Datura Stramonium

Several months ago deep darkness settled on me and I could not free myself of it. I also doubt if I wanted to free myself of it. Stepping into the light and then falling back again and again hurt so badly that I wondered if I would ever dare to live again.

As you might have read I visited the insurance doctor from the social security benefits I live off momentarily. That was the start of the darkest period in my live on earth. There was nothing really to keep me going other than the fact that life does not ‘just stop’. Suicidal thoughts were on my mind 24/7, I ate, drank, dreamed and lives darkness and destruction. I was emotionally not able to travel for more that 30 minutes out of my house: too much impressions, too afraid of the openness, not enough seclusion so my social life was limited to a few friends close by. Others I did not call or write because, well, because. My Facebook page however looked fabulous as ever.

I realise with writing this, the darkness is not far away enough yet for me to be comfortable and I should not be looking it up.

Long story not so short:

I found a shrink. I was looking for a female, older person with knowledge of EMDR. I got a younger male without knowledge of EMDR. And this is where it all started. :-D. Within one hour my transfer of ‘little brother (in the womb) I need to take care off otherwise I will destroy him’ reality was in fully in place. Very much a WTF experience. I never ever realised that this, what is called the ‘reliving the dream of the womb’ in which my womb twin brother died and from there on the transfer of all these emotions and reactions to it is actually REALLY REALLY happening. I thought it was something metaphorical untill it happened in me and with me and right in front of me with this young shrink! Baffling! It is really amazing. And it is pretty dark. Very much life and death. But I guess that is the process I once got stuck in and have to work through. Working on it. I was very happily surprised to find he is familiar with womb twin survivor syndrome and willing to listen to this. You can’t imagine how much emotional, psychological and physical stress even that tiny ‘not having to fight for my truth to be accepted’ releases.

I also…. found a physiotherapist who is more into relaxation techniques, releasing stress and trauma which is caught in the body. We speak once a week, do some very tiny (breathing) exercises which release a lot of stress too.

And….. hurrah hurrah…. my GP who is also a homoeopathic doctor found me ‘Stramonium’. Stramonium is a homeopathic medicine made from the Datura plant. PLEASE NOTE I got this diluted to the 1000th decimal, meaning that there is not one active molecule of this poisonous plant in what I ingested. So don’t go strolling about, eating the weeds in your garden when feeling depressed ;-). That is different.

By the way: if we take out all the space between the tiny thingies which build up a molecule of anything in this world, and the world itself, we end up with a cube the size of a sugar cube. All that ‘matter’ in the sugar cube does a sort of Lucky Luke trick in running around at high (!!!!) speed so it looks like it is VERY PRESENT and VERY BIG while actually it is very tiny. ❤ The rest is energy. So I think what we call ‘matter’ is not matter but energy, and the idea that matter is ‘the only thing which matters’ is not so very true as regular, homeopathy defying doctors would like me to believe.  I have no issues believing that energy can be transferred in other ways than through matter. I mean…. how about love? And hate? That can actually be tangible and heal or hurt.

Datura Stramonium historically was and probably is somewhere, used as a natural medicine but mainly as a trip agent. It is also deadly poisonous at very small amounts so haha, not advising that.

Stramonium in the homeopathic version brought out the darkness in me. If you look at the plant itself and the vibes you get from the photo you might get an inkling of the quality of the darkness. First it became bigger but very clear. And it helped me find words for what I was feeling. I walked into another world where everything was dead as dead can be. Even a plastic cup in this world is more alive than the dead trees in the Stramonium world. Nothing, nothing, nothing responded, no vibes, no energy. Just nothing. No time, no wind, no movement, stillness, even the light which was there did not warm or brighten the place. Imagine a scene for a Goth movie with an abandoned castle frozen in a dark time and then in real life, as a reality. Well, dark. The British Homeopathic Organisation has a beautiful writing about this world. There is more online if you would be interested in this. Please do add the word ‘homeopathy’ to you search because you definitely don’t want to get mixed up in the real undiluted stuff.

First time I got handed the remedy the darkness actually spread through my hand and arm and I recognised it as that which was pressing on my shoulders. Long story short: I took the medicine several times, every time I would lighten up for a few days, even walk around ‘stoned’ and have significant dreams and strange experiences. Then I would fall back and within all that emotional movement some air, some light, some stress relieve came. No insights though. Normally with homeopathy I get some ‘Yeah! NOW I GET IT’ reaction but this did not happen. At first.

Before I took Stramonium my dreams were 1 to 1 comparisons to the video of Alan Walker’s song ‘Faded’. No people, no response, no nothing. If there were people they would be having their backs to me and not respond to anything. That’s ah, pretty alone.

But dreams changed! My god. PEOPLE!! IN MY DREAMS!!! For f! sake! So tiring…. every night there would be more people. And the colours would be so bright that it turned into a I don’t know, medieval summer/autumn festival. But, back to the people: the would be asking stuff, for advice, or just mentioning stuff and I would be giving advice, and helping, and giving and helping and giving and helping and waking up more tired than I went to bed.

That went on for several nights and in between I had a dark dream too – which I then experienced for its real quality: no connection, no life, no time, darkness – not peace but no interference either. And then there would be a people dream again. Effing hell! In one dream I helped/advised about 30 different people on what to do and what not to do. I felt they would die if I did not do what I did. Like my brother did, because I left him. Some of them took it and were really happy, others were like: “Why would I do that, that would change me and I want to hang onto the misery I got.” and others were like “Who is she?!” I would assume this is a perfect mirror of my world and my online world :-(.

Well, I am happy I got that mirror but more importantly, felt how all these worries of mine about other people and situations connected to me, and put their tiny little hooks in me and me putting large hooks in other people’s aura. Control issues much? Yes. I did not help my brother. He died. If I do not give it all, people die, companies go broke, production fails, my mother dies, my living brother gets attacked…. Patterns and energetic wires became clear and I could really feel them as almost solid lines to my aura. Very sickening to realise how energetically wrong and unsustainable this state of being and living is. Also very informative. 🙂 / 😦

Through a FB friend I got a list of co-dependency traits from Melody Beattie of 2 pages A4. All but 3 or 4 applied. So, yeah. Work to do.

