#FeelingsBrain

[insanityinherited]

It Happened One Night

We had people over for dinner tonight. I like these people. I even occasionally volunteer to spend time with these people outside the four walls of my house. Given that I’ve just returned from visiting my mother, the aforementioned dinner guests asked about her and my trip.

Now, my blog is called “Insanity Inherited”. That’s because I have permission from a whole bunch of medical professionals to blame my mother for a good chunk of my brain-weirdness. (I don’t care how smart I am, sometimes my FeelingsBrain makes up words). My recent trip down to see my mother was... wonderful. For her. For me, it was absolute hell. Isolated from smart people, culture, daily news, decent WiFi, actual cities, my psychologist, my faithful companion Scully, and a whole bunch more. I also had zero alone time, because even while I was in the bath she was asking me questions. The introvert in me was curled up in the foetal position begging for a strategically placed bush to hide behind.

So, how was the trip down to see my mother? I answer this question the same way each time I come home from a trip. “Oh, Hobart is small and I missed Scully! But it was okay. Mum is fine.” Now, none of that is a lie. There are small suburbs in Sydney bigger and better resources than Hobart. I missed my axolotl terribly. Mum is... well, depending on your definition of fine, mum *is* fine.

It’s hard to draw the line between someone making bad choices, and someone making different choices to those you would make. I have been smarter than my mum since I was about seven. One of my family members says that mum has the intellectual age of about fourteen or fifteen. Another of our family members (not naming names because if mum finds this blog at least she can only be mad at me) says that it just takes mum a really long time to learn things, so she just sort of stopped learning in school because it got too hard. The problem is that if you ignore crocheting and finding the 2D area under a curve, I haven’t found anything I can’t learn fairly quickly. Even without CPTSD keeping me aware all the time, even before I showed signs of neurodiversity, we knew I was able to process information quite a bit faster than the average human. It’s a blessing and a curse. I’m clever but isolated. Anyway... mum and I are intellectual chalk and cheese. So the choices she makes, I consider ‘bad’ choices, because I can immediately see a better solution to whatever it is. So when she chooses cigarettes over the nictonine patches she knows work for her, I’m frustrated. When she chooses bourbon over pain killers post-surgery, I’m a bit flummoxed. When she chooses her abusive ex boyfriend over her genuine friends, I’m quite irritated. But I also try and remember that in the grand scheme of things, she’s happy with her life. She’s kept a job, pays her rent on time, manages her bills, looks after her car and doesn’t break any (serious or enforceable) laws.

But I’m always aware that one day, when my grandparents die, she’s going to be *my* responsibility. Maybe responsibility is the wrong word. I don’t know what else to say though. One day, my grandparents are going to die and when she needs help, or money, or education, or advice, or really anything, she’s going to come to me 99% of the time. That’s a daunting concept for a mentally ill, partially disabled, definitely-not-moving-to-Hobart, introverted person. That weight sits on my shoulders, and sometimes I can shake it off. Sometimes, I feel like Atlas balancing the heavens on my shoulders.

So tonight, as dinner progressed and we were talking about other things, I felt the clouds falling down around my body and the darkness of a thousand sad, wet little birds settle themselves around me. At first I didn’t know what it was that had set it off. Remember, I like the people around my dining table tonight. I was feeling pretty proud of myself for popping my weighted blanket on my lap and fiddling with a fork under the table. I was coping. Quieter than normal? Uh huh. Struggling to hold conversation? Definitely. But I was not hiding away or crying or anything else. I was just quietly aware of my FeelingsBrain and letting my SmartBrain take care of it with a nice heavy blanket and some kind words. I flipped through the evening in reverse to try and find what might have caused the wet and heavy lumps to bring the clouds down around me. I was doing okay back until the point where my grandfather, taking part in the conversation about my recent trip, acknowledged that my mother had ‘problems’. Mainly, that she would go running to her mother for any tiny little problem. Ahhhhh. Guilt! That’s what brought the sads to visit. Guilt comes two fold for me. Firstly, my parents would have stayed married if they didn’t have me (actual fact bother my parents have told me). Then my mother could have gone running to my father all the time instead of my grandmother. Secondly, instead of having to help my mother with every tiny problem, my grandparents now have me. Like yes, I cook and clean and help out with various age-related challenges like socks and remembering the neighbours, but I rely on my grandparents for so much. Not as much as my mother, but still I ask them for too much. So tonight it was guilt that came to visit.

It’s kind of funny, in a way... I’ve always known my mum has a bit of a leak in her think tank, but no one else ever acknowledged it around me. So I’ve always just assumed that she seemed a few ants short of a picnic because I’m... well, I’m pretty clever. But it turns out that people with regular-speed brains also think mum isn’t all that quick on the uptake, and now it seems so much more real. The weight of of is settling in the bottom of my rib cage and resentment is well and truly kicking in. Isn’t it weird how brains work?

And yes, I really did get all that from a three and a half hour dinner party.

