Dealing with trauma triggers - part 4

It goes beyond saying that a divorce triggers an awful lot. For me, it was not only dealing with a broken marriage, but confronting a person who had grown so similar in personality to my mother which made the decision to cut chords all the more difficult.

I use the words "had grown", but in hindsight the similarities were always there, occasionally flaring up like red flags which I willingly ignored. Although that is also not entirely true. The "willingness" is embedded in an intricately woven web of intrigue and betrayal, of shaming and blaming, of gaslighting, letting loose flying monkeys and stone-walling, of breadcrumbing and hoovering. You go from feeling in love and respected n a sudden rollercoaster down to feeling less than shit on his shoe. It is maddening. It is sickening. Because on one particular day you look into the mirror and you don't recognize the person looking back. 

Breaking up with narcissistic-manipulative people is one of the toughest things to do, especially when there are children involved. There have been many, many times I wished I could go no contact with him as I eventually managed to do with my parents. But sharing a son, and a lovely one at that, creates much more problems than merely the logistic ones. My waking-up call came years after the boy was born - I was trying really hard not to see the marriage had all too easily turned into a dead horse that did not wish to be pulled from its resting place. The negative energy of anxiety and anger which filled our house, was suffocating. Something had to give. Or rather someone. What I had been thinking, assuming all this time, came true. he pestered me out of the house, made me contact the divorce counselor and get everything arranged. Meanwhile, he could show himself off as the easygoing soon-to-be ex, who does not want to make things difficult. The outside world is a great stage. Often I wished the outside could peep inside our closed off home - to see that other side he saved just for me. And the child we share.

✿ by the time he comes back, he has absorbed all behaviours and visions his father holds. Particularly the ones regarding me. My son is defiant, angry, easily frustrated, and obnoxious. An altogether different boy I waved off only 4 days ago

I am very careful how to share this here. I do not wish to speak ill, primarily because this involves my son's father and I want to believe in the basic goodness of all, nor do I want to get my own words backfired at me through flying monkeys. There have been times already the child was used as some sort of leverage to get back at me. I'm sure it won't be the last time.

When we were first divorced, 3.5 years ago, he was still a little boy; the main issue for him was with whom and for how long he would be staying. He had trouble with the to-and-fro but tried really hard to adapt. There also was less trigger by his father. Things changed rapidly however, as the boy is growing and the image he held of his father is already crackling. Recently, when the boy has been over there, especially for a longer period of time, by the time he comes back, he has absorbed all behaviours and visions his father holds. Particularly the ones regarding me. My son is defiant, angry, easily frustrated, and obnoxious. An altogether different boy I waved off only 4 days ago and also pretty oblivious of his demeanor until I point it out to him. Usually this escalates to a huge argument in which he lets all of his anger free, sadly this anger is directed to himself. Because he then sees what is happening. He may be only ten, but he understands a terrifying lot regarding this messy situation. For me it is difficult, because I still want him to have a decently good relationship with his father. When I ask him how things went, he tends to reply "It went well. At least, as well as could be expected." And then he casts me this glance that holds between mockery and disappointment. He is very loyal, to both of us, but I can tell how much it hurts him his father is changing so rapidly towards him.

✿ Because this man tries to force himself into my space, be it through passive nonsense texts or his foot placed aggressively on my doorstep, when I make clear I will not allow him in, which, done by a man of his stature, is quite intimidating.

These struggles of my son affect me greatly. They trigger a lot from the past as well. There are frightening parallels between my own raising and the way my boy is treated by his father. And there are frightening other ways in which the child gets sabotaged or worked against in his thriving and growing. I do sense jealousy, I do sense competitiveness (the unhealthy envious kind), I do sense resentment towards me because I do not need him as much as I used to, thanks to my own therapy and my own inner work, and I do sense that he uses this resentment against the child. But those are ... senses which I cannot prove. I can only be on my guard, as I have always been, and re-assess my boundaries time and time again. Because this man tries to force himself into my space, be it through passive nonsense texts or his foot placed aggressively on my doorstep, when I make clear I will not allow him in, which, done by a man of his stature, is quite intimidating. And since he is erratic and unpredictable, there is no saying to what ends he will go to get what he is looking for. 

It takes a lot out of me. And I make mistakes all the time. It often feels as if I am the Fool trying to outsmart the Knight, but my therapist insists I do as I am, because I am on the right path. She made clear I am lucky to have gotten out in time. And that, to me, is all I need to know to keep going. No matter how many migraines or exhaustion flares I get. 

"In a land far far away, there was a huge black tree, and the spirit living there, was as vile as a hangry wolverine"

As a child I used to withdraw in my writing and drawing. I was good at it, I thought, despite the toxic comments my mother and brother would rain down on me whenever I finished some project. They accused me of living in a fantasy world, of not being able to live a normal life, of losing touch with what is real. I guess they were right, it just took me a couple more years to realise that what I was doing, was indeed escaping my life.

My stories, they were kind of a safe haven, a place where I could be me, and no one would judge me. My father loved it. He donated me his own typewriting machine, which I used until the S and the E no longer would do what they wanted to do. By that time, my father had bought a computer, an Atari, which I was allowed to use to write my stories.

My father was the one who had given me The Lord of the Rings when I was 12, because the books in the children's library were all read and returned. I needed new fuel for my ever expanding creative and highly imaginatively brain. And so dad borrowed The Lord of the Rings on his library card and handed it to me to read. It was not an option as such. He really thought I should read it. He loved reading himself, not the classical works in Flemish literature a Stijn Streuvels and Hendrik Conscience, but the science fiction of Tom Clancy and the fantasy of Roger Zelazny. 

Aside from the sketching art course he coaxed me on taking - against mother's will - handing me The Lord of the Rings was the best thing he ever did for me. Because after reading Tolkien, I was very much hooked and it was that book that drew me into creating the worlds I would use to flee in.

In the worlds I created, peopled with mages, dwarves, dragons, elves and whatnot, I could talk like I wanted, be who I wanted to be, decide whichever way to go, eat and buy and sleep on my terms. I could fall in love and the other person would love me back. I could have parents who cared - like the ones I invented as a ritual role-play before bed time, the parents who would come and save me. I was five or six when I first created them and I held on to that soothing ritual till I was about 12, when my brother caught me and made a fool of me. I never knew if he told my parents. In my stories I would have siblings who got my back and helped me deal with difficult situations. If I start a story with "In a land far far away, there was a huge black tree, and the spirit living there, was as vile as a hangry wolverine", I can choose if my hero will venture there or not. It is up to me to make it a horror story, Dean Koontz like, or a comical one in Terry Pratchett's style. I may add werecats, or green moons, or storms that rain flower petals. I am the one in control, and that means I can add to my Healing. 

✸ Aside from the sketching art course he coaxed me on taking - against mother's will - handing me The Lord of the Rings was the best thing he ever did for me. 

My drawing knew a similar course: Before the typewriter, I used to devour comic books and create my own comics, apart from drawing everything I liked or wanted to be or do, such as figure skating, ballet, princesses, green landscapes and huge suns shining. Faeries I drew most of all. I loved their beauty and their connection to nature and all creatures living there. I loved the idea of medicinal stones and herbs, and the weaving of spells to make things better. My faeries would be very cliché though, tall and slender, with wings and long dresses the way Walhalla strutted around in the Asterix and Obelix stories. When I started my own writing, I would add sketches to the story. Sometimes I would draw a scene merely to help me visualize it, so I could weave it into words. That, too, proved some kind of escape and a more direct one to be frank, because the sketch would draw me straight into the story, and I would sense my surroundings as if I was really there. I found, while writing Isangraille, the final part of my epic fantasy series Zerían's Curse, which was published in 2012, that this drawing out also put me on the path of Healing - the visualizing could detach me from the pain and the sadness, and help me focus on milder, lighter feelings that come with creating these scenes. (Because yes, despite my absurdly low self-esteem, I would feel proud of what I was able to do, even though it was pride wrapped in immense guilt.)