I went to the physiotherapist and we spoke about this. When doing a breathing exercise I could let go of all the hooks and immediately I sank into my own body. My body became mine. 🙂 I started yawning and did not stop till about 10 minutes after. 🙂 I still yawn when I do breathing exercise when starting to meditate.

Obviously this insight will need practice to become a way of living but it is already very helpful. I finally got to do stuff again. Like ‘going out of the house for some activity’ or actually cooking something again. I did YouTube Tai Chi. Hahaha…. Within 20 minutes exercise in which I yawned continuously, I exploded with energy and my cat came over and started meowing in a concerned voice. She stood up against my leg then walked me to the bedroom and looked at the bed. That is her way of saying: you need to go to bed. She started doing that after her last kitten left the house and she usually she does that in the night. I think she had a point, I was all over the place. 🙂 So I lay down and took a rest.

So, I got part of my mojo back. And with that I see another pattern: whenever I get my mojo back it comes back in such an overwhelming way that I want to DO EVERYTHING and end up doing nothing because I can not decide and I can not settle. There is a saying in Dutch and it says ‘With you it is either running or standing still’ – very much a black and white womb twin survivor addictive personality thing. I wonder if this is the bi-polar hyperactivity thing they speak about in books on womb twin survivors often being bi-polar.

One way to guide that energy is to move in to a shopping spree on things about THE NEW subject. I bought books, again. It is a pattern. I hardly ever read more than 20-30 pages but I feel insecure in not having them.

Also, my will can not be guided yet. The loss of will power is a thing related to Stramonium as well.  Only in very very tiny things like: putting air in my tires before biking, or twice now I put away the chocolate and started cooking. I also meditated 5 days in a row. Which is good. But I have no clue what to do with the empty mind and rest I get from it. No needs, no wants, no nothing. This is where the stressjunk in me kicks in and goes looking for trouble so I guess this needs some looking into. I have the idea it is related to the womb trauma but I am not sure how.

But I guess Rome was not built in one days so maybe I should give the issues with willpower some time. 😀

I am happy that I quit. The last months have been very dark and even though I am above zero now mood wise I still fear to fall back into the abyss. Not sure if I can go through that again. 😦 Life has become more interesting though now I see myself as somebody who has been in a traumatic situation and had developed coping skills from there which have now lost their use and need changing.

In the 4 years plus of not drinking I have been working towards being ‘sober’, sometimes I am, sometimes I am lost in my own darkness and need to self-medicate with chocolate, Netflix, chips and cheese. I have no clue what the heck I came to do on this earth, that is confusing sometimes and terrifying at other times. I am approaching 50 years of age and have no job. Even though in the past I have had no big difficulty obtaining a job, I have had a lot of difficulty keeping it. I notice now that this scares me a lot. But also…. I am running ahead. I am just, possibly, out of the woods, a few days above zero and I start running to try to plan a carreer. Better to stay with what is. There is so much information in this process of getting ‘out of’ the darkness. I guess I should take the same approach as I did when getting out of drinking: sit with what is, experience the feelings that pop up, see the patterns, be witness to myself. And for a change: ask for help. 😉

Hey, I did! To be true it was not so much for me but more to spare my friends because I felt I was losing them because I became too dark too often. I guess this is just another way of ‘feeling my way back into life’. 🙂 I still wish I could have done without it but I guess I would have never been introduced to these new insights so clearly if I had not. Not managing being grateful yet though. It still sucks. In curious way. 🙂

Happy that I quit. I hope you are too. 🙂

xx, Feeling

Finding hope in a bottle – but differently

Ok, the thought for after dinner was to select some Bach remedies on finding hope. Bach remedies are natural remedies which influence the emotional state of a person. I always benefit from them greatly but when I go down into a pit I have issues selecting them because I don’t feel worth taking care of me. And I am always too late. I have to stand with my back against to wall to actually start taking care of me.

This is a chart of the traditional English Bach Remedies. Several people around the world have developed their own sets, like the Californian remedies. These are keywords, online or in books you can find more detailed info.

I was not sure how to select what I am looking for but I started crying at Gorse, Olive, Star of Bethlehem, Sweet Chestnut and Wild Oat. So I guess that makes it clear.

Adding Cherry Plum and Rock Rose to soften the blow a bit.  Even though it is dangerous to take Cherry Plum when without professional help. I think I have the worst behind me so I guess I am safe.

With homeopathy and Bach remedies there can be the danger of extreme aggravation when the energetic system is awakened by the medicine. I have a pretty reactive system so when I take a remedy against ‘irrational fears’ e.g. I will spend 2 days fearing the whole CIA, KGB, NSA and Facebook are on my case and that the remedy is actually pro-irrational fears and that this is done to me by purpose bla bla bla bla bla. At day 3 I do not worry anymore and can not even believe I ever came up with a thought like that.

Theoretically Wild Oat would be something for when I am ready to look for work again, not for emergencies, but the word ‘alienated’ sticks with me. My brother was killed in the womb by a chemical process which in plain English would be called ‘alienating’ and my first name is based on a noun derived from the verb ‘alienating’. Yeah. I am not surprised I have difficulty landing in this world and uphold a typical view of its inhabitants :-D. Wild Oat, to get my feet back on the ground?

Ok, the above list is quite long, I prefer taking 2 or 3 remedies at the time.

Agrimony is good for anybody with an addictive personality. Not taking that now though because I am opening up by myself and I don’t want to mess with that process currently. Not sure why, all of a sudden for the one process I think I need Bach remedy help and for the other I find it ‘messing’. Which… might strenghten the thought that one can not medicate oneself. 😉 You are welcome to give it a try btw. I am curious to learn what you think.

Willow gave the sensation of a cold, bitter lightning through my body. Resentment is certainly something to look at. Specifically because somewhere in my mind there is this cold voice saying: “They deserve my hatred.” (yikes!!) But now is not the time. Or? No. Not now.

