things that I need to focus on. And every time I get stuck on something that isn't what I should be prioritizing... I go back to the same thing I always tell myself: "Not this thought. This one... This doesn't matter." My problem, I think, is when it all becomes that. I feel like almost none of my thoughts are productive anymore. Not to myself, nor to others. I tell myself the same things every time: No one wants to hear about how badly I feel about myself, so it doesn't matter. No one wants to hear about how I feel about things that hap
  11. selkiespot
    @rabbitprotectsme Thank you, sincerely... I was going to quote any part of what you said, but I really think it's all true. I don't think my father is capable of significant change. I think he just moved onto others, which makes me upset that I continue to justify things on his behalf, even now... But in fairness, I only really tend to do so when it comes to myself and my own experiences. It's likely a force of habit that I need to learn to let go of. You're right... That compassion is a behavior that was never really modeled for me. Certainly not when I felt like it really mattered.
  12. selkiespot
    I feel like I have patience for nearly everyone but me, at this point. I don't know where that kindness for myself went - I think there was a time I managed to cultivate some, but it feels lost. Especially after getting as sick as I did, I think my brain is in a few more pieces than it was last month, and that empathy for myself is nowhere to be found lately. It's frustrating. I think of my father, and keep also thinking things like, "Well... his father was also horrible, and did awful things to me. He probably did awful things to my father when he was young. Maybe, then, it's understanda
  13. selkiespot
    That's... very true, yeah. That's exactly what it is, I think. I feel this weird sense of embarrassment for still being affected by things like this that I already knew were true, even though I haven't fully processed the emotions that come with experiencing them. Thank you for your insight & kind words. I'm glad that you're making progress as well.
  14. selkiespot
    You might be right... Maybe that part is difficult to accept, too. I want so badly to not be like this. But it's not like minimizing what happened has ever been very productive for me, either. After a point, it feels less like wishful thinking, and more like belittling experiences I never wanted to admit I had. Thank you for your input/support... as always, I appreciate it.
  15. selkiespot
    I stumbled upon some older journal entries the other day. They were from notebook I had kept when going through trauma discovery with a specialized therapist for the first time... I skimmed a few pages before fully realizing what it was, and nearly immediately shut it after that. I still don't feel quite right, afterwards. There wasn't even much to glean from what I read, but I don't feel okay regardless. That's probably because of where else my head has been, though. It's been taking up most of my thoughts lately, even though there's so much else I'd rather be thinking about. I'm just no
  16. selkiespot
    @rabbitprotectsme I just wanted to say that I hope you don't blame yourself harshly for looking for more information. It's very easy to mistreat ourselves in ways we don't realize, and suddenly understanding more about dissociation can lead to an increased sense of urgency for anyone, I think. There's a lot of discomfort (to put it mildly) that comes with the uncertainty... And I don't think anyone here blames you for having haste or acting impulsively, because it's unfortunately very natural to do so. All that to say, please be kind to your present self, as well. Yes, you are older
  17. selkiespot
    This is honestly the realization I ended up coming to, as well. The part of me that came to emulate my abuser didn't understand the harm that he was doing to me for the longest time, and when he did, he was mortified. But once I got caught especially in the cycle of "This is how this part of me is always going to act, no matter what," I found that even I was enforcing the destructive behaviors without realizing. After some time, I started to realize that he hated himself as much as I hated him. All this to say, I'm glad you're managing to get through all this the way you are. It's ge
  18. selkiespot
    I wanted to share something, though I may not be the best at articulating it all. It's just that I see a lot of myself in this post and I wanted to share something. There was a point in time where I realized something that made me... very uncomfortable. And it was that a piece of me was nearly identical to an abuser of mine. It's a somewhat common experience for survivors, and to some degree I understood that, when I was most struggling with his existence. But especially as I started to understand more about the abuser he was "based off of," I started to hate him. I hated that piece of me
  19. selkiespot
    I tried to take a picture of myself for the first time in months. I don't know how long it's been for certain - way too much time has passed and way too much has happened for that to even exist in my head anymore. I hate cameras. I hate being filmed, I hate being photographed, and I used to hate mirrors... Though as an adult, mirrors can feel strangely comforting. They're reminders to me that the past is over... Like the house around me, my reflection can serve as enough to know that yes, I did it. I survived. Somehow, it's over. They didn't kill me. I wouldn't have ever looked like
  20. selkiespot
    @PlumSundae Thank you... It's difficult to share about, honestly, but I'm glad I did. And you're right, I guess he really wasn't... Even though the experience I imagined showed him physically changing as if he were a literal monster (with inconsistent & exaggerated features/proportions, as well), by the time he was back, he was recognizable again. Just... someone I care about who was hurt in a way that I think I'm starting to understand better.
  21. selkiespot
    There's an older version of me that I've tended to try to forget about. He was most like my brother, I think... He learned from him, and took after him too. Before it became clear the kind of person my brother was, there was some assumption that things could be okay. That it was all actually fine. And he was able, for a time, to live that way. When I started to realize that things weren't fine at all, I kept trying to amputate that part of myself. He was too similar, and I couldn't handle it. There was a period of time when he would only exist to feel intense anger and self-hatred...
  22. selkiespot
    I've been in a weird place in recovery lately. I figured out a way to compose myself and exist as a single unit... But so much of my memory remains guarded. It feels impossible. It feels endless. But even then, if someone were to say something along the lines of, "That must've been scary," I just think to myself, well... Yeah, it must have been. But hell if I know, because it didn't happen to me... Only I guess it must have. I feel fake when I recount things, sometimes. Like I haven't earned the right to say what happened, because I just realized what it was... It's like it didn't ha
  23. selkiespot
    @PlumSundae Thank you for the words of support, as always - I don't mind the replies at all. Your posts resonate a lot with me too, & I hope you're doing well. (Also feel like rewatching Donnie Darko now, honestly... Watched it back when I still lived in pieces, but I weirdly remember it better than most things from that period of time)
  24. selkiespot
    Afterword: Wrote this in possibly a hard-to-follow way, but this is one of the first memories I recovered of such explicit dissociation... For the longest time, all I could think of whenever it came to that bathroom was being surrounded by literal stars. Though I have since integrated as a person (& generally continue to incorporate these parts into one adult self, somehow) the part of me that experienced this always felt like a ghost after the fact. Someone who died, but stuck around anyway. I worry for what still remains undiscovered. But I don't feel as afraid about it,
  25. selkiespot
    I keep thinking about what I can remember of that bathroom. I can remember a decent amount... What the tiles on the walls looked like, the painting on the wall, the windows, the layout. But the color of the floor remains a mystery to me. When I was scared that my father was going to kill me, I think a part of my brain decided that what felt the best about starving for air was the idea that I was actually drifting along in outer space. Maybe it was the idea that even if I were to die out there - cold, wishing I could breathe, wishing I could scream, wishing I could actually will
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