Up to this day, my creative mind has been saving me time and again from the feelings of despair that well up from the past. I am nowhere near the Healing end spot, but my Little Boat of Healing is getting me there. The time my laptop needs to actually get ready for writing, I fill with drawing little sketches of wisdom I would share with people in similar situations, i.e. dealing with trauma due to narcissistic abuse, and worsened by both toxic choices based on trauma and chronic illness. I weave in the wisdom I pick up from meditating, from Rumi, from Tara Brach, as well as the gentleness I receive from friends as Birgit and Ilse. The lovingkindness of good/best friends is an immeasurable necessity to rediscover your core, to re-see the golden and beautiful you that you have held imprisoned out of protective needs all those long years. And they are not to be taken lightly, because it truly takes special friends to keep supporting you, as trauma will pull you back in the trance of Fears and Darkness, for whatever reason. As I experience ever so often, I will get overwhelmed by grief and hold myself in trance, unable to step out of it. And even though these moments grow fewer as time passes, they do not lose their weight. Their heaviness is a huge burden on who I am trying to become - milder, kinder, more patient, less judgemental, and above all, more loving towards myself. I realize like no other the burden I pose to those few caring souls, willing to sacrifice their time and energy to help me see the light again, that fragile silver lining that, sometimes, I am too scared to see.

#gingerkittysketch
#littleboatofhealing

 

#blackkittysketch

The feeling of being a tremendous burden, that is absolutely trauma triggered, and that I am fighting every day. And I know I could not do this without the friends I came to know and re-know in these past few years. Of course, many left as well. Friends that were the loudest to yell they would stay forever and not be like those 'ignorants who are not willing to invest in you', as one of those put it. Trusting that not everyone is like this, proved to be the first important hurdle for me to take in re-connecting. Sketching my Black Kitty Sketch helped me a great deal, because those seemingly innocent and deeply recognisable illustrations proved to be a grateful medium to start discussions about friendship, caring, trauma and all those things that make us who we are today.

It is a great asset when you can add writing - if only a diary or a notebook for thoughts that linger - to the understanding and love that your friends give to you. Because your mind is in dire need for new pathways. New roads that lead to soft and kind destinations. And you deserve to be at peace. You deserve to have a mind that's bathing in light and warmth. It is also for that reason that I created the Black Kitty Sketch line, as well as the Ginger Kitty Sketch. Both are immerse deeply in a #littleboatofhealing vibe, each in their own way. But I feel they help me, even long after I created them, and so I am hesitantly convinced they may help others. Hesitantly, because I feel it is not my place to decide what helps another and what not. It's up to whatever you choose or feel you need. You are the one in charge for and of every aspect in your mental well-being. You just have to trust that deepest of the deep inside you, that spark of gold waiting to be re-discovered.

Dealing with trauma triggers - part 3

Healing from trauma is not easy. It is a daily struggle that can make you feel intensely alone and lonely. Because so few understand what you are going through. As with Fibromyalgia, and the sacrifices it forces you to make, only those who live(d) the same experience are able to grasp your reality, if only to some extent. 

It was my dear friend Birgit who first came up with the hashtag "little boat of healing", after I had mentioned it in one of my poems on Instagram. Since then I posted several very personal pictures on Instagram, and inevitably, I got judged for being too sensitive, too negative, too dark. I stepped away from social media then, wondering if I should continue. My primary goal for the posting was trying to help others in similar predicaments. I know I'm not the only one dealing with this kind of trauma. Instagram-friends acknowledged that, stating it is my account, and I decided what content comes on it. But after I threw myself into my pit of darkness, a response consciously triggered by my ex who is suddenly being the best dad ever and takes my son out to do all sorts of activities he knows I am unable to do, I stepped away again. I needed time to reflect on what is going on. Inside. My mind often feels too full to function correctly, I get lost in my own thinking. I now part of this is caused immense exhaustion of being wary all the time, of carrying the Fibromyalgia pain, of being at constant war with myself. I had just started a Ginger Kitty Sketch theme on #littleboatofhealing, raw sketches only, but I do feel the need to draw more elaborately, freely. Because as the posting I did on Instagram did help me find some order in chaos, so too does my drawing. To be able to put thoughts onto paper in the form of images that mean something to me as well as other people, is a great asset I am pretty proud of. And I do not pride myself on something easily. As a matter of fact, that is one of the side paths I know I need to walk, while trodding on that big path of healing.

✸ As Tara Brach asks in one of her guided RAIN meditations: What would happen if you did not talk to yourself like that? What would happen if you let those thoughts go, what kind of person would you be?

I am seeing more patterns of trauma response daily now. The way I try to compensate for my ex's erratic behaviour towards our child, so similar to how I tried compensating towards my mother for my brother's wickedness. The blaming myself after I fell into yet another trap of my ex's, the way I always blame myself after something went wrong, even if I had nothing to do with it. The shutting down completely when the Darkness arrives and the desire to cut loose every bond I still have, so similar to how I used to confine myself to my room, unable of any kindness towards myself or the world. The blaming of others for the way I feel, when in fact a lot of my misery is kept alive by myself. As Tara Brach asks in one of her guided RAIN meditations: What would happen if you did not talk to yourself like that? What would happen if you let those thoughts go, what kind of person would you be? I reflect on that a lot, both in my own RAIN meditations as throughout the day. I often think, regardless, I would be a much kinder and nicer person had the trauma never happened. If my mother had been able to muster up her own courage to seek healing of her own. Instead she turned my family against me and blamed me for being so miserable. Amongst the beatings and all the other psychological warfare, that is. But it would be easy to blame her, and it would not help me to step out of the trance of traumatic response, which is why I need to work on me.

✸ I had just started a Ginger Kitty Sketch theme on #littleboatofhealing, raw sketches only, but I do feel the need to draw more elaborately, freely. 

Ginger Kitty Sketch will surely help me. And I will, eventually, return on Instagram, but just not now. I really need to get myself back on the road to healing again, and that requires focus on myself. Not in a selfish way but in a kind and caring manner, so that my self can grow while healing from those cracks and dents caused by the past. I am not naive, I know I will never heal completely and the scars will ache and itch from time to time. But to be able to recognise the dynamics, to see the patterns, and to acknowledge my own responses to situations - without judging them and without judging me - is essential. Right now, this self of mine is far too fragile, too susceptible to what others think I should be doing. I lost my self for a long time, and now that I found it again, I will not risk losing that connection. I will still get into trance, I will make mistakes and get overwhelmed by the Fears and the Darkness. It is an inevitable truth. But with each day passing I am confident I will grow to see those experiences as opportunities to grow from. It is a long, winding road that will continue throughout the rest of my living days. But now I know, deep in my heart, that I will not have to walk it alone. 

Dealing with trauma triggers - part 2

It is a difficult thing, growing. Especially when you were brought up to believe you are worth less than a fly's crap on the wall. It also is difficult because of the flashbacks and the night terrors, and the overall need for being vigilant. To be wary all the time is exhausting. It likely caused my body to develop both colitis ulcerosa and Fibromyalgia. While the first chronic illness is well under control and poses no issue, except for the hospital meds drip every 8 weeks, the latter caused me to lose my job as a children's therapist. It robbed me of much more, socially and financially, as well as freedom and connectedness. And my EMDR therapist acknowledged the base of it is likely rooted in childhood trauma. Thank you so much, mother, and father, and brother, for so cunningly creating the opportunities for the Fears and the Darkness to move into my self.

My earliest trauma memory pinpointed at age 4, with my mother pinching my nose forcefully to have me eat cold and thickened in oatmeal porridge. I am wearing my beautiful red terry cloth apron, with a fir tree and a deer on it. And I only feel fear, a deep deep threat, when I think of that moment. At that time, my brother was. He was a terrible pain in the ass. He could be quite gentle, but had a streak to his character that was right down vicious and evil. In time, that streak grew to become his main character. My mother lost control over him as soon as he turned 4. And that must have triggered a lot of trauma in her own being - she herself was seriously abused during her own childhood, by seemingly everyone of her family, but most by her parents. 

✸ The Darkness was so suffocatingly strong, I could barely see where I ended and the Darkness began; I had turned into it. 

The Fears and the Darkness have ruled my life for as long as I can remember.
That is, until the divorce created a schism. 

Because that divorce symbolised me saying: I deserve better than to be treated this way. I did not deserve his narcissism poured over me every single day, my child did not either. I certainly did not deserve to live the rest of my days in fear of what would happen if *he* lost it. I have only a slight idea about what he is capable of, and I did not risk to wait to find out. 

This change in my normal proved essential for growth. As I mentioned, I went looking for help, in order to save myself. That can be understood quite literally. The Darkness was so suffocatingly strong, I could barely see where I ended and the Darkness began; I had turned into it. Being always short on funds, as I am disabled and financially dependant on the Government for welfare income, I had no money to get proper therapy, but also, I had ambiguous and even bad experience with four different therapists earlier (one I was appointed to by the Pain Clinic, 3 others were relationship counsellors who each sided with my ex and made me responsible for the health of our bond), so I did not want another classic therapist.

✸ It became clear that my trauma wanted out. Out of my system. Out of my mind.