I would assume anybody reading this would want to give me Honeysuckle. I am not taking this because it is about romantisizing the past. I thought I did not do that. Until I just read an online addition from Edward Bach: “They do not expect further happiness such as they have had.” which would be true for the womb-dream I have. No greater happiness than being in the womb with somebody who is somebody else, but me. Never alone, experiencing everything without speaking. I like you because you are me – you like me because I am you. Food for analyses. We might have had Narcissus for breakfast. Not sure.

We are us,
You are us,
I am us,
We are you!
We are me!
I am you,
You are me.

You died.

It is called the dream of the womb. Which then turned into the hell of the womb. I realise that I long back to that dream and I will never, as long as I live, experience the intensity, the wholeness of that contact again. Hole in the soul.

I am happy that I quit. 🙂 I assume, know, the mess would be bigger if I had not. Again. I would not be alive. In the last few weeks I have somehow found that I am worth saving. Or learned to not give a shit about others opinion of me anymore, maybe. That would take some pressure off too. Not sure. I am still scared, what if I save myself and fall back in the pit? I am scared but I am going to try anyway. I think I can do this. I mean, I quit drinking and I thought I could not do that. I started with writing down what I was scared of and did not know. And then I started looking for answers. I can do that again. I have got plenty of time. Well, The Universe gave us all we needed for Life, so let’s see what tools I have and can apply.

Ok, I am happy that I quit. Gonna make my remedy mix now. 1 Or 2 drops of each in a bottle of a liter water. Then poor half a glass and fill up with water again.

Bach remedies are 40% alcohol I believe. So the concoction can still smell like alcohol but somehow it does not hinder me. I have these remedies stored in the brain box ‘medicine’ and that keeps me from linking this smell to drinking. It has never been in the brain box ‘drink’. Funny side note: there is a lemonade I can not drink because I used to drink it when trying to moderate. And I projected my drinking thoughts on it. So now it feels like drinking alcohol when I smell it. :-D. The mind is strange.

Wishing you a good sober day / evening. Thanks for reading.

xx, Feeling

The land of no self-hate – Episode 12 ‘rock-bottom and becoming help-ready’

Life has been tough. Tougher than I can handle or maybe tougher than chocolate can handle :-). I have let myself slip to the bottom of the pit and stayed there too long. I have been lying to my friends and family about how I feel because I did not want to be confronted with myself. I kept on saying “I am ok” or “I don’t want to talk about it.” while inside I was dying. I lost faith in myself, my life, my future. Everything was very dark.

I don’t want to lose my friends. And I know about the untrue friends and the true friend, but the energy unload which happens when I really let go is BIG. I do not think it is not suitable for friendship relations.

A new truth I found is that I have lived with adjusting myself all of my life. Adjusting what I say, adjusting what I feel, what I think, to fit in. And then followed the hiding and drinking away what could not be transformed otherwise. 😦 Obviously that is a sick system and not sustainable. 😦 So there I was, another much-needed rock bottom again – the emotional one.

This Tuesday I had to visit the doctor who determines whether I need to look for a job or are entitled to further financial government support. She was rather persistent in finding out how bad things were. Her repeated questioning brought me to places I hope to never visit again, though that might be a wish that will not be granted. I was crying and shaking all over. I knew things were bad, I had no idea it was this bad. New memories of my early youth, teenage time and young adulthood have been popping up off late and it is tough; mostly, dark experiences which then feel so overwhelmingly real in the here and now that it is baffling. I assume it is a side effect of quitting drinking and not having tasks on hand which propel my thoughts into the future.

I tell so much lies about how I feel in daily life and adjust myself to the outside world that I have shut myself down totally. I deliberately place cheerful and silly Facebook post and comments with quick responses and smiling emojis to (try to) make sure nobody thinks I have changed.

I notice I build another me at quite an emotional distance from where I actually am. That is what addiction is to me and it is SO DESTRUCTIVE. It is like I am trying to build a several story house but in order to deal with technical issues and difficulties in the design, I shift the coordinates for everything to avoid having to solve stuff or think about what is going on. I do this for all the plumbing, electricity, for every room and for every layer of the building. Now the rooms do no stack onto each other or on the founding even, the plumbing does not connect from room to room or story to story, planks from the stairs are missing, the sewage system is dysfunctional because not placed at the tap or toilet points, the light shines in places where the floor does not exist and the roof lies on its back in the garden. It is how I feel energetically and it is NOT WORKING!!!

I guess telling others all is OK is not working either. The doctor was a good mirror. She indirectly ordered me to go into therapy; if I do not improve within a few months she was obliged to take action. In that she hinted at ordering me into therapy involuntarily because of danger to self – or shut down the funds. As threats go, these are quite effective.

Today I had a GP visit – for the record, this appointment was based on a talk I had with my administrative guy to whom I could not keep up appearances – the mask fell of and he stimulated me to make changes.

I found out I have the idea that nobody understands how I am wired. I have the idea that if I tell how I feel everybody thinks I am crazy. Maybe I am, to a lot. But not to everybody and not to myself although I fear to have experienced pre-psychotic episodes off late where I started to doubt the existence of the world. Yeah, funny, in a not funny way. Pressure in my mind went up so big that I could not deal anymore. In order to deal something had to give: it was me or the world, I decided the world was not real and I could walk through walls if I felt like it. Scary shit. And while my mind is telling me of this new order I KNOW it is not correct but shit the pressure is high. Not advisable.

But it is always darkest before dawn and a lot happened for the good in the last several days. I came home from the doctor’s and made myself an extremely healthy salad. Taking care of myself with a last resort of force, but I did it. The next 2 days I battled the darkness like I battled quitting drinking in the first days; actually using willpower to stop negative thinking and pull it out by its roots. Again and again I find that if I do that, I feel better. Yeah: “duh?!” but ah, difficult when depression has drawn its tracks into the mental state and thinking.