[mappingthemoon]

Like two and a half years ago I was joking about how it wouldn’t be a big deal for me to “sacrifice” my social life to grad school bc it’s not like I even go out much as it is but goddamn I was not prepared for such total isolation…I’m going to graduate after next semester (?!) but I’ve gotten so drained that this hardly feels like an accomplishment. Which is not meant to be a humblebrag or a plea for encouragement/praise but just a record of the FEEL, as it’s been so difficult for me to set aside time – or MAKE time (as I used to frantically be able to no matter how sleep-deprived or busy [but I was in my 20s then…]) for personal writing.

Everything since August 2015 is a blur, as if my brain was too cluttered with assignments & anxieties to be able to convert any short-term memories to long-term. I know I went to a lot of baseball games with Pete, saw Labyrinth in a theatre with my daughter, photographed concerts -- but when, actually? My attitude towards anything non-school-related – anything without a deadline – has been mostly “I’ll deal with this later, I’ll deal with this later” – I have loads of saved blog drafts, email drafts, lists of links to read and watch later, a backlog of hundreds of photos to edit from 2017 which I’ve barely looked at, piles of books I bought at thrift stores and never opened, handwritten notes for longer-form things I wanted to write in my journal or elsewhere. And then sometimes I just don’t do it later, I forget, I arbitrarily decide enough time has passed that it’s no longer important; some things get shoved out of the way to bite me in the ass later; some things got transferred to my five-page single-spaced nested-bullet-point list of how to get my shit together after school when I can finally be a person again. I mean, I’ve always been a list-maker but I’ve never felt so far behind on just everything in my life, even mundane shit like “check out this new album” or “blog a photo of your new kitten” or whatever.

I’ve always felt like I don’t write “enough” (tho “enough,” in an ideal world, though, would mean I get to write whenever and for however long I wished, without having to worry about things like dayjobs and debts) but the past few years have been different: months & months pass between journal entries and I start to feel like I’ve forgotten how to do it. I’ve consistently been able to churn out academic bullshit the night before an assignment is due and still get high A’s, but I blank out when it comes to expressing anything personal. And in a weird way, I think that cycles in on itself: I can’t write because I can’t write; I haven’t afforded myself the time to indulge in personal reflection, which is what journalling is, for the most part. Nobody reads my journal. Sometimes journal entries become parts of public writing pieces but I mostly use it as a tool for organizing my thoughts and working through things in a more tangible medium. I think since I haven’t had that, everything in my feelingsbrain has gotten way cluttered. I don’t even know where to start.

& I don’t talk to a lot of other people anymore, either, which has gotten weird – for me, I mean. Like when I am in a social situation I realize how totally out-of-it I have been, just shuttling between work and home(work) 24/7. I look on facebox every day but I don’t interact with many people IRL so I have no idea what’s going on and I feel like when I talk to someone it’s just like

them: hey what’s up

me: ahhhh!! Research Paper! DiScUsSiOn BoArD pOsTs. APA STYLE CITATIONSSSSS. BLAAHHH. Also, political anxiety!!! Or perhaps u have a moment to discuss our lord and savior KASABIAN? ‘Cuz those three things are all that fit in my brain rn lol

Like I have no idea how to communicate anymore and even my online convos with my closest friends consist of sporadically sending either dank memes or text bricks and then not having time to actually really talk anyway... This level of academic anxiety has built up to the point where I get to feeling like anything I do or think that is unrelated to school is wrong and a waste of time, which I know is not a great attitude to have but my only method of fighting it is to berate myself into self-care: TAKE A GODDAMN BATH. ENJOY AN ONLINE CHAT WITH A FRIEND. YOU CAN’T BE A SAD BLOB FOR ALL ETERNITY, COME ON. PUT MCLUSKY ON THE STEREO AND DO THE DISHES, U LUV THAT SHIT.

*siiigh*

I only have to finish one more semester and then I can be a person again. & I’ve got Big Plans, the kind that would make a younger version of myself want to burn everything down now instead of waiting to start a New Life later, but I know better than that now and anyway I can’t quit now because I gotta get that student loan refund $$$ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[everymonster]

Understanding Brain Trauma Structures

Today at psych we needed to talk about EMDR. My brain, however, was in the kind of space where I was so far ahead of myself I couldn’t stay present. I’m not entirely sure how much actual EMDR stuff we got done, but I did learn quite a bit, once I convinced my SmartBrain to come back into the room (it had been down by the beach chasing butterflies for a large part of the hour, leaving my FeelingsBrain to be both of my Brains at once, which is an interesting experience for everyone).

We started talking about how trauma divides the brain, leaving less and less space for functioning as more trauma accumulates.

Imagine that your brain is an oval, and that when trauma happens, your brain cordons off a circle in that oval to keep traumatic memories. You end up with a circle for PTSD memories and a circle for functioning as a human. My problem with this is that circles don’t tesselate, so you have brain space that can’t be used. The other problem with your brain having a circle for functioning and a circle for trauma is that your brain has to work out where to send external stimuli: is this information okay or is it dangerous? This can either blur the lines or start bits leaking out of their appropriate circles and then everyone ends up visiting crazy town.