I turned to a coach, for highly sensitive people (HSP). That step proved also major in me looking for alternative ways of healing. I went to see the coach only twice, and later also a couple of times with my child, who is HSP as well. It became clear that my trauma wanted out. Out of my system. Out of my mind. I looked for meditation apps, and re-invested in my yoga practice. Later I also contacted an EMDR therapist, to dig into the core of trauma - when covid-19 shut down life as we knew it, this therapy was helping me greatly and I even experienced alleviation of my Fibromyalgia pain, but it could not be continued, as EMDR demands safety in face-to-face contact. We scheduled a video conference but then she forgot to actually schedule it and I felt forgotten, and unimportant; trauma trigger, indeed. We were able to do the conference anyway, and I did mention how I felt, and why - she was a bit taken aback by it - but since then there has been silence, and I am afraid to reach out, fearing she does not have time for me; yes, trauma trigger again. I have no idea when I will have the courage to step out of that triggered thinking.

In the meantime, I focus on meditation and yoga, and I also dare to reach out to those special souls who have supported me for so long. That, too, is growing, if you ask me. Because with these friends, even though the Fear of Abandonment is still strong, I feel I can risk to be open. And with the RAIN meditation I am able to both acknowledge, allow and soothe the Fear.

Dealing with trauma triggers - part 1

Looking back on my life, my growing up to the person I am today feels like an entanglement of traumatic episodes, kept alive by attaching myself to similarly toxic persons as the one who started the primary narcissistic abuse. Those episodes, in addition, are not seldomly triggered by seemingly innocent events or confrontations, pushing me into the corner of defense and self-destructive talk, leading me time and again into a vicious cycle of hamster-wheel running. And I get tired of it, literally and figuratively speaking.

So, where to start in the attempt to get out of this trance, as Tara Brach calls these moments of being caught up in the emotional backlash, the limbic response to life?

For me, change subtly took off when I got divorced. Seemingly amiable in nature, this divorce was in fact mean and slick. It was a matter of conceding on my part, and loads of resistance on his. We had made a list of things we each liked to keep, equal in worth. It turned out, as I realised years later, that I had willingly given up a lot of stuff that was in my right to keep. He never mentioned that of course. He even got upset when I insisted on keeping the good steaming iron as my - weird - parents had given that to me as it is an easier and much lighter one than the old iron. There was a minor quarrel over books to keep; minor, because I soon gave in. I was reluctant to start bickering over that - books were stuff, not things I absolutely wanted to take with me. As far as I was concerned, I just wanted out, to be safe. And I wanted my child out too, for his safety. My ex was a very unpredictable force of darkness back then, and he was frightening me.bulging under frustration.

✸ I would talk myself right into my own pit of darkness, deep enough to be unable to see any flicker of light.

His darkness since then crept back under his skin, seeping through in carefully timed flashes, mingled in with neutral or even kind conversations, flipping the scales straight back into the turmoil of the marriage. Now that I am physically away, it feels easier to take those moments on, but only slightly so. At first, I fell into every single trap - he would say something he knew triggered me, and I was on it, head on, bulging under frustration, anger, self-resentment, blame and guilt. I would talk myself right into my own pit of darkness, deep enough to be unable to see any flicker of light. Two years after the divorce, things got so bad I realised I needed help. Right away. That decision saved my life.

This is the fourth year after fleeing the marriage, and I have been working on dealing with my childhood trauma which got enhanced by both the marriage and the toxic friends I mingled with. It is a strange thing, the way we look to attach to what we know to be normal. Not too long after my initial EMDR therapy sessions I recognised how I desperately try bonding to people who are similarly toxic as my mother and my ex are. It still is mind-blowingly baffling to me. I have put myself in emotionally destructive situations, just because they were familiar. As a result my responses were inevitably trauma triggered: I'd lose myself into blaming them, blaming me, shaming myself, resent myself and wanting to disappear because I was as useless as a pig's backside (as my mother used to snap at me; another favourite was that I was too stupid to dance for the devil). I'd shut down completely and attack the friends triggering me, posing myself as a miserable piece of shit that they maltreated consciously. no wonder I lost so many people back then. No wonder I started to think nobody loved me because see, they were always leaving me, sometimes after yet another trauma tantrum, or after they had used me for whatever healing they needed me and then lost interest. Both happened on a regular basis, I just kept blaming them and blaming me, and failed to see what was underneath it all. I call them the Fears and the Darkness. 

Peach, A story of Trigeminal Neuritis

It's been a while since my last update on the cats and their NHV supportive system. Yesterday I added this year's medical course in the family diary, just to keep track of things, and to have all information listed in one spot. This year already is proving to be very challenging, what with Tiger's Hyperthyroidism and Peach's Trigeminal Neuritis. There is treatment for the first; not so much for the latter. And this is where NHV, once again and thank goodness for that, steps in.

No lust for life

When Peach first showed signs of struggling, it was early March. He stopped eating, got very uptight, and lethargic, as if life lost all meaning. As a normally social and entertaining kitten - he had yet to turn 2 years old back then, but we keep referring to him as a kitten - he grew distant, grumpy and he started keeping to himself. He started keeping his mouth slightly open, without any significant reason. He lost weight too. I checked his gums and they showed a thin blood-red line right above his teeth, there also seemed to be a tiny ulcer in his throat. My hopes that maybe he had eaten something bad in the garden, faded quickly.

Within 5 days - with a weekend in between - I contacted the vet. X-rays were taken, blood was drawn, vitals were checked, gums and throat were closely looked at. She did not like the mouth staying open. At all. She feared a heart issue, and since he is so young, she ruled that out first. The blood test came back okay, luckily.

The X-rays she took then, showed no infection of teeth or jaw bone. His 

gums showed mild inflammation but not as bad as for him to stop eating. The ulcer in his throat posed no issue, either. "However, there could be inflammation of the jaw joint, and that does not show on the x-ray." So he was treated for that: Antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory/painkiller, for about a week. The gum issue would heal that way too. (Treatment from March 11 until March 20.) Not too long after we discovered that Peach had some urinary issues as well: There was grit found in his bladder. So he was put on Hill's k/d dry food to help ease that. I could always soak the kibble in water if he was unable to eat it. 

In the meantime I contacted NHV who have been very helpful in the past, with Spook, and stepped in with Patches' flakey skin as well as Tiger's Hyperthyroidism. We agreed to give Peach Tripsy to support his kidneys, and also Mouth Drops for gums and Turmeric to boost his immune system. Though he likes the Tripsy (he licks it straight from the dispenser), he detests the bitterness of the Turmeric and the sharpness of the Mouth Drops, so at that time, I took to giving him only the Tripsy as he started to hide from me at dinner times.

Steroids treatment combined with NHV supplements

After the antibiotics treatment, we had to wait and see how things went. It was easily noticed: Eating remained a big issue. He'd grow tired while eating, he refused anything that he could not lick up. As weeks went by, he'd sometimes skip meals all morning, but take to afternoon meals like a wolverine who's been on a hunger strike. Then, all of a sudden, the dry kibble proved to be easy manageable again - if only as fast snack times.

By the end of April, the vet and I talked about possible medical treatment and decided to put him on a short treatment of steroids. It might help with pain and discomfort. I got back to the people of NHV and we decided to add Turmeric and Yucca. 

The - short term - steroid treatment did not do a lot for his issues, but during that time, Peach seemed to return to his frolicking, cuddly self. He would again ask for scritches and hugs, he would play again with Spottedleaf, he would run in the garden and even snatch a blackbird chick from its nest.

In six weeks (April 28 until June 7) he was safely put off the meds, but we continued giving him the supplements. 

What now?

After I wrote the vet an update on both Tiger and Peach, he got back to me yesterday. We talked about the progress of the Trigeminal Neuritis and a scan to determine how bad the jaw is affected. The vet advised against it, stating it would not be helpful regarding treatment (as there is none for a cat this young, and we had just discovered the steroids are not that effective), and it would need Peach to be anesthetized, which he'd rather not to for something that would not be helpful. Plus he said, knowing my financial situation, it would also be quite expensive for something that would only confirm what we know and not be a guideline towards healing. He will struggle with eating for the rest of his life but at least it is unlikely the illness will progress to affect his entire face. 

So today we celebrate Peach and his tremendous courage, for strutting his way from a stray 5 week old kitten to a loving 2 year old companion who comforts you when you are sad and who treats you to melodious purring when you gently massage his face. 