BUT I DID IT!!!! I’m not there yet obviously but I made a start to turn things around. The chocolate is still there but the vegetables are back on the menu big time, so is hope, love for myself and so are the Bach remedies (a type of ‘homeopathy’ / energetic ‘medicine’ to promote happiness and emotional health) I chose something to give me hope, settle the crazy, deal with shock.

In the last months I have sorted my problems into several categories and I found that these are big. The last two days I realised that, as with drinking, I just (?) need to work out what is the problem and where I can find help. My issues are big, but not insurmountable. Or so she said upfront ;-).

In the below paragraphs I write about what I think makes it difficult for me to exist in this world. Please note that I am aware there are billions of people who are worse off than I am. Many of them amongst readers of this blog. But that does not mean I can cope with what I am in this world. 😦 The toughening up I did led me into drinking so I guess there is something I did and do not understand. Please note this is my own analyses, I should be open to the possibility that things are not as I think they are in order not to close off any learning opportunities. But for now this is it.

What makes my issues, the PTSS, the VTS (vanishing twin syndrome), the high IQ, the hypersensitivity, I am clair-ish sentient 😉 difficult is the mix with the addiction; the not wanting to be here and experience what is. That makes it impossible for me to build on anything – that goes for anything: I can not hold on to anything, not to money, not to a job, not to a partner, not to a thought. Only to not drinking actually. 🙂

The Vanishing Twin Syndrome (losing my twin brother in the womb and actually remember that as a very traumatic experience) which leads to a lot but mostly caused my eternal ‘not wanting to be here on this earth’, a big part of my PTSS, the clear sentience and the hypersensitivity. I also believe this openness somehow set me on a path of finding difficulties in the field of sexual abuse. But that might ‘just’ be coincidental. It made me vulnerable to not feeling worthy of being alive: I had already caused somebodies’ death before I was born. No wonder I have no right to be happy and be me.

Because of the hole in my energy system where my brother used to be I am open to all kinds of energies. I feel I am not connected to this body, to this human shape, I am connected to everything non-material.

His death was so overwhelming that it broke my natural defenses and threw me out of my core. I have not been able to repair this. I need to learn to close myself off in order to make myself feel safe in this world and actually want to be here, to fully incarnate. Currently I am like a sender/receiver with no on and off button and no ability to distinguish between incoming and outgoing. I never know where I end and the other begins. Makes for great sex though, when all is well. Learning to deal with this will hopefully help me to close myself off instead going into hiding or being aggressive, tactless, nasty to others when I feel unsafe.

I am thinking my hypersensitivity is caused by the VTS but has been worsened by the abuse of alcohol, sugar and other addictions which stress out my system and make it vulnerable – not only energetically but also chemically. Over the years I have become hypersensitive to chemical smells and coffee for instance. When my neighbours drink coffee my bowels start doing their bowel thing and I need to go to the toilet.

Next there is PTSS from the VT experience and (sexual) abuse, mother with cancer, father with Aspergers and his religious fixation on the apocalypse. We had a stressful home situation with continuous fighting and passive aggressiveness dripping off the walls. My parents with their structural sexual abuse issues, their continuous financial issues (while they were never out of money! btw) were not able to do their parenting job because of their own mental and physical states; mom’s cancer and their addictions and their own traumas.

Finally there is me being intellectually gifted – which is difficult to say because it sounds arrogant and ha! it does not keep me from being stupid. Intelligence and being streetwise/smart are NOT related :-D. But I guess being best of class for many years of my life puts me in the gifted category. I followed an online course on the subject and I the teacher mentioned that being gifted comes with specific disadvantages as not feeling understood and having difficulty to connect with what is ‘normal’. Also: the inability to connect intelectually actually made and makes people (me!) feel stupid and incapable because others do/did not understand me. Through the years though I have learned to connect to people over the human factor. Which is good, and way more useful in life but it leaves me unsatisfied in working some stuff out and somehow people do not help me with stuff because they think I can manage myself. Not true.

One of the happenings which send me spinning a few weeks ago is finding out my gifted, primary school friend had killed herself, leaving 2 kids behind. We always competed over the best school results. She was very creative and very skilled in that area, she studied to be an architect.

Being gifted does combine badly with my anxiety. In work situations I use my giftedness to oversee processes and all the tiny details which make the business clock tick. In combination with my anxiety and perfection I focus on the things which go wrong. It is a useful trait for a Quality/Safety Manager but it causes continuous anxiety and it is a bad way of using gifts. Also: it freaks out colleagues to see bears on every spot of every road.

My GP does not call my breakdown a rock-bottom but uses the word T-junction. 🙂 Not taking action will lead to darkness, despair and death. Taking action can lead to light. I choose the light because in the darkness of where I was I realised that underneath all of it I like myself.

My GP gave me a few names of therapists, I am to investigate by myself and I come back next week to make a decision with her and sign up somewhere.

I am happy that I quit. Seeing how much I loathed myself when I drank I think I would not be able to bear being alive right now if I would be drinking. Not a positive choice, but a much-needed one. 🙂

The hug-buddy is back. We did not speak about what happened (NEW). After having been asked by the tax service to pay back 4500 euros (half of my savings). I was aware of their claim on my, and I do have the money, but the real thing was a bit more real than I had imagined. I only found out a few days later that they would also be GIVING me 5000 euros for another reason so I’m going 500 plus iso 4500 minus. Realising how extremely stressful these money issues are I suddenly felt ashamed about my harsh judgement of him. We hugged it back to ok. 🙂 I guess some day we will talk.

These days I will be sorting out my issues further and trying to find places and people whom I think can help me with these. For all those who have tried EMD or EFT: there seems to be no organisation without it anymore so I guess that will be on the menu. 🙂

Now is bedtime, tomorrow is another day. I look forward to sorting stuff out and cleaning up this emotional mess. 🙂 I have a lot to give and to live for, if I allow myself to be me.

I am grateful for the people and professionals I have been meeting this last week.

Thank you for hanging in there and reading this rather unedited, dark process of me unaddicting. I want to become clear, transparent and I want to become me. To feel safe to be me. To not be afraid of me. I also want to understand the energetic ways of life. I want to love and be loved.