EMDR allows the brain to slowly create gaps around the edge of the trauma circle, so that the brain can look at traumatic memories slowly and carefully while still remembering that the present is the present. For single event trauma, generally this happens similar to a train driving through a tunnel- start at the beginning and go the whole way through the memory and come out the other side of the tunnel, blinking in the sunlight. For cPTSD, or people with complex trauma and multiple events, it’s a bit more like steering an unreliable ute down a winding, rocky, steep mountain road. You need to go slowly and carefully and stop to check the map and make sure you’re not about to fall off the edge of a cliff.

As usual, I had a bunch of questions by the time I had absorbed these facts.

How do you stop and check the map if your brain is like mine and tends to see around the next four corners? (Use an anchor)

If your brain isn’t sure what memory it’s missing, how can you process the hidden trauma? (Start with what you do know and it’s likely that your brain will give you more, as long as you go slowly and check the map)

Do you get to choose which series of trauma you work on first? (When you have as much trauma as I do, yes)

Out of all the conversations, we worked out a few things:

I need to find an anchor.

My brain scale goes past most people’s. We need to find a way to bring it back so that I can stay safe during EMDR.

This makes my self imposed EMDR homework to think about an anchor, and to think about a complimentary SageBrain process - so if SageBrain helps me to come from sadness and self-harm into SageBrain, what brain can I use to come from hyper-crazy into SageBrain? I’m going to start by reading the Herbarium.

Give your monsters some rest, my friends!

[loveinsanityinherited]

Realisation

Psych: Lii, does Boo know about your FeelingsBrain and SmartBrain?

Lii: Yes

Psych: And which one of your brains does Boo love?

Lii: ...she loves me.

My psych smiled at me. I smiled. I’m loved.

[insanityinherited]

SageBrain

1. Stop and Breathe - breathing is good. Yoga breaths -where you breathe deep past your belly and into each part of your body in turn- are good because they help visualise deep breathing.

2. What does your SmartBrain say? What does your FeelingsBrain say? Do you know what the feeling is, or can you use the colour wheel? Can you see why or how your brains got to where they are?

3. Which one makes more sense? What is useful for ‘now’? What experience or evidence do you have to back up what your brains are telling you? What information will help you in the present?

4. Breathe some more - breathing is still good. Yoga breaths should be easier now, if you are feeling calmer. Breathe right through to your toes, or as far as you can go.

5. Can you make a SageBrain decision? How can you care for yourself during this time? Can you move forward with your day? Are you (and others around you) safe? Do you need other resources or help from another person?

You did it! Great job ii!

[everymonster]

Adaptive Information Processing Model

This is one of those entries where I start with a disclaimer: I AM NOT A PSYCHOLOGIST OR PSYCHIATRIST! This is just my own reading and research, processes in a public space. If you find it helpful that’s great but definitely read something from a more professional source too.

My psych suggested I might like to read about AIP in relation to EMDR before we began. (Okay, let’s be honest, she was just trying to guide my research to a safe space where I wouldn’t do myself any damage while she’s on leave over the summer.) However I arrived at the task of researching AIP, my Brains are in their happy place. My SmartBrain is lighting up like a Christmas tree and my FeelingsBrain is getting a much needed break after a few days of chaos.

We already know that PTSD and other trauma disorders occur when the brain experiences an event that is so shocking it can’t put it away properly, like it would other memories. Sometimes it shoves the memory way down, too deep to even know about; sometimes it keeps the memory right at the front of your mind so that it can remind you any time it chooses. Either way, we know that this isn’t where the memory is supposed to be- it should be stored neatly in the right place, alongside all our other memories ina format that doesn’t cause huge feelings and flashbacks and other trauma symptoms. (Enter EMDR, CBT, DBT, etc) The AIP model is kind of cool though: it asserts that if the brain is in a safe enough space, it can be chill enough to file the memory away properly pretty much on its own. Then the trauma symptoms are minimised, and in some cases go away entirely. Given how completely derailing those symptoms (psychopathology?) can be, this is something totally worth a try.

Of course... I start wondering about more and more stuff whenever I learn something new. Some of it is completely irrelevant to me and this blog, except that my SmartBrain is in a happy place:

How far have epigenetics been researched and manipulated?

In complex trauma, is it always easy to see the pathogenesis? What are the clinical consequences for screwing that up? Can you brain-map trauma storage for multiple traumas, like me?

I want to see functional imaging of my Brains when I’m SmartBrain-ing.

Some of the things I’m thinking about are also kind of relevant to the quite near future:

How does the brain store memory? (Both anatomically and process)

Can we unpack this a little? “However, the exact nature of memory and its mechanism in detail is far more difficult to determine than the fact that after a certain event, a certain psychopathology appears, which can be effectively addressed by EMDR therapy.” Because I have questions! (Why is it so hard to see the mechanism for the memory? Why do humans all react with a similar-ish psychopathology? What do SmartBrains do?)