Naive, but also "MY boobs. No touching without consent, regardless what colour you are"

I know I have been leading a so-called privileged white life, although I am being discriminated for other issues than the colour of my skin, and in far less violent ways - being in the margins of society but still receiving monthly disability checks, for instance. So I am not familiar with the blunt, arrogant, massively violent ways in which people of other ethnicities are attacked and humiliated, robbed of their humanity. 

The last week Twitter and Instagram, and likely Facebook too (but I don't have an account there), have exploded in messages and reports on the horrible deaths of people who should still be living their lives right now: A white supremacist belief has taken over common sense, killing Black people, fighting Black people, wrecking Black people, all because, yes, these people are Black. That is their crime, the colour of their skin.

I knew to some extent racism still rules profoundly in every country but I never knew. Now I am reading in on the topic, as I realised here, in Belgium, too there is a viciousness at work that needs to be stopped - politics playing racist cards and far right parties gaining voters every day. A young woman being offered a prestigious function at the liberal party is bashed because she has Iraqi roots - what the fuck? I mean, NO! People, this is 2020 - we are supposed to be the highest evolved species in human history, we are supposed to understand - and practice - the value of respect, acceptance, cooperation and complementing each other. We are supposed to be able to maximize our capacity to empathize and be kind ...

"That, I know, is a very naive take on the world, but it is a view I love to hold on to, a view I keep passing on to my son"

 

Am I naive? Yes. I think so. I am naive in thinking everyone should be mature enough to see each other's worth, beyond the colour of skin. We are all people with hearts that beat in the same rhythm of life, souls yearning for kindness, and a capability of limitless loving. We are capable of helping and sustaining each other, of supporting and cheering on one another. Religion and origins should never be the reason not to. 
That, I know, is a very naive take on the world, but it is a view I love to hold on to, a view I keep passing on to my son and whoever his friends are.

Where is the racist in me?

I am following Layla F. Saad on Instagram and I have to admit, I both admire and fear the fierceness of this lady. Unaware yet of her personal story, but knowing she had more than her share of white shit, I can only imagine her own anger and fear. I am to read her novel as soon as my funds allow. 
But yes, I fear her fierceness, because her words invoke some sort of accountability, as if I am part of the problem. So I tried looking at me - ways in which I allow racism to exist. 

After I went to a public elementary school, where I shared my classroom with poor white, olive, brown and black kids, I moved to a moody, capricious neighbourhood, known for its delinquency and rare serious crimes, where a big part of the city's Turkish community lived. It was not safe for a woman, let alone a girl, walk out there alone after dark - and even daytime was tricky, as I found out. Many times I was addressed by Turkish men in unmistakable sexist ways, varying from "lovely knees" to pricking my chest to check if my boobs were real - this happened while on the tram and with people surrounding me but no one intervened. As I was being abused by my narcissistic mother ever since I was a little girl, I had no idea of what to do, so I just did a turtle escape - I huddled in myself and pretended it did not happen.

One time, a black man came up to me, asking me if I could translate a letter for him since he only spoke English, and Flemish was too hard for him. He seemed in real distress so I did go with him, eager to help him. It was a bit weird, I have to admit, as he led me to this strange door in an even stranger building - it was a part of my neighbourhood I usually skipped. I cannot remember what the letter was about: I only recall the frenzy of my mother when she found out. I was called stupid and idiot and naive and all things ugly for trusting a black man, who had a sincere question for help.

Later I would have many encounters with Moroccan, Algerian, Turkish and Black young men; I learned a lot, but at that time, there was still so much I did not understand. The way they saw themselves as outcasts, for instance. The communities they were homed in, the outskirts of town, like ghettos.

I know now my attraction was a rebellious act against my parents, my mother in particular, who still is embarrassingly racist and would often comment viciously on Muslim women and the physically and/or mentally disabled. My mother is of Indonesian descent herself, her parents were both Dutch-Indonesian and fled Indonesia after my grandfather was released from a Japanese work camp. They went to Holland where they built a family they abused and destroyed, struggling to fit in and coping miserably with the consequences of WWII.

Standing up for yourself is not racism

Just now, at dinner, I had an interesting talk with my ten-year-old son, about how to be a good person, accepting each other's differences in skin, upbringing and gender. I told him how proud I am of him for not relying on colour of skin to decide who would be his friend. And when I explained to him that sexist discrimination still existing here, in a country that so proudly shows its gender friendliness, he was adamant in stating he would never be such a man who thinks less of a woman.

All this is me looking into myself in order to find the racist in me. I think it is fair to say there have been times I was scared of the Turkish and Moroccan young men, grouping together and mustering every girl that passed them. Even me. I always thought myself an ugly girl - something my mother encouraged, by making me wear ugly glasses and forcing baggy clothes in dull tones on me, remember, she is a narcissistic-manipulative person and she raised me to never feel good about myself - but somehow the boys of Turkish and Moroccan descent seemed to think I was worth calling to, though I often felt like cattle being scrutinized. It always left me confused and wondering if I was racist for wanting them to stop calling to me. It seemed that any form of criticism to someone with non-white roots was bombarded as racist.

The "lovely knees" sticks with me to this day, and I remember myself smiling dryly and saying in a rather mocking tone "thank you", leaving the boy rather speechless. I would never call them names or curse them, I just tried my sarcasm, as it helped me dealing with my mother and brother too.

 

Later, at University, there were considerable few students who were not white. I had different encounters there, white boys grouping the way the non-white boys in the area where I lived, ill-tempered and bad-mannered, and scrutinizing girls in equally foul ways. They spread a high sense of fear, and a waft of beer and marijuana that made me sick. 

But would I call myself racist?

No.

Would I now stand up for myself if one grabbed my boobs as this man did when I was 17?

Hell yeah.

Would THAT be racist?

No, why? I am setting a boundary there, it is MY body, MY boobs. No touching without consent, regardless what colour you are.

"because when at one time I expressed my sadness and, yes, frustration about this, my son said, 'I believe she [the Romanian mother] really likes to talk to you but she may feel kind of embarrassed, perhaps she's afraid of making mistakes'"

Since then, I have had many nice encounters with women of another ethnicity than me. I never actually think "Oh, let's have a talk with my neighbour of Brazilian descent" or "I am going to try talk to this Romanian mother now". I do not see them that way - they are women who are also mothers and who I happen to meet in the street or at the school or whatever. I want to talk to them to connect, to share some joy and kindness. Trouble is, these women feel very secluded and lonely, being immigrants - that in itself is creating an invisible boundary which will take courage and kindness to cross. Most of these women do not speak Flemish very well, and English is troubling too, so communication is limited. I am encouraged to keep trying though, because when at one time I expressed my sadness and, yes, frustration about this, my son said, "I believe she [the Romanian mother] really likes to talk to you but she may feel kind of embarrassed, perhaps she's afraid of making mistakes". That hit home profoundly, coming from him - even though the thought had crossed my mind earlier. 

So, recalling Layla F. Saad's fierceness, yes, I think there may be a fear in me, from what I experienced in the past, but no fear of ethnicity. No fear of different colour of skin. I do not consider myself a racist. If I am anything, then I am curious and willing to learn. I will read Saad's Me and White Supremacy and I will read the works of Ibram X. Kendi; if only because here in Belgium we are very ill-informed on these issues in the USA. This is not about me being "lovingly kind to other cultures", this is me wanting to know, to learn and to practice in real life. The best way I can. And this is through getting the knowledge and passing it on to my son, and those who are willing to listen. 

But I will still take a wide berth though when seeing my path blocked by a group of young men, whatever colour their skin is.  

Potiron - a work in progress, of a were-pumpkin that is about to blow the Garden to pieces (new episodes will be added weekly, hopefully)

Dear reader, you are about to immerse yourself in a world of cunning cats, cursed pumpkins, dirty politics, and ancient rivalries. It is a nasty sort of fairytale, for grown-ups. Proceed only if you think you can handle this. 

Chapter 0 -- The zero hour

Basil braced himself, as the glowing eyes came closer. From the corner of his eye he noticed some movement of the rats. Behind him he could hear shuffling sounds coming from the shrubbery. He hoped Mad Louie and Mahoganey had run off, yet he doubted that. Mahoganey wasn’t easily scared, much less by a couple of FurBalls. Great Cat Above, he wished these three were just that: FurBalls. They had the overall appearance of cold blooded assassins. The kind Madame Raisin recruited for this kind of ... situation.
    Bring it on, he thought as he drove his claws firmly in the dirt. He curled his lips in a menacing snarl. I am ready.