Wishing you a nice sober experiences.

xx, Feeling

Coping well with a crate of empty beer bottles, some shame, some darkness and some understanding of the internal Universe.

Yesterday a friend and I returned a crate of empty beer bottles which had been on my balcony for over 4 years. As I live on the 4th floor without an elevator I used to drink from cans but… at some point, 4 years ago I was trying to quit and then favo beer came on sale in the bottles. I promised myself that it would not be so bad if I just moderated. Well, I guess you know how that works out…  Some 4 years and 2 days later….  I FINALLY got to bringing it back. 🙂 It has 4 euro deposit money so obviously I wanted to cash that.

All this time of not drinking I had been hesitant to bring the bottles back. At first the rattling of bottles in a crate ignited thoughts of drinking. Later it brought back specific memories of what I call our ‘drunken nest’  at home. My dad, brother, friends and I would drink bottled beer on a summer evening at a campfire. I won’t go romanticising this because the truth was that I was already addicted then and the family dysfunctional partially because of the use of alcohol. Looking back now I realise that both my parents had ‘the gene’ even though they never got into it to the max. My father did for a few years when he studied but that finished off his study and he had to move back to his teetotaler parents so that sorted that.

That is the thing with drinking while having a family: it is not only the person who drinks who is affected, it is everybody. When drinking my mother was not available, not for normal conversation, not for connecting, everything was ‘dealt’ with quickly and in an irritated manner. She made clear that we came between her and her drink, or as she would phrase it: “the only moment of the day I have to myself”.  A lot of the issues I could have used help with as a teenager, like sexual assault where not spoken off because she was already irritated when I mentioned something simple as school stuff. That is what she taught us; alcohol is more important than you are. And in my twisted and already addicted mind that read: drinking = solving problems.

When my dad drank he would become even more convinced of himself and start orating for 3 hours on end on dark subjects nobody was interested in like doomsday and the end of times. Hmm, orating for 3 hours… how does that sound familiar? If anybody protested, specifically when my mother protested, he would lash out like trying to win the first price for bullying.  After that we would all smooth it over with more booze. Flush the tension away.

Mike from the blog ‘dharmaholic‘ spoke about having a family and drinking a few days ago in an interesting post and the shame based family:

For your information, here are some of the things Bradshaw (edit: writer of the book ‘Healing The Shame That Binds You’ about shame, shame based families and addiction) speaks about parent modeling and why shame-based parents have little ability in these matters.

‘Modeling includes how to be a man or a woman; how to relate intimately to another person; how to acknowledge and express emotions; how to fight fairly; how to have physical, emotional, and intellectual boundaries; how to communicate;how to cope and survive life’s unending problems; how to be self-disciplined; and how to love oneself and another. Shame-based parents cannot do any of these”.

That was how my parents failed to be present to my brother and I, to themselves, to eachother and to family and the few friends they had; because of their drinking and their fights with themselves and the fights between them. 😦

The tv-series Patrick Melrose (addicty trying to get clean and trying to deal with his past of abuse) is on in The Netherlands. Obviously my parents were not quite as far away from me as his and the abuse did not come from within the family – but what is very familiar is that undertone of dread. continuous insecurity, fearing I, my integrity, would be attacked, abused. In early childhood I could ‘get over things’ and ‘forget about them’ but the older I grew and the more incidents added on the more I would freeze. And from early puberty onwards I was continuously in a fight/flight/freeze….. and drink mode.

Ok, well, back to the crate on the balcony. I had cleaned the balcony but the crate was staring at me. Earlier I thought keeping it was a good idea to remind me of my stupidity and all the wrongs I had done. I mentioned this to  friend who came by and she said: if you do not dare to do it alone, let’s go take it to the store together. We did. 🙂 While walking I spoke about the sound being a trigger. She mentioned that it triggered her to drink cola because it reminded her of bottles of cola. 🙂 That is about focusing on not continuously fighting the old, but replacing our behaviour with new behaviour. In this case that would be drinking cola which I will not – but the sound could be from apple juice or water bottles too. Good changes. 🙂

Also: now I am able to detect what was going on and how this crate calls up memories, guilt and self-hate. In the last 4 years I have also developed some form of self-worth to realise that the hurt coming with the memories and my own judgement is not so much ‘what I deserve’ but more ‘what I learned to do to myself’. I realise guilt is a suitable emotion when applied in moderation in the correct situation. However feeling guilty, always, about everything, about being alive is not a sustainable way of living – so to say. 😉

For me shame is a big issue and finding back my voice, my right to live and right to protect myself, my right to be safe is difficult. So many damaged my physical and emotional  integrity to rid themselves of their own feelings of shame through aggressive sexual acts against me. Sexual abuse was the key ingredient of my parents marriage with daily doses of forced sex. That layer of vile acts seeped through the family and poisoned everbodies’ mind, heart, soul and energy system.

So yeah, shame is something to work on for me. And I am guessing at some point in my life it would be nice to be free of reproaching my parents for letting me down. Hell, not reproaching parents for having kids and thinking they can keep them safe while my mother actually knew their marriage would be a destructive one, would be nice. And yes, I know this is twisted thinking but that is a part within which is fucked up badly. I decided that I would never have kids because I would not want to do to anybody what my parents did to me / did not do for me. Everybody kept on and keeps on saying ‘but they were trying their best’. But if unleashing ones own shame on kids is the best… I don’t want to walk down that road. And knowing I was addicted to alcohol: what did I have to offer? Continuation of damaged genes and sick coping mechanisms?

Back to the crate: 3 Years and 10 months sober I do not have to ‘keep up appearances’ and then buckle under the weight of shame and self-hate only to drink again. I am now able to voice my worries to a friend who comforts me and helps me out in a practical way: walk with me to the store, be present to my discomfort. And I am able to accept that just as it is without feeling inferior. I can thank her for that without feeling stupid and not suitable to live.