Do we know about the link between eye movement and memory processing? Is there something scientifically weird or is it just that the eye movements take up space in the front of the brain and therefore the trauma memory has less space to work?

Is it possible to know too much about EMDR and AIP? Will the therapy be less effective if my SmartBrain knows how it’s supposed to work?

I’ll come back and edit in colour when I have the answers to these questions. In the mean time, here is a diagram of AIP I pinched from somewhere in the internet, and well as links to a couple of the articles I found most interesting. Happy Reading!

This article from Scientific American assumes you know a little bit about EMDR already:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-eye-movements-treat-trauma/

This article from Frontiers In Psychology with my SmartBrain loved:

Happy Holidays y’all!

[everymonster]

Well, That Was Unexpected!

Today was the twelfth day of the invisible zombie apocalypse and my second telehealth appointment with my psych. I’m not exactly sure where to start with this one... the beginning seems appropriate enough though.

We started with a general check in. (I’m awful, but so is the rest of the world so what am I gonna do about it?) We’re still trying to work out how EMDR will work because we didn’t have an established plan pre-telehealth, so neither of us had a specific plan for this afternoon. However, I was keen to have some undivided attention to help me with my EMDR resourcing tasks, so we went on to think about focus. One of the times when I feel most focused is when I’m writing, which shouldn’t surprise me, given that it’s one of the few times both my Brains are in the same place. Focus gives me a slightly warm feeling, and the balloon above my diaphragm comfortably fills the space between my lungs. I can also feel the top and front of my brain. I’m still fascinated by the physiological sensations that accompany some emotions or memories. Ha, little did I know...

My psych then suggested that we try the audio tones for bilateral stimulation - not for any trauma, mind, just to strengthen the feeling of focus, like we’d done with tranquility and tenacity. My SmartBrain isn’t mad on noise, but some noises are better or worse than others so I was happy to give it a go. (A side note here, using a single device for zoom, downloading audio files and playing other audio files al simultaneously is complicated in the middle of therapy.) Headphones plugged in and holding on tight to my feeling of focus, I pressed play for the tones to start. To me, they were high pitched but not squealing, and they were somewhere between slow and rapid in terms of pace. I got maybe five chimes in and - nope. I’m going to eat icecream and I’ll try to make a record of this session tomorrow.

Okay. It’s now tomorrow. Reading through and editing what I’d written yesterday helped me to solidify what had happened up to that point. Let’s try again.

I got maybe five chimes into the bilateral tones and this absolutely awful feeling came right over me. (It’s coming over me right now as I type this, and while I’m going to acknowledge it and push through it, it’s absolutely overwhelming.) I quickly pulled my headphones out and stopped the tones from the app. I remember my psych sounding quite panicked, but maybe that was me being panicked and my psych just being louder and more firm than she usually is to make sure I was in the present and not wherever I had gone. I took some deep breaths while I listened to her voice. I remember searching for chocolate and shoving some in my face while I stared at my psych on the screen without really seeing her, or anything else for that matter. The physical sensations were the ones I associate with sexual trauma- an all over, shivering, tingling ick that makes me feel like I need to peel my skin off and sew up my vagina. I’m not exactly sure what emotion-memory I’m recalling when I get this feeling but I completely shut down into a kind of fear and anxiety. I don’t remember feeling that way during any of the sexual traumas I’m conscious of having experienced, which makes me a little bit curious. I’m glad I have a space like this to put those questions until I’m ready to answer them.

Anyway, I was feeling this awful feeling and fighting to stay present and things are a bit blurry. I remember my psych helping me find a place to put the feeling until I had the tools to look after it. Oddly enough, I mentally built myself a cupboard under my fish tank for it. I really wanted to get back to my feeling of focus. It wasn’t coming back though. I was getting upset and couldn’t really hear my psych’s words over whatever it was my Brains were doing. I interrupted her (on reflection, a little abruptly and possibly rudely) to ask for just half a minute. It was clear to me that focus wasn’t coming back, and I needed my SmartBrain to help my FeelingsBrain work through it. I was able to do something that I’d never been able to do before without prompting: I listened to my Brains. A couple of deep breaths later, I realised that I was okay with not being able to connect with Focus again. My Brains just went through something really big and unexpected, so it wasn’t fair to ask it to go straight back to work. It needed care. And just like that, I’d found acceptance. Acceptance is exhausting, but that’s mainly I think because it’s still such a new concept for my brain. (New sidenote, Id like to explore my feelings around self-acceptance and the idea that it means giving up.)

So we learned a couple of things yesterday: firstly, audial bilateral stimulation is not going to be a thing for me. And secondly, I don’t remember all my memories. As we suspected, there’s going to be a bunch popping up that I’m not prepared for. Thirdly, listening to my intuition is a good thing. It told me that the audio tones would be a bad idea. I assumed it would just be a sensory thing, which is why I pushed past it. Apparently it was not just a sensory thing, but being aware probably saved me from a much worse reaction. This little sideshow also reinforced to me exactly why we’re being so damn careful.