Chapter 1 -- In which is told how it all began

Savoy was sitting on the wall of rugged rocks and looked down on the Garden. His orange eyes were fixed on the big, shiny and absolute huge pumpkin. The tip of his tail waved back and forth in a hypnotising rhythm, while he tried to ignore the mouse that had emerged from under the woodpile. It was still early but the sun was warm. Behind Savoy the dew still glistened in tiny beads on the grass. There was an itch between his shoulders, that sent uneasy tingles down his skin, making his white-and-orange fur stir violently. That pumpkin was simply too big for its own good. How in Great Cat’s Name did it get this … this enormous? Savoy squinted his eyes. The other three pumpkins were a lot smaller. Savoy knew the big one was called Potiron. And that he was notoriously feared. Even though everyone knew plants had no voice or conscience of their own, Savoy could feel the pressure of dark energy that surrounded the pumpkin. He was way too different from the other three. Bigger. Shinier. Eerier. He could not quite put his paw on it, but Savoy sensed the danger. He couldn’t help but remember, three Summers ago, Timmy the tomato. Timmy had been living proof that ‘something’ was able to take over the soulless state of a plant and thus terrorise the whole Garden. Savoy did not need to look at the wilted beanstalks to learn the effect of the monstrous pumpkin on the Garden. Apparently, the beans had passed rather quickly. Maybe thankfully so. Earlier, the Man had sowed carrots and when they had grown their first four fuzzy leaves, they died a horrible death. Not to mention the forget-me-nots and the tagetes the Woman secretly had planted in between the zucchinis and the peas. One zucchini had been stomped to mush overnight. Again, Savoy thought of Timmy.

The ongoing struggle of healing

It was naive of me to think I finally had reached that part of my journey when I could lay my head and rest for a while. No, it's nothing dramatic going on, just a minor setback in my mind. It's something I need to get out, as part of the ongoing healing. But I am tired and a migraine now has taken over the normal fibromyalgia pain, and thinking is taking a tremendous effort. 

I'm not sure what caused this mental setback. It could have started when we got back from the pet store to buy supplies for the cats and birthday presents for Little Spottedleaf - she turns 1 on June 19. We both were very tired on the drive home; my boy suffering from a massive hay fever episode, and me from just using up too many spoons in too short a time. Back home I received a phone call that the water butt which I had ordered early March, had finally arrived. By then, the migraine was happily settling and I had difficulty concentrating and thinking, besides the total lack of energy, so no way I was going to crawl behind the wheel again. I asked my ex, since he lives close to the store keeping the water butt. When he arrived at my door, he was joyfully telling me about the virtual drink he would be attending when he got home. Normally he and his colleagues do this every Thursday in real life, but you know, corona. Instead of wishing him a happy time, I answered in a resentful tone, That's the joy of being able to work, right, get-togethers with co-workers; something that people forget about being chronically ill, I don't have that - and I added, silently to myself, I feel so very isolated. And useless, as a person, as a member of society. And then I felt guilty too, because I could not mute the resentment and be more friendly towards my ex, who, after all, had been so kind to get me that water butt.

It also could have started yesterday, on seeing a post of a magnificent artist I follow on Instagram. She only recently started experimenting with watercolour, and I was in awe of those wonderful pieces she created. I felt a pang of sadness, realising I would never be as good as she is. I am too amateuristic, too clumsy and trial&error still - and while I was thinking that, I knew I was being too hard on myself. Later that evening, I did Tara Brach's newly added meditation, Light RAIN in difficult times, and I cried the entire 9.5 minutes - because my difficult time was, yet again, me feeling inadequate and insufficient, falling short on so many aspects of being and accomplishing that I was drowning in quicksand again. 

And I was doing so well, I thought in-between my sadness and the nurturing part of the RAIN technique. I was doing so well, feeling light and capable, and managing boundaries and feeling proud of me. Yet, here I was, huddling in Peach's blanket, sniffling at the hot tears on my trembling hands, trying with an air of desperation to comfort the little girl inside me, mumbling that, YES, she was good enough and that I knew she tried the best she could - but the words felt hollow and I almost saw them fall around me, like fallen leaves in Autumn. 

It also might have started already last week, secretly, on realising that once again I would not be able to handle this month's finances. The ever-present frustration about my financial situation has been a heavy mental and emotional burden ever since I lost my job, so many years ago, but in the beginning it was buffered by my now ex's paycheck and the burden definitely less heavy than it is now. The divorce three years ago put me in much more delicate position, as I left with debts and even though my disability benefits have increased, my tax assessment did too, almost five times as much as I used to pay - or almost 1.5 month's worth of my benefits. Since I was not aware of that, I have been like driftwood on the sea of bills, debts and taxes ever since. If it weren't for the kindness and huge generosity of many people on Instagram, and one lovely woman in particular, I would have been with Social Services ages ago, and they would have managed all my money affairs and taken away my independency and perhaps also my cats and maybe the care of my child. For at that particular time, I even wasn't able to buy bread. I cannot express how deep the shame runs in me, of not being able to take care of my wallet, my bank account - to an outsider it may well seem money is leaking through my fingers, or to put it in my ex father-in-law: That I am a bottomless hole. Yes, I like to buy art supplies, and I did pay for some apps that give me pleasure. I do like to buy bird food if I can, to sustain the wild birds in my garden. And I do buy (expensive, for me) supplements to support my cats' health, as I know they work; and I do the same for myself since medication in itself is not enough - I have spent countless euros on supplements that I hoped would help, most of which did not but now I finally seem to have found the good ones.

But I have lived two years without buying anything for myself - no books, clothes, shoes. I mean, I really AM NOT leaking money through my fingers. Only this year I was able to buy some books for myself, and new bedding, thanks to the generous birthday gifts I received from two of my dearest friends. And thanks to some donations I got from my artwork I finally could buy birthday presents of my own for several other friends. I haven't been able to do so in ... like forever.

I know healing is a journey. I know it takes time, especially because of the severity and intensity of the trauma I endured as a child and long after in adulthood. I know. 

I know the stigma my mother engraved in my bones won't fully disappear. But I hate to hear her voice in my head once more - you are not worthy; you are unfit to deal with reality; you are unlovable; we never expected you to become a mother; you fail as a mother; you are too dumb to even dance before the devil; you have accomplished nothing worthwhile in your entire life; the books you wrote are stupid fairytales, nothing to be proud of; you should stop drawing those idiot sketches, stupid faeries, you live in a fantasy world; you are too sensitive, and weak; yes, I think you are pretty but I have to, because I am your mother. 

I try so hard not to listen. 

But I fear I fail at that too.

One day I will allow myself to believe there ARE people who love me

It was only last year, when I finally mustered up the courage to look for a new therapist, that I was able to really tackle the idea of my mother not only being narcissistic but also not having loved me, at all. That was a tough truth to take in, but in the end it was the step I needed to take to even begin my healing.

I have been posting a lot on Instagram about the start of this journey. Recently, I came across some really personal struggles and truths which stopped me from posting more. I still am not convinced I should continue posting, but I feel I can write about it in my blog. Few people read this still so chances are slim that I offend or hurt people. The last thing I want is trigger other people's traumatic pasts.

For the record, I went no contact with my family, now 2.5 years ago. In that regard it is fairly easy for me to deal with the echoes of the past, since they are physically a long distance away from me. Yet, reading "Will I ever be enough?" by Dr. Karyl McBride, I need to add that the mental separation is far from established. With my new therapist, I was working on that, through EMDR, but then covid-19 happened, and my therapy sessions were cancelled. The one video consult that we did, never had the power a real session has, and my therapist refuses to try on EMDR that way. It means that I am a bit left to my own devices, trying to keep my head above the dark deep of anxiety, where the mother monsters lurk. 

Lately, triggers reviving the trauma have been everywhere, popping up like daisies, buttercups, and clovers in an early Summer meadow. Instead of the careful responses which I had been practising while in therapy, I now find myself trauma responding: with fear, with blaming myself, with guilt, with shame, and a lot of self-destructive thoughts ("I'm not good enough", "I am not living up to expectations", "I am unlovable"). I often feel as if walking on quicksand, desperately trying to keep up life's pace - even in these corona times - and pretend I got everything under control, if only for the sake of my son. Trauma responding also means I am very purposefully shutting down, out of fear I am being a burden, keeping away from social media as much as possible, because I think no one wants me there anyway, and only staying in touch with a chosen few I have learned to trust. This, in short, is not good. 