Those are a lot of changes. 🙂 I am not in AA but seeing how my developments go I can see how they touch upon the 12 steps. 🙂 And indeed, how resentment is an important part of me and it hinders me. But I can not step past the deliberate hurt they caused me, for putting me in harm’s way on purpose, for not listening when I expressed abuse. For sending me back into social situations in which I had been abused. For not believing me when telling them my brother was egging the abusers on. For not believing me my brother pulled a knife at me. For disbelieving everything I said from that point onwards because ‘he would not do such stuff’. Well. He did. And they did. And while I was losing myself and almost soiled myself my mother was looking sincere but not fully. I never understood until I learned about micro-expressions; that explained the glimpses of joy combined with power and sex. Vile. She was smiling at me and experiencing lust when sending me back into the crowd with luring, lusting and grabbing guys willing to go to any length to get some action – there was no protecting me. Because drinking. Because my misery made her feel less alone? I do not know. She had been perverted and now it was my turn. That is what families are about: handing down experiences. Unfortunately that counts for the darker ones too. 😦 Patrick Melrose is very explicit about not wanting to live in this system himself and at the same time behaves exactly the same way his father did. 😦

That’s the thing isn’t it: we all think we will be there for kids, friends, nephews, nieces, family,  colleagues, neighbours when they want to express something awful and need help. But the reality is: as long as we do not look at our own pain and darkness, kids, friends, nephews, nieces, family, collegues, neighbours turn into people who are uncomfortable to be around with after they have been hurt. Typically kids who have been abused or bullied will not ‘just cry’ so others can feel sorry for them and comfort them. They have been touched by the shame of the abuser and therefore do not feel the right to cry anymore. They whine, become silent, they can become aggressive or withdraw and stumble over their own feet exactly when others ‘need’ them to be inspirational and show off. And if they can not perform beautifully on Sundays at grandma’s, at school or at football, at least don’t be a whining embarrassment. I cried, I begged, I moaned, I sabotaged and I got dismissed by my parents for whining so they send me back into the lion’s pit. I learned I had no value.

“You are an embarrassment, I am ashamed of you.” actually means: “Your behaviour touches something in me I can not carry, and I dislike you for reminding me of the shame, guilt, self-loathing I have inside.” That is how transfer works. I have shame, you remind me of it, I need to lash out so I can feel better, you feel worse and now you carry my shame.

The other way around: I am thinking, when experiencing discomfort like shame and unworthiness in dealing with somebody, especially kids, it is extremely important to be aware of what is going on and what is carried over, what does not want to be seen, what has no right to exist. Alcohol and other drugs prevents parents, teachers, therapists from doing that because addiction is a shame fueled misunderstanding of life.

In the last months I ended up in a dark depression and allowed myself to go into my underdog mode. Rock bottom will be the solid bottom on which I rebuild my life – I hope ;-). I will sink and sink till I let go of the attachment to destructive patterns. Knowing that I let go. I cut out everybody who did not exactly believe me as I experienced my life and speak about it. No matter how much I moan I expect people to listen and if they don’t they can get out of my life. I had to do that to make space for me to believe me, to take myself seriously, to take back room in myself to experience. Moaning only happens when people do not take their own pain seriously. Moaning is a structure of squeezing a non-existent pimple right next to a giant white head. I was going to not dismiss myself too, upfront. Not going to set boundaries to experiencing the damage which has been done. Not going to slightly change my story or leave stuff out to make people accept it.

My dreams looked and felt like this vid, that person. “The monsters are running wild inside of me. I am faded. So lost. I am faded.”

 

It was informative. The utter darkness of not wanting to live, not being able to be social, not taking care of me; it was dark. Days filled with planning on how to take my life. How will I make sure the right people take care of the cat and will keep her. How will I make sure they do not suspect that I’m not going on a holiday. Dark. Some days in I realised I was wanting myself out of my body constantly. Do you recognise that?

Also, I had changed the security settings to my blog and I had to type in the name to this blog every time I wanted to read something. I realised that I was not feeling my way back into life. I was pushing myself away from experiencing what was going on but making a ‘kill the ego’ solution to it by wanting to die. As I was laying in my bed anyway I dove into what was.

I can tell you, the running for the darkness and going into suicide thinking is dark. What is behind that within me is dark too but there is a difference. Behind it is destruction. It is natural. It is Thanatos. The Universe has 2 main powers: one is life and the other is death. You can call it light and darkness, yin and yang, whatever. One is expanding, the other is subtracting. The one can not live without the other. The substracting balances the growth. It is that which brings order to the chaos so the growth can follow a sustainable path, not grow wild, not overgrow itself. It sets boundaries to that without boundaries, which is infinite, which is unlimited. I dread endings. Every ending has an atmosphere of my brother dying. I dread boundaries and limits. I ‘chose’ an addiction which I thought helped me to avoid all of that – only to find that the alcohol in the end limited me. Which is correct. That is how Life is.

The darkness  is where I do not want to be, I relate this back to the suffering in the womb when my brother died. And funny; I realised that me backing away from this energy to quit building, to make sensible choices instead of wanting it all, makes it impossible for me to fulfill any project or actually achieve something in life because I dread the ending of it. The energy connected to ‘being done’ is for me connected with terror and death. So I back away.

And obviously, in backing away I do not accept life on life’s terms and get unbalanced. 😦 Just Universal laws. The darkness, it is real. It is part of Life. It is natural. I feel I have gotten an extra leg to walk on, like parts in my body have re-integrated with experiencing this darkness within. The suicidal thinking is another darkness, one with ‘opinions’ and ‘wants and needs’, an ego created darkness. The darkness of Life, as I experienced it then is just what it is: destruction. Not personal. Not focussed on the ego. Overwhelming and powerful but true and clear. Quite a relieve actually.

The last month has been about falling apart, looking at all the pieces and the glue which kept them together. Most of the glue is/was not so much a life force but it consists of freeze. Frozen emotions, frozen processes, blocked paths through life. Funny how that what I fear ‘the darkness’ actually ends up building my system itself and preventing the opposite ‘Life’ to happen. Which is… exactly how I think it works. I wanted to find freedom in alcohol while I found enslavement. I wanted financial freedom while I found that depletes my funds :-). I wanted to live without boundaries while I found that means that indeed I reach nothing. I want to explain stuff and bury people in words.