So now I have Tranquility, Tenacity, Focus and Acceptance. And my latest monster has a safe place to rest for now.

[everymonster]

Knowing When To Stop & Check The Map: EMDR and taking a break.

EMDR has officially moved to telehealth. Well, for me at least. Since my last session with my psych, her practice has moved over to Zoom in an effort to help flatten the curve of Covid19 and protect clinicians and clients from any nasty germs floating around the office. I will fully admit that I was not looking forward to this change in my routine. I like being in my psych’s not-quite-pentagonal room, with the sunlight and the plants and the traffic noises and the chairs and... I could go on. I like things to be the same because it’s much easier to focus when I’m not taking in one thousand minute details.

Surprisingly, I was okay with the change. I think it helped that my psych was at least in her office, and we have a good relationship where I feel accepted and comfortable. Thanks to the shitty state of the internet in Australia, there were a few lags and or gaps where we both tried to speak at once, however once we slowed down and got into the swing of it, we were okay. I’ve noticed that my psych and I both tend to talk a mile a minute because we’re smart enough to go that fast. It’s probably a good thing that we’re forced to slow down and give my feelings brain a bit of space given how uncertain times are becoming. I’m writing this on the second Monday of the apocalypse, and we still really have no idea what the hell is going on. Anyway, telehealth’s bottom line: slow down, accept the little changes and be patient with each other.

What did this mean for our EMDR-ing? As it turns out, not a lot. At the beginning of my session, my psych asked if I had any plans for the time we had. My request was not to do any fast moving EMDR (I’m calling it REMDR because I can) because I was still reeling from the fact that I actually appreciate my brain. Even now as I write this, I’m still reeling from the fact that I can believe myself when I say “my brain can do amazing things, and I value the amazing things it can do, and I accept that it means sometimes taking care of my brain in a way that is different to what other people might need”. There’s no specific feeling attached to it, just truth. However when I step back a little, I can see the hugeness and complexity of that shift. It feels as though I’ve just shuffled a deck of cards and they haven’t all quite settled back into place. I didn’t know if stopping would be “allowed” in EMDR, but my psych assured me that going slowly and not having giant revelations every session was in fact a very good idea. Quite apart from the switch to telehealth, which was taking a little getting used to, she pointed out that it is actually important to pause and recognise the changes. It also, a little, changes my view of some trauma - or at least, it challenges my opinions about the actions and reactions of myself and others in various situations. I’m not going to dwell on that, because it makes me feel uncomfortable.

The point is, we stopped. We’re only a little way down this huge mountain, and the late model monaro that we’re driving isn’t used to handling the steep roads and sharp bends. We’re high up, and it’s foggy. We stopped and checked the map and made sure that all the other monsters in my FeelingsBrain were safely in their seats.

This is a short post, because the apocalypse is demanding more of my time than I expected. I guess my point is that if I’m going to get to the bottom of this mountain, I’m going to have to be patient. For the first time in my life, I’m okay with the fact that my Brains need more time. And that’s enough, for now.

[everymonster]

EMDR Resourcing III

Yes, I’m dong another EMDR resourcing post. It takes more than one 55 minute session to get all the resources you need when your trauma history is, well, fucked. Today, of course, started with a now standard “how are you going with the CoVid-19?” greeting, because nine days ago it was a non-issue for psychology in Australia and today it’s a significant and reasonable question. My psych will probably move to tele-health over the weekend, but thankfully EMDR still works just as well. If it doesn’t, we’ll find a solution that works for everyone and things will be okay. I’m working on that optimism idea from last week, hah. Honestly, the biggest hurdle from all of this will be not being able to use a white board to diagram stuff together... I’m very aware of my privilege in this context.

We started off with attributes, and I think my list is pretty much finalised now - although, like the cast of paw patrol, I'm sure there’s space for a mid-season addition if need be. My final list; focus, dignity, acceptance, tranquility, optimism and tenacity are pretty good. I’m going to explore the link between tenacity and dignity, because for me the opposite of shame is dignity, but we ended up using  my memory for tenacity to give shame a bit of a heave ho. It turns out that EMDR isn’t just strictly for the past... I should back up and explain this.