One very striking passage in Dr. Karyl McBride's healing guide Will I ever be good enough? is:

Most damaging is that a narcissistic mother never approves of her daughter simply for being herself, which the daughter desperately needs in order to grow into a confident woman. A daughter who doesn’t receive validation from her earliest relationship with her mother learns that she has no significance in the world and her efforts have no effect. She tries her hardest to make a genuine connection with Mom, but fails, and thinks that the problem of rarely being able to please her mother lies within herself. This teaches the daughter that she is unworthy of love. The daughter’s notion of mother-daughter love is warped; she feels she must “earn” a close connection by seeing to Mom’s needs and constantly doing what it takes to please her. Clearly, this isn’t the same as feeling loved. Daughters of narcissistic mothers sense that their picture of love is distorted, but they don’t know what the real picture would look like. This early, learned equation of love—pleasing another with no return for herself—has far-reaching, negative effects on a daughter’s future romantic relationships

Because in these words I recognised my entire life, up to when I shut her out, and more, I recognised the same destructive pattern - the validation seeking, the forcing a connection, the desire to be part of someone's life - in all of my earlier friendships. Earlier as in 'before I came to realise the long-lasting impact of my mother's narcissism on every aspect of my life'. Needless to say I only could save a few of those friends, thanks to their understanding and patience, and - dare I say it? - love for me. Therapy now is helping me stripping all emotion off single traumatic events, and I complement that therapy with my own research on narcissistic mothers - such as the book by Dr. McBride, and also Mothers who can't love, by Dr. Susan Forward - and I listen to Tara Brach's podcasts on healing in presence, to investigate what is really alive in my heart. Both the reading and the podcasts are confronting me with unwanted flashbacks from the past, situations I really do not want to relive - and some come back to me in my dreams - but I apparently need to accept, to sit with, to finally release them as part of what has been, in order to move on. 

This afternoon I noted in my diary that the mere idea of someone missing me actually is completely idiotic. And this is what I need to un-learn. I need to finally accept there ARE people missing me, or sad that I am no longer in their lives. There ARE people happy to get a text message from me. And I am able - I AM ABLE - to make other people happy. And there actually are people who love me, for me. Which means that I am lovable, regardless of what she stated for all my life.

But it will be a long journey ere I will allow myself to truly believe that. From what I now know, this journey to healing will take many years, with quite the amount of setbacks and an unexpected amount of intensely joyous moments. Yet, when I reach that point, that milestone in my healing, I believe I will finally see myself for who I am. The one that was supposed to be destroyed but survived against the odds. 

 

When the kid discovers social media

It's the funniest thing, listening to the kid as he is chatting with his - currently best, I guess - mate while playing some online game. Their chatter is so innocent and honestly open, devoid of underlying frustrations - they just put their feels out in the open.

It started with a classmate asking for his e-mail during an online meet with his class Monday last week. It took some doing but eventually his teacher sent him a list with addresses and phonenumbers of his classmates - since he enrolled in this school only in November, he is still fairly new and hadn't made a lot of friends prior to the corona lockdown. In his former school, he was bullied as well as physically atacked by his presumed friends and left to his own devices by his teachers who blamed him for the bullying, so his faith in both classmates and teachers is very low. 

So when this girl asked him for his e-mail, you can imagine his surprise. I could see him starting to glow, his whole demeanor has changed ever since. She asked for various ways to keep in touch with each other, so I helped him install iMessage on his iPad, as well as Facetime and this online game/chat app. It suddenly hit him how lonely he actually was. 

Every day now they reach out to each other, sending silly texts and playing online. I am so pleased to see him grow like this. Just as he needs me for guidance and agreements on social media time, he needs his own mates to mature and gain self-confidence, to practice social skills and team work. 

I am relieved that he dares to say no to things he doesn't want to do, that he is bold enough to suggest ideas of his own, and that they both look for alternatives and ways to compromise when they disagree on something. And he now realises he truly missed connection. Thank goodness for social media. 

Always The Fear

When I look at myself in the mirror, I always have to take a deep breath to look beyond the features that are so like my mother's. The eyes, the mouth, the bitterness that seeps from my skin. A bitterness that is not mine, but that I came to associate with her, as I did the resentfulness. And then the nausea comes. Swiftly followed by the sadness, the anger. And The Fear. Always The Fear. So I build my walls, high and vast, and I hope this time they will protect me from betrayal and abandonment.

Healing from trauma takes a lot of energy. It takes a lot of guts and time too. Patience and kindness with oneself. A huge help is a loving kindness network of people you can turn to if the journey to healing gets too much, people who understand and are willing to sit with you, people who do not judge or try to fix you, people who listen, who comfort just be being who they are.

Recently, I am going through an overwhelming streak of trauma responses: It seems everything turns into a trigger. And every trigger leads into a trauma response. I started out well enough, managing to keep the fear from running wild. In the not so distant past, I used to fall into blackness so intense I felt as if being swallowed whole, generalising what happened to everything and everyone I know. That way I shut myself off, building my walls so high I could barely see the light of day. Now the walls are there, but maybe only heart-high, and I try to refrain from generalising. It is scary. To allow room for light, for a mindset that is not totally doomed. But The Fear remains. The Fear that I will lose everything and everyone in the blink of an eye.

Living with trauma is intense. It is very hard to trust your instincts because you were taught to believe no one is to be trusted, yourself least of all. I was beaten severely to make sure I understood I was worth less than a speck of dust on her clothes. I learned to fear, not only her, but my own self - for the longest time I panicked when I had to make a decision. And I learned to distrust my father and my brother, as too often they sided with her, alienating me from my own family.

I doubted everything. Friendships most of all: I was always looking for confirmation that I was wanted, that I really belonged. I intensely believed I was only lovable if I complied with everything, and that resulted in me getting mixed up in some bad situations with men and also with friendships. But at that time, I somehow still confided in her and she used those confessions, that already were drowning me in shame and guilt, as evidence for her statements, that I indeed was unlovable, unworthy, sick in the mind, and attention-seeking. She actually sent me a letter once, telling me how I should live my life because clearly I made all the wrong decisions and I fretted far too much over stupid little things.

That legacy took the form of a dark fear looming over my every day. Sometimes it is just a greyish hue, others it is nightblack, but there are days that start off so gloomily that I brace myself as soon as I get up. The Fear intensifies when bonds get mixed up, especially with people I trust, and this huge red flag starts bleeding all over the place. As one of my close friends confirmed: "It's your intuition calling, and she is right!" -- and I have to agree: every time the red flag started bleeding in the past, and regardless of me addressing the issue to the friend, the relationship wilted. And because I refused to merely accept that, I started fighting against the process, desperately longing for a true bond to ... succeed. 

I know now, in a way, I have been seeking, unconsciously, for the acceptance, validation and love, not to mention acknowledgement and approval, that my mother never granted to me - and I looked for it in people who turned out to be, somehow, as equally toxic as she is.

In that regard, my path of healing is teaching me valuable lessons: I am more able to recognise toxic dynamics, even though I am still frozen with fear at times, and I still ignore some red flags, because I hope this time I am wrong.

It also points out, rather painfully, how I have been attaching myself, longing to fill the void in me, to people who themselves seemed to have been stuck and looked for their healing through me. That is a cycle I want to break -- I need to do my own healing, regardless what others want from me. And I need to keep trusting, because there are people who have my best interests at heart. They are the ones holding up the umbrella when I feel it's always raining on me. And I am deeply grateful for them, as they have to endure a lot of crap from me.

So. In a nutshell, building m is not a matter of not willing, but of daring. And it is not a matter of arrogance, but of self protection. 

The magic of books

I forget how often I already listened to the audio version of The Song of Achilles, written by Madeline Miller, narrated by Frazer Douglas. Just as I like to re-read certain novels, this audiobook is so far the only one I can listen to, again and again. Rarely have I read, and listened to, a novel as exquisite and touching as this one. Via Audible I got this novel from a friend and I am forever grateful to her for it.


I read Warrior Cats to my son, currently the second book of the second series and that story etches itself into my being in a delicate way. I have to work hard though, to read through the many, many, often awful mistakes in translation, spelling and grammar. As a writer and editor myself I get really worked up about those. The apparitions of Spottedleaf as a guiding spirit get me so emotional, though, that my boy can hear it in my voice - the way I experience our own cats, is intensely relatable. It may also help that I too am spiritually moved, with a love for stars and moon, making moon water and cleansing rituals with sage and salt bowls.

It moves me tremendously to see how my boy loves reading himself. When his mind has enough of Minecraft, he turns to his own books, the very beginning of the Warrior Cats Saga - The Sun Trail - and Holly Webb's Lost in the Snow. He has this thing with reading two or three books at the same time. It gives him structure, it seems.