Living Life on life’s terms. 🙂 I have made a big step and while I thought I stepped into the darkness I stepped into freedom. Not kaboom Light, but well, relieve, understanding of the workings of me. Experiencing internal freedom, you know; when you understand stuff and feel your DNA change. 🙂

One of the characteristics of people with a vanishing twin is that they can not finish stuff. Their energy is in the start of a project and then…. pfffff…. they seem to lose interest, fall into pits nobody else would fall in, digress (like now ;-)) find another subject which is way more interesting. I have that. It looks like something which could be just ‘solved’ with improving my moral. But that is not how it works. Like addiction is not a moral disease, my running for the darkness which I connect to endings is not a moral failing either – it is a structural design mistake of my energetic system, or a solution my system made up to deal with the trauma. It would however be very nice to sort of get a grip on my life. 😉 Fix it. Quick! 😀 Getting there.

Some days I can eat well which means 2 home-made meals a day. Sleep well, which by now means going to bed before 02:00 (waaaaay to late for me). Read some, currently the Artemis Fowl series again. I clean the house before visits from friends and the hug-budy which means at least weekly cleaning. He is a cosy, sexy comfort but even after 7 months I do not want to engage into a full sex act. It is actually quite interesting to do all the other things which normally fade out of a relation. When was the last time you spend 4 hours hugging, talking, tickling, massaging and well, some more sexually oriented frolicking?

I am starting to notice differences between us which I am not sure we can or I want to bridge. Also I am not sure if being friends with benefits is a good thing for my dysfunctional heart. Sometimes it only teaches my heart to be more dysfunctional; loving is ok, receiving is impossible. Addict trait; don’t touch me. My heart is shut.

Workwise I am still lost on what and where. The social security people have put me at the bottom of the pile. I guess this is because I start crying every time they ask a question…. sigh, how will I ever be ‘normal’ again? I just don’t know what I want. I want a simple job in a safe environment. But the simple jobs don’t seem to come with safe environments until I find some stability within myself. Having stepped in the darkness behind my own ‘made-up’ darkness is a good thing. However, I do not know how many layers this onion has. And if I need to peel them all to be able to function again at my level of education. Or maybe, maybe, the level at which I am supposed to function is not equal to my emotional intelligence or stress control and maybe I never will. I am going to ask the social security if they can help find out what I want and can do, where my strengths and weaknesses are. Writing short posts is not one of them ;-).

Post 526 in this blog. 🙂 I am happy that I quit. I realise that my happiness is something of an ‘obligatory’ thing. I do not experience a lot of happiness lately, more ‘relieve’ from the darkness. That does not count in my daily practise for ‘being happy that I quit’ but there is no other experience currently. I do resent drinking. My SIL was eating an oven dish with mushrooms in a wine-cheese sauce. I had forgotten about the wine and took a small bite. MG. Tastes like cheese vomit. Brrrr…. People with alcohol breath smell like they swallowed cleaning agent. So no, not in the danger zone but it worries me that I do not ‘repair’ more quickly. And then again: I have gotten a big dose of the darkness and this comes back layer after layer. These last weeks have changed a lot. I hope when the next bout of depression comes a long I am brave enough to really feel into it again. 🙂

Wishing you a good sober night/day.

xx, Feeling

Clinging to the non-clinging (?!)

This morning I wrote the previous post ‘Dying is not the problem – sort-of= ish‘ And when re-reading it I found what I had noticed earlier that I write about ‘upholding the status of not clinging’ which, in grown up terms would probably refer to non attachment but in my specific issue here it was not ‘just’ attachment, it was clinging. So I call it clinging.

“Now the practise for me is to maintain and uphold the status of ‘not clinging’ insight in daily life. Ghegheghe….. guess that will take some practise since we live in a world where clinging, wanting, striving is very much stimulated as a tool to ‘make you happy’. “

Did anyone notice the strangeness of upholding ‘not clinging’. Contradictio in adjecto much? To really arrive back again (?) at the place where I had this beautiful, freeing insight I guess I should exactly NOT be clinging to the non-clinging. 😀 New Task. Can be done I guess, it is like letting the train of an urge to drink pass by without attaching. And then for every train, no matter what is on it. Hihihihihi…. easy peasy ?????!!!

” Then what would I do in Life?? If I do not cling, if I do not have opinions? What is left of me?” Shouted the caddis I am. A caddis is a larvae of some insect, it lives under water and gathers all kinds of pieces of ‘rubbish’ which get built into a armour to protect its delicate skin, its life. I feel I do that with fears, with experiences, with well, whatever; building an outer armours to fend new experiences off. To not be touched, not be hurt again. My system reacts as if touching, in the sense of being touched equals pain for me. Seems to be an addicty trait. But disconnecting and carrying rubbish around also hurts. 🙂

Things are shifting, things have shifted in the last 3,5 years. Very slowly the armour gets lighter. Sometimes it gets heavier but that also means clearer. The systems that uphold the armour and the systems which are uphelt by the armer get clearer and lose their energetic intensity. Or, when getting more intense, they also get clearer.

I am still reading ‘There is nothing wrong with you’ from Cheri Huber but now 2-4 pages a day. I’m at the part where I need to understand (WTF) I need to do with my life if I do not criticise myself and put me down.

Live without attachment to the outcome. Or so they say. Currently not exactly sure that is what Cheri says. I’m not there yet. I need to practise the feel of that more in order to continue reading. Possibly I need to re-read stuff. How do other people do that? I have friends who read several books a month. I can’t. Too intense. My cells don’t shift so quickly.

A lot of books are written on the subject of not attaching. I have read a few. I am guessing this is one of those experiences I need to feel through in combination with some exploration by the mind. I am thinking today I found a good experience to remember and hopefully to re-experience. My heart however is still shifted into a cramp and I keep on burping.