We were working through my list of attributes and had just started the slow eye movements for tenacity when I became distracted by my psych’s brightly embroidered cushion. I asked her if it would be possible to put the cushion face down because it was distracting me. Unconsciously, I used really judgmental language about myself in doing so, which of course my psych picked up on. In EMDR I feel like every moment is a teachable moment for her - when pushed gently, my feelings brain immediately had a big outburst of shame because culturally, I was raised to be too polite to ask for changes in someone else’s environment. The validation from my psych, coupled with this realisation lead to some tears and sadness. [Thankfully, I had a sensory fidget in my hands to help me with this one.] While working through this teachable moment [PMSL], my psych suddenly said to me, “Lii, just try this with me quickly. Can you hold shame and dignity in your head at once?” It took me a minute but I managed it, mostly. My SmartBrain was able to hold the concept of dignity and my FeelingsBrain was well set up with shame. “Okay, just hold both of them in your head at once, however it works. Now, watch my fingers.” My psych then flicked her fingers much faster than usual back and forward. It was quite difficult for my eyes to focus that fast, but I was much less distracted, which I enjoyed. After a length of time [maybe 15 seconds?], my psych asked me to stop and tell me what I was feeling in my brain. My Brains had shifted so that one of them was empty, and one was holding both concepts. More quick flicking. Whichever one of my Brains was holding the shame and dignity was finding the dignity taking up more and more space, and the shame was much fainter and further away. That whole exchange took about 12 minutes, from “Wow, I can see Lii that you’ve having a big feeling” through to being able to hold dignity firmly in place. Even now, 24 hours later, when I think about the need to change someone else’s environment for my Brains to work better, my immediate reaction is to value my incredible Brains and their cool abilities rather than to feel ashamed that I can’t focus if there are distractions in the room. I have [mostly] replaced my belief that it is ALWAYS impolite and selfish to need those changes with a belief that while there are times it would be inappropriate, it is okay to request those changes and good that I can recognise my needs and place reasonable value on them. I’m kind of bewildered, in a good way, about how effective one single EMDR treatment was. It’s absolutely amazing and I’m completely converted. I had seen video testimonials from people trying to explain how incredible EMDR can be, however, I hadn’t really understood the feeling until yesterday. It’s amazing.

it was a really good note to finish on too, having such a positive response to EMDR is probably going to help with the whole “optimism” thing I’m trying out. I set myself a shit-tonne of homework this week though, not entirely sure why, but hey, I can homeschool two kids and manage the social-work needs of 1200 people AND do EMDR homework, right?

Flesh out my list of EMDR resources with cartoon, colour, physical touch and base memory.

Research and [hopefully] purchase the necessary items for my sensory kit[s]. This is to help my AloeBrain. It might be worth having a more portable kit for my SageBrain too.

Develop a post-EMDR session routine for self-care and monitoring.

Research: my SmartBrain is currently in heaven - I’m thinking about the correlations and causations between neurodivergence and high intelligence. I’m also wanting to research the possibility of emotions causing physical sensations in the brain.

Make sure your monsters wash their hands so that they stay healthy! See you next week, xo, Lii

[everymonster]

EMDR Resourcing II

Today my psych and I continued along the EMDR resourcing pathway. I’m struggling a bit because the concept of “attributes” doesn’t have a clear right and wrong. I’m also struggling because my Brains have had a bit of a shit week.

The attributes I already have an idea about are: focussed, accepting and dignified. I’d like to add in one about being calm and one about being positive or optimistic. Maybe something about determination? It’s hard to think about attributes I’m going to need when in reality I’m feeling... a whole bunch of meh, blah and ick. However, dicking about with a thesaurus is one of my favourite activities, especially to manage the lack of black and white answers, so... Here’s my list:

Focussed

Dignified

Accepting

Tranquil

Optimistic

Tenacious

I’m not entirely sure how that’s going to work and I’d much rather have a list of examples to test out and alter so that I at least know I’m in the right ballpark. We also spent some time testing out how EMDR might feel, by asking me to find a memory or feeling that was positive and allowed me to feel some of my attributes. I chose a memory of Boo napping on my chest while I watched tele. It may not seem like a super amazing memory but the fact that she felt comfortable enough to sleep on me makes me feel so positive and calm and warm-fuzzy so I decided it was a good memory to start. My psych asked me to visualise the memory and focus on what I was feeling. We labelled it ‘contentment’, although I’m going to go poke around in a thesaurus for that one too. Once I was good at that, and was able to connect really well to it (>80%), we then brought up a negative feeling from a recent experience and sat with it for a moment. We rated it on a scale of 0-5, and then went back to my contentment memory. When I could connect strongly to that again, we revisited the memory with the negative feeling again. After repeating this process a couple of times, the negative feeling had faded down to < 30%, which was an aprovement on the 60% I’d first rated it. The idea here is that eventually, I will be able to access my positive feeling without the memory, just by using the word, or deciding that I will feel that contentment in my body. I found it fascinating that I could physically feel my brain relaxing. I’m very used to the physiological feelings associated with negative emotions, so to feel a change in my body with positive emotions was a new thing. It was kinda nice.

Here is probably a good time to point out that my SmartBrain is not engaged in this. The more I tried to force my SmartBrain to feel the emotion and look at what my FeelingsBrain was doing, the further towards the ocean it ran! Like a first time mum wit an obstinate toddler, I struggled with the anxiety that my SmartBrain simply would not do what everyone else’s could. My psych and I talked about it, and decided to try letting my SmartBrain run towards to ocean, or count trucks, or anything else it needed to do, and let my FeelingsBrain be the focus. Like any obstinate toddler, as soon as my SmartBrain was ignored, it sat quietly and watched curiously as my FeelingsBrain went through the trial EMDR process. I’m still a bit worried that my SmartBrain will get us ahead of ourselves, or accidentally fuck this up in some way. But, ultimately, I trust my psych and I trust my FeelingsBrain to k ow the way and keep my SmartBrain safe.