The wonders of stories translate themselves so often in our everyday lives; the slightest event or word in the newspaper can trigger our imaginations and all too soon we lose ourselves in stories of our own, mostly ridiculous ones, woven with sarcasm and giddiness. And he throws about him words that are beyond his age, many-layered words which he uses in the correct context, the right situation. As he makes his schoolwork, however, he keeps his vocabulary basic, as if embarrassed by the fact that he knows what he knows.

I hope one day he is proud instead of held back by it.

Bad eggs

I had a really weird dream. It was not a nightmare as such, but it left a bitter taste and a sense of uneasiness throughout the entire day. My brother was in the dream and I woke with a lucid echo of his terrifying accusation about how I ruined his life.

It happened when we were out for dinner; my parents, my then boyfriend and I; for the very first time. There was no friction yet, my mother had me fooled she accepted the boyfriend and my father had put on his costume of important executive. While waiting for our orders to be served, my brother called me on my mobile phone, and he started screaming straight away, how I destroyed his entire future and how he would never be able to get a normal romantic relationship because of me. He referred to the best girl he ever had; and how she met me and we became close friends, and she broke up with him shortly after. The same happened with the second best girlfriend he ever had - one afternoon out with me, of shoe shopping, seemed to have ruined her affections for him. Because I introduced her to her own freedom of choice (instead of his bullying and manipulative behaviour).

From early on, my brother's behaviour resembled that of my narcissistic manipulative mother. Growing older, he got meaner and sneakier, and consciously trying to disrupt our family as well as me personally. He would make sure I took the full blow of my mother's rage; even when he was to blame. He lied and spied for her pretending to be on my side, while passing on any information of my thoughts and visions and whereabouts to her - so I could receive any punishment. It took me a terribly long time to realise that to some extent he was treating me worse than my mother did. When my father was admitted to hospital because of his leg going septic after a minor injury, my brother nearly forbade me to pay him a visit. He called me on my parents' landline; making sure I knew they were in on it, while at the same time my mother pretended she never knew anything of my brother's intention to keep me out. I did go, however, and I got soothed by my mother who swore my brother had no right to push me off like that/ Only later I learned she damned well knew and had agreed on it - but there, at the hospital, she smelled an opportunity to alienate him and me even more.
This became very obvious on my son's first birthday, on which he retreated to a corner with my mother; whispering to her the whole time, while my father stood watch; and my brother's unknown girlfriend and her two daughters sat silently on the sofa, only to leave after the etiquettishly one hour attendance.

Things never were normal in my family, but from that day on I realised there could only be one solution. I went no contact with my brother shortly after. I did the same with my parents five years later.

But my brother's accusations linger.
Especially because I recognise his anger in the careful ways my friends keep their other friends away from me. I never understood why, for instance, one girlfriend in the past would meet me one day at some place and meet another girlfriend at that same place two days later. Why not mix up, go together, wouldn't that be fun, since she talks of that other friend so often I already seem to know her my entire life?
"No, because she is so much different from you that it would not work."
Excuse me?
"I will not risk losing either friendship just because she might think you're a bad egg for coming between us."

Well, the same excuse was given to me by several other friends. Apart from birthday parties, I was not to know these other people about whom they gossipped or complained; or who they revered or felt sad for. And then I found out these others never knew a thing, or very little and most of it negative, about me.
Suddenly it wasn't about being different anymore:
It was not only about being a bad egg and friendship-wrecking.
Suddenly I was some sort of best kept secret.

Why?
Because like my brother so firmly believes, I would steal their friends? Because of the possibility these friends might like me? Because I am just me? Or because I indeed am a bad egg, incapable of keeping close friendships because I like to destroy?

I am still very confused about it. I keep pondering the possible answers - they are hurtling through my mind like leaves in a gale. I am fully aware of the fact that I may indeed have done bad things, I am human after all, a human who survived a lot of crap and still is paying a price for that.
After all, we are all bad in someone's story.
But we cannot all be bad in everyone's story. So I refuse to be the bad egg here because someone else is unwilling to face their own insecurities.

And all of a sudden it's just me and the cats again

Co-parenting is a weird construction. Not weird in the logical, legal way, but in an emotional, human way. Despite knowing - and experiencing - the pros and cons, it always leaves me bereft and sad when the boy has gone in his father's car. And while he is no longer crying and his face is no longer a pale mask of utter forlornness, he still has that gleam of sorrow in his eyes where his smile to me does not reach. 

During these corona times, his father and I eventually decided to adjust the co-parenting schedule from 10 days here and 4 there, to a 7 by 7 days period. It took me some convincing, because his father is not the kind of man to give up his newly achieved freedom for the capriciousness of a ten-year-old; but I persisted, because corona forced a hold to all ongoing therapies, and my body has been flaring up really badly due to Fibromyalgia. On top of that, the boy had trouble getting into the schoolwork mood, so the revisions he initially had to do, were a labour to say the least. I simply could not keep up with his overflowing highly sensitive mind and his mood swings at the time. When the notion of pre-teaching was first launched two weeks ago, I repeated my suggestion to the 7x7 deal, focusing on the balance of schoolwork instead of my failing body, and there we are now. This week started off with the first day of pre teaching here; the rest of the week the boy is at his dad's.

Leaving me to the cats again.

Used as I am to being alone, it now seems to hit me more than before. I mean, before the "lockdown light" as some like to call the Belgian time of covid-19 quarantine. Society does not seem to worry too much about the chronically ill people who have been home-bound for years and years; they ask a former astronaut for comparison to the current corona lifestyles. Working from home back then was impossible or not even contemplated; now employers bend over backwards to make it happen. The focus on fragile people consists of elderly, pregnant women and mentally disabled people. Not a word on chronically ill or how they experience these covid-19 restrictions and fears. Society worries about the complications of anxiety, depression, despair ... of the lockdown on people - the healthy people that is, the ones who work and are needed for the economy. When I was sacked, on my 30th birthday, due to Fibromyalgia and too many absences, I had just started my career as a children's therapist; I had spent three years looking for that job. And it turned out to be very easy to discard me. I lost whatever frail respect my family still had for me, and I lost a lot of social contacts, as well as financial freedom. And now, in the midst of this pandemic, the chronically ill are discarded once again.

That written, I have to admit I am happy to be here, now, on my own, after the divorce - because my marriage turned nasty and frightening, and I dare not think what could have happened if corona struck back then. That bonding was a very different kind of loneliness, the feeling lost in a relationship that should be filled with love and understanding and compassion, coming to an unexpected end as soon as a child is born and the role of the woman is done. That was another form of being discarded altogether; I often found solace with the cats, especially my Patches who is very sensitive to energies.

However, these quarantine times are similar to my normal of the past 14 years, except that now I even see fewer people, as I refrain from going anywhere except to the vet for my cats, and maybe the mailbox to post some snail mail. My ex does my grocery shopping, a friend buys bread for me. And when my boy is here, we enjoy every minute of spending time together, we talk and we laugh, we share a similar sense of humour, and as we both are highly sensitive people, we tend to 'feel' each other in more than one way.

But now he's gone, and all of a sudden it's just me and the cats again, amidst the invisible corona lockdown walls.

I could be writing off my frustrations regarding the total governmental neglect of chronically ill people, but ...

... I refuse. Wholeheartedly. I already addressed my concerns on various occasions, i.e. comments on newspaper articles and additions to questionnaires on global health and well-being in corona times, as well as social media (Instagram, Twitter). The only similar experience came today in the form of a single dad, caring for his 3 children in a co-parenting situation while also managing two jobs. To me, there is no reason to believe our government even realises there is such a group of people who fight every day against their own bodies as their illnesses chronically and invisibly eat away more and more of their health and well-being, meanwhile feeding their depression, anxieties and general feeling of worthlessness.

But I promised not to berate these experiences of mine. Today I want to be light and funny. I barely slept last night, thanks to the migraine that decided to announce itself ten minutes before I went to bed at 9.50pm. I hoped I'd be able to just sleep it off, but Fibromyalgia chose to join forces resulting in me being wide awake, in dreadful pain, at 1.30am. Took my migraine meds at 2, got nauseous about 15 minutes later, and decided then to just call it a day ... night, and opened Merge Zoo to do some mindful candy feeding of my cute little animals. When staring at the same videos ("watch videos to get your reward") for too long and feeling all the more nauseous, I closed the app, put on Sophie Hutchings on Spotify and grabbed my current Terry Pratchett. I read till 4am. Ish. The final time I looked at the clock, was 4.45am.

Painsomnia is a terrible thing. It deprives the body of the so necessary sleep and causes even more pain, making the next day a trial of pure adrenaline, only to backfire as the day progresses. And regardless of knowing this, it will still hit me like a sledgehammer. It could not have come at a worse time either, for in three days my son will return and I'll need a lot more spoons than the shortage I start my days off with lately.