It is time to go to bed. In addition to writing the above I need to add here that since a few weeks I am taking added Iodine and some Schuessler salts. The salts are specifically for letting go. Some of them help me lose water weight too. Which…..  I am not sure (I am VERY SURE) if I am fooling myself because I eat a bag of chips and some very salty cheese in really hot weather without drinking a lot and then go ‘Whoops, I need to shed waterweight because my feet are swelling up’. Abuse, just comes easy to me. It could be a song. But I am learning. Right now my heart (!!!) softly tells me: you do not have to write that. No need, let go.

I feel my heart is coming alive again. Today I walked up 4 long stairs and I was a little out of breath and my heart was pumping. My first reaction was fear but then I remembered the pride I used to feel as a child in the strength of my body and everything changed. The air I was taking in was not a desperate gasp but life bringing oxygen. The pumping of my heart not a desperate attempt to stay alive but the strong beating of a heart which joins with the body to do work.

Did I tell you the hug-buddy missed me and invited himself back over. Hmmm, it is like an addiction; stop for a while without really pulling out the root of the desire…. the attachment deepens when you re-connect again. And yes, I know, when it comes to man-women things that comparison could be perceived a little awkward…. But I guess that is the revengeful bitch in me speaking. Pulling out roots. Ghegheghe… did not do that.  That sounds weird too. Gonna leave it in here thought because I resorted to a little aggressive behaviour and this comparison is part of that. Same shit as talking about pulling out roots. Not good. Ramadan coming up next Tuesday, no hugging with the hug-buddy so he says. That is good -> talk time.

I am grateful I do not drink anymore. A few posts ago I wondered about my sobriety. I have reset my wish for sobriety and clarity, newly expressed it to myself and that feels way better. I guess I was taking it for granted like ‘3,5 years no problem, what’s gonna happen to me now’. But that is not sobriety. I need intent to become clear. Move beyond only the not drinking. Not drinking is only a ‘tool’. Or more like an area of destructive behaviour I should not move into when I want to become clear. I guess today the experience of being able to, for a certain amount of time, be conscious of letting go of attachment to my dying brother has helped me with that. Being clear is good.

Thank you for reading. I wish you a good sober day or evening or weekend! Enjoy!

xx, Feeling

Dying itself is not the problem – sort-of-ish

I was reading and commenting on a post of Renovatio06 and went into experiencing the death of my womb brother again. I copied part of my comment to his post here and added some.

I must really improve my phsysical health because at moments like this my heart feels like it is exploding. Pumping like crazy. Can’t breathe, can not inhale actually. Not sure what that means. My lungs are full because I do not exhale. Guess it is part of the experience in the womb. Well, anyway, staying with it did give me an insight which I thought I would share: Dying itself is not the problem, though overwhelmingly BIG as an experience it is within the human spiritual domain. The pain comes with the resistance and the longing.

Which, yeah, everybody tells you that, but telling and knowing is, at least in my life, not the same as realising it at cell level.

Comment to Renovatio06: Not sure if you heard of this, but thought I would drop by and leave a comment. I have not gone through the full text of your link but I am familiar (ish) with Grof’s work op BPM’s, having had several days course on the subject, several holotropic breathing experiences and some ayahuasca trips. The darkest memory I have of prenatal trauma is that of my twin brother dying in the womb. That brought me right into hell. I had no knowledge of vanishing twin syndrome (VTS) or the effects of it at that time in my life. Based on a several second spontaneous experience which I am sure was a re-living of what had happened before I wrote down 10 points which I realised were ‘odd’ about me and had been shaped in that experience. When reading my first book on VTS I found that those 10 were either chapter subjects or otherwise important paragraphs in the text itself. It was like a homecoming – into a hell of enormous loss and sadness that is, but it was.

10 Out of a 100 pregnancies start as a multiple, only 1 out of 100 is born multiple, so 1 out of about 10 people have lost what I call ‘half of myself’ before they were born. A fetus, a baby is no less human than a child which can not bike yet, or a teenager without a drivers license, or an adult without a 50 inch colour TV (Edit: although advertised and understood by many as such: being able to do things, or have things, does NOT make a person more of a person – conciousness already exists within when life kicks in.) A fetus is alive and has consciousness – less developed, not fully expressed, not fully incarnated often, but it is there. Having re-experienced the impact of the death of my twin brother as an adult I can only say that I would assume it to be a ‘good’ base for hellish NDE’s (near death experience). It is my understanding today that dying is part of the human experience which the consciousness understands and is ok with. Logically the biology resists it but it can be integrated when the mind/ego does not interfere too much. Experiencing (not seeing; experiencing, re-living) somebody else die which whom you identify as yourself mixes stuff up big time. Like having Kali over for tea. 😦

Funny idea though, to combine experiences before birth with after death. 🙂 Although, writing about it now I realise the hell was my resistance to him dying. Dying itself is not the problem, though overwhelmingly BIG as an experience it is within the human spiritual domain. The pain comes with the resistance and the longing.

End of comment.

Obviously dying ‘not being the problem’ is something different when haha, experiencing it for real and having the biology kick in. 🙂 Biology on itself does not want to die, it wants to live and procreate. Now the practise for me is to maintain and uphold the status of ‘not clinging’ insight in daily life. Ghegheghe….. guess that will take some practise since we live in a world where clinging, wanting, striving is very much stimulated as a tool to ‘make you happy’. Advertising never tells you that, it actually makes one very unhappy and causes all kinds of spiritual maladies.

I guess that is the same for not drinking and living in itself: it is not the experience of not drinking which ‘hurts’ it is the clinging to what I think I have lost. It is generally not the experience of being real to Life which hurts the worst, it is the clinging to ‘how it should have been’, tryng to have and experience the imagined ideal.

I am grateful that I do not drink alcohol anymore. Experiences like this, however painfull at first bring me insights which, dunno, cool down my system a little? Take out parts of the continous stress my system seems to be in.

I wish you a beautiful sober day / night.

xx, Feeling