After thinking about it and trawling through the thesaurus, I actually think I’m going to stick with ‘serene contentment’ - contentment being a combination of happiness and comfort, and serenity being a combination of calm and tranquil. I’m honestly surprised that I haven’t moved away from the word ‘contentment’ but the etymology of the word works so that’s okay. It’s also important to me to remember one of the notes from the whiteboard: ‘the image is a way to access that feeling, but in reality you know why it feels like without accessing the memory.’ Essentially, I want to remind myself that I’m not reliant on the memory, or the person attached to the memory, I can always access the feeling even if the memory changes (and should be able to access it from the word, rather than the context).

My psych also introduced the concept of butterfly hugs. A butterfly hug is when you lightly hold yourself and pat a few times in an alternating fashion similar to the EMDR stimuli pattern. I found my need to count as I patted a little bit overwhelming and bothersome for my SmartBrain. My amazing psych, who is very used to having to rapidly adapt pre-existing, rigid frameworks to suit the needs of my Brains, worked with me to find a physical/touch mechanism to associate with my positive emotion (contentment). We tried a few different ones, however instinctively I found my right hand sitting on the left side of my neck, with the fleshy part of my palm (below my thumb) resting on my pulse point. It’s comforting in the same way as a hug is, for reasons that are a little too personal for a public blog.

Apart from sorting out my synonyms and language, my homework this week is to practice finding my ‘serene contentment’ using the memory, touch, or both. Given it’s a full moon week, I’m getting plenty of practice needing to find some serene contentment (or really just any kind of serenity!).

I hope you can all give your monsters a break this week! x x x

[insanityinherited]

The Line Between The Devil’s Teeth

What’s the clinical definition of feeling “unsafe”? Is there a diagnostic threshold that a person has to meet to be “at risk”? Can I suggest that if you’re not feeling fabulous, you don’t go and look at any of the resources around suicide on the internet? If you’re anything like me, you’ll tick most of the boxes on a day to day basis anyway. I’m also pretty sure that if I presented to an emergency department right now, I would meet their clinical threshold for observation at the very least. It’s not an especially cheerful thought.

As is my habit now, whenever I’m feeling particularly awful, I do my SageBrain five step plan. I breathe. I listen to my Brains. I think about what they tell me. I breathe again. I come up with a plan. Then I carefully wrote it down, in this blog post. And then it got deleted some how because I think I pressed close instead of save. Tumblr, you really need a fucking autosave feature. Because now instead of a carefully worded, calm record of this time, my girlfriend and my psych are going to get a pissed off, garbled mess.

Long story short? I got to step three of my SageBrain thing and realised I needed more information. So I researched and discovered that if I’m critically honest about my Brains right now, I am unsafe, and I meet many of the criteria from around the world and here in Australia for being ‘at risk’ of suicide. In fact, I think I meet the definition of being in ‘immediate danger’. I’m fighting the impulse to write ‘LOL’ after that, because I’m in what clinicians would call ‘immediate danger’ three or four times a month. Anyway, after contemplating the benefits of an adventure into nothingness, and comparing them with other solid plans like going to bed, or seeking professional help (at half ten on a Thursday night? Pass, lifeline pisses me off and I’m not willing to try the Suicide Callback service tonight), I decided I may as well check out my “better options than a cliff #2” list:

Find your SageBrain: been there, done that, still wanna go splat.

Look after your abominable-snow-feelings: not entirely sure what they are, but what they want is secure employment, people to stop talking about the dick that assaulted me and for my brains to stop this rapid cycling bullshit.

Realistic expectations of others: people make bad choices when they’re mad or scared or stressed- but tonight’s all about me.

Grow some pumpkins: hadn’t thought about this one. BRB, grabbing my weighted blanket and throwing on some Stardew Valley music.

Stay hydrated: my meds are up to date, I’ve had dinner, exercise, fluids and I’m clean and comfortable (except for being hotter than Scott Morrison’s armpit under this blanket).

Surround yourself with good people: oddly enough, this is the one I did first. I went and got some cuddles from Nanna and let Boo in on how things were going.

So, having done the list, my SmartBrain is now slightly more in charge and has a hold of the reins again. For lovely little trauma responses like tonight (definitely a trauma response, they feel different from normal mood-disorder disregulation-symptoms), getting my SmartBrain in charge is actually a good thing. My SmartBrain is getting better at supervising my FeelingsBrain without putting it in the chokey, and using my SmartBrain helpfully engages my prefrontal cortex instead of my amygdala having all the control.

This long ramble leads me to my current SmartBrain wondering, and the real purpose of this post: where exactly is the fine line between being okay on your own and needing to access crisis support services? Arguably, and I suspect correctly for about 99% of the population, if you’re wondering whether or not you should call LifeLine, Triple Zero, or go to an urgent care or emergency room, the answer is GO NOW. Do not pass ‘go’, do not collect $200, go directly to the professional crisis service you’re contemplating accessing. However, I fall into the 1% of the population that doesn’t necessarily fit the press-the-panic-button scaffold.