In a couple of minutes, my friend will join me for a walk in the nearby fields and meadows, to get some fresh air and also just to be with each other, respecting social distancing ruling, naturally. Although we both suffer from Fibromyalgia, she has it in a much milder degree than I do - for instance, she can still work and do a bunch of activities I had to let go of. Today, she texted me her pelvis and lower back are hurting - yesterday she had this wild plan to go somewhere on our bikes and hike there, but there you go: with a chronic debilitating illness like Fibromyalgia, we have to take it day by day, and need to be extra careful in planning activities and outings beforehand. Most people do not get that - it is why friendships with healthy people can get quite tricky, as the lack of empathy and acceptance starts weighing on the spoonie, just when they need unconditional support the most

But, light and funny it is to be, right?
Let me get back to you after my walk in the fields 😁

Discoveries during Quarantine, on pain, on mind and on HS parenting

As I am delegating my grocery shopping and doing even more online pharmaceutical purchases to avoid exposure to people who might be infected, I find myself not only missing those rare social encounters that used to lift me up a bit before Covid-19 struck, but I also am missing - on a more urgent and deeply level - the professional physiotherapy and the trauma therapy. 

What to do when the body starts failing even more despite daily yoga routines, and the mind will not be silenced by soothing meditations? I am trying to stay positive but I can tell you: this is not an easy task. It takes up a lot of the energy I need to get through the day pain-wise. My collection of spoons is very low by the start of any given day, but lately I need almost 20 minutes to even try and get out of bed. It takes up to an hour to be able to walk decently, instead of like a grandmother robbed of her rollator. The hot shower, right after giving Tiger his medicine and NHV, followed by the Patches NHV ordeal, and the general cat breakfast, has become a necessity instead of a luxury - without it, my lower back, pelvic girdle, hips and neck cannot loosen properly. The yoga session, following the shower, is a very, very painful one. Acute headaches, growing into monstrous migraines, as well as nauseous spells are unwelcome guests to that party.
My days now are spent in isolation with my cats. Used as they are to me being around, they ignore me quite a lot of the time, unless they need filled bellies or bring a mouse, or swat bees. I get up in the morning with many plans to do, but after the painful yoga, and the using up of over 7 spoons, I can only carefully sit down on the couch, heat pad in my back, and read the latest news on my phone. I get restless of doing nothing worthwhile. I feel bad and guilty for not creating any art. On Instagram there are several posts on how to flow in the moment, to cut yourself some slack. But I have been cutting myself slack for over a month now, and the pain is only increasing, embedding itself in the core of my system. I worry. I worry a lot about the future. In the midst of the past quarantine, I got a letter from my Health Benefits Office: Are you still entitled to being disabled from work?

I am trying to grin through all that, whilst finding ways to lighten the fog and overload in my mind. One of my (new) friends on Instagram recently posted a picture of the audiobook she was listening to, The Highly Sensitive Child, by Elaine N. Aron. As both my son and I belong to the Highly Sensitive People group, I got intrigued: I often doubt the way I am handling my child, having my intuition guiding me, searching for ways that would help me battle through the sensory overload, the pressure of shoulds and have tos. Before he left to stay with his father, he told me in a warm, gentle and actually little surprised voice, how happy he is that we are so often on the same page, sensing each other's feelings and moods and even thoughts, finishing each other's sentences. And we have the same sense of humour too, a huge asset in these quarantine times. Sadly, my Audible does not have that book in their library, BUT I found another by Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Parent. And that book, my friends, is such an eye-opener in many ways. It has left me with quite some AHA-moments, as well as some good cries - as I finally start to understand that what I believed about me to be true, is just me being highly sensitive, to my own deeper self, but also to others, to moods and tones of voice, to worry and doubting, to weigh each possible choice and nearly drown in the chaos of possibilities. It explains why in a bookshop, back in the day, I will grab every copy I like, then start contemplating "should I?", followed by putting them back one after one. It explains why when buying online, I will often empty my cart, only to return a few days later, having given the purchase many hours of thought (and guilt and headaches) and deeming myself allowed to buy them.

On parenting level, this book supports me in my parenting style. I have often discussed parenting trouble with non HSP's and been told I need to be firm and not give s much freedom as I tend to do. Things is, with my boy, now 10, one is able to negotiate. he is both blessed and cursed with a high intelligence, a high and deep sensing of others' moods and expectations. It makes things hard, in that he will reply with answers he thinks you desire of him, and it makes things easy when I sense he worries and he finally gives in and talks to me, because he knows I only want him to be happy. In that way, my parenting seems to be of an emphatic kind, understanding, yet with boundaries (which often proves the hardest still, as I look beyond the wants and desires, I look at needs, I look at his full head, and decide then to loosen a boundary or not). And I follow my intuition a lot: I mean, a LOT. Seems to be an HSP thing. And it means also that I am not weak, or fragile, or living in an imaginary world, or dominant, or arrogant. It means, like so many others, I am just trying to be me, in a world that forces me to be someone else, even now, in quarantine times.

Stay safe. Hang in there. Read. Listen. Get to know yourself better.

Quarantine is actually my normal ... uhm ... (a little rant from a spoonie)

Since March 16, Corona has put us all in some form of quarantine. Funnily - or rather, sadly - for me this requires very little adaptation as both Fibromyalgia and the treatment for Colitis Ulcerosa with immunosuppressants have been forcing me to stay at home for over 14 years now, . The majority of that period I was in a toxic marriage and trying to stay on top of toxic relatives and in-laws while monitoring household, freelance work and parenting. There was no support from government, and my social circle grew smaller due to lack of energy and understanding.

I try to be sympathetic to those healthy people now confined to their own four walls, with their loved ones, being in each other's constant proximity while trying hard to keep a sane mind as well as feeling useful to both family and society. I try not to shout WELCOME TO MY WORLD, as that would be very nonempathic and also rude. But I do think it. I do think that they are lucky to be understood by their loved ones, their friends, the government. Because now "we are all in it together". Suddenly there is a major feeling of standing strong and raising awareness for mental health during these times of social deprivation. I both hail and get frustrated with companies, government facilities and employers in general who all of a sudden get very creative in creating possibilities to work from home. I was fired from my job as a therapist due to my illness, and there was no guidance, no re-mediating to a more flexible job that befitted me.

True, current technologies make a lot of these teleworking possibilities a reality. Back in 2005, 2006 this was still in its developmental shoes. But even in the years following my confinement at home, I have never been contacted to check how my mental welfare was, or how I dealt with suddenly being stuck at home, labelled "completely useless for the job market". I was forced to reinvent myself, mostly on my own, here and there aided and supported by the friends who still stuck with me.

Mind you, I am not angry with people who complain about their current situation. I just get upset because I feel the chronically ill, who lost their jobs due to their unwanted illness and have been discarded in very rude ways, who fight against anxiety and depression every day because they are isolated as a result of not being able to keep up with the healthy folks, who put a lot of energy in healing to manageable degree of pain and/or discomfort, who also try their hardest to be there for their loved ones, we spoonies, we seem to be forgotten.

Earlier, I read an article in the news about a former astronaut who was interviewed regarding this quarantine situation. "It is very similar to being in space", the man stated. And I was like, what the f***? Why not ask a spoonie about their social isolation? Or their frustration when they finally got enough spoons to go grocery shopping and stand in line to go in the supermarket, aching all over, only to find every toilet-paper shelf empty?

These times should bring out sympathy, solidarity, empathy. Reality often shows a tragically opposite truth.

Despite my rant, I am deeply grateful for all measures being taken to keep everyone healthy, to protect everyone from getting sick. I am grateful to health staff, mailmen, garbage collectors, veterinarians ... for still being there for us. Thank you. My cat Patches was saved from a severe allergic reaction to a (bumble)bee sting in her face, and without our vets, I dare not think what would have happened. Thanks to my mailman, I got lovely cards for my birthday and online orders are still being delivered.

I just wish us spoonies were considered more important than as a mere footnote in the comment "most people likely affected by covid-19 are the elderly and the chronically ill, due to their insufficient immune systems". I am on both Ledertrexate (Methotrexate) and Remicade, both of which affect the immune system in not too good a way. And I worry - even though my doctors convince me I should not.

What I want to say -- be kind, be as understanding as you can manage, follow the rules, protect others by protecting yourself. And when this is all over and all you healthy folk are allowed to return to your jobs and to roam the streets, parks and restaurants again, remember that for us spoonies this current way of living merely continues indefinitely.