The generally accepted risk factors for suicide include:

Experiencing mental health and/or drug and alcohol problems

A past suicide attempt

Experiencing family difficulties or violence, or family history of suicide

Loss of a friend or family member

Social and geographical isolation

Being male; males have a statistically higher risk than females

I hit five of those buttons every day. Not even kidding: I’m crazy, I’ve tried it before, I have family ‘difficulties’, I’m grieving, and I’m socially isolated. Then, there’s the ‘immediate danger’ checklist:

Threatening to hurt or kill themselves

Planning ways to kill themselves and/ or trying to access the means to kill themselves

Talking or writing about death, dying or suicide

Expressing feelings of hopelessness or worthlessness, that life is not worth living

Engaging in reckless or risky behaviour without concern for their safety

Talking or writing about being a burdento others

Increasing their use of drugs or alcohol

Withdrawing from friends, teachers and family

Noticeable changes in mood including increased levels of anger or agitation

Taking less care in their appearance (not washing, appearing dishevelled, etc.)

Giving away possessions

Saying goodbye to loved ones.

Ten out of twelve for that list too. Awesome. That’s 83%, for those of you who don’t love fractions. But this is where I start thinking about what ‘imminent danger’ really means, and where the very thin line lies between “I’m okay” and “I’m not okay”. I understand that lists like these written in fact sheets for people who aren’t sure what to do will always err on the side of caution. If someone is about to top themselves, caution is a very good thing. But let’s come back to the 1% of people. We are the nerds of the mental health world. We are the people whose SmartBrains are so over prepared to handle anything. We are the people whose amygdalas (amygdalae?) are overworked from so many trauma responses. We are the people who can be completely functional and lucid while also being in the absolute shadows of the Grimm.

Right now, I have a plan to kill myself. Actually, I have two. Over the past two years they’ve steadily developed and I know exactly what I’d do and how I’d do it. I tick 83% of the boxes on the chart. And yet, I’m lying in bed under a weighted blanket, blogging, because my Brains are weird. I don’t need to be in a hospital right now. I don’t even need to be supervised right now. I have a stack of therapy tools I’m putting in place. But the problem I’ve found is that I actually have no idea when to access crisis services. What’s the rule for *me*? It’s going to be different for everyone.

I’m a trifle annoyed that I don’t have a solid answer. I’m sticking this one in the “ask my psych” pile and moving on. It’s now half eleven and I need to sleep. For the record though, the most helpful things for my PTSD/trauma responses are the passive things: the music in a suitable range of BPM and the weighted blanket. All this waffle just gives my SmartBrain something to do while I wait for the subconscious response to stimuli from my FeelingsBrain.

Good night y’all.

[insanityinherited]

Apparently, Therapy Works

Short and sweet one tonight, an interesting observation:

Previously, (± 6 months ago) when my FeelingsBrain went into meltdown mode, my SmartBrain did one of two things:

Completely shut out my FeelingsBrain brain and take total control

Completely agree with my FeelingsBrain and decide that death was the best option

Now, neither of these are great for actually functioning as a human being. Option one didn’t let me process the feelings and option two didn’t help in continuing my existence in this human form. Manic-fast levels of solution-finding is just a slower way to die than tossing myself off a cliff, really. Tonight it appears my brains went with something new. My FeelingsBrain was working itself well into disaster mode, and encouraging me to throw myself into the void. My SmartBrain had the following reaction:

It seems like it would be much easier to just find a solution than freak out and go cliff diving.

How about this solution right here that I’ve whisked up faster than Garfield finds lasagna?

Now I have a solution and a plan to fix the problem. You can sit for a couple of days and we’ll worry about you on Friday when you’re less tired and hungry, okay? Okay.

My SmartBrain still took total control, but it left enough brain space that my FeelingsBrain was still there and heard. I’m still alive, I have a solution and I’ve broken it down into manageable steps that I can complete over a number of days. I’ve even double checked my plan against the SageBrain list. It’s not perfect, it it’s close enough and I know myself well enough to know that this is the solution I’ll go with. DBT, eat your heart out.

I need to trust my intuition, which is kind of a backward process. My ***whatever it is*** is absolutely screaming that something is wrong. My FeelingsBrain is telling me to listen to that. My SmartBrain is giving my FeelingsBrain space to listen to it safely, and finding a solution that’s safe for all parts of me. After not trusting my ***whatever it is*** and ending up in a very unsafe place, it took almost two years to get it back. I promised myself I would always listen to my ***whatever it is***, and since it’s been back, it’s been right. So I’m listening to it.

And my SmartBrain is respecting my FeelingsBrain and keeping me alive at the same time. Nice job, Brains!

[everymonster]

Every Monster Deserves Rest

I had my first EMDR planning session with my psych yesterday. It brought up a lot of shit real quick, because my SmartBrain was working way too fast for my FeelingsBrain or my psych- as usual. It scared me, a lot. What happens if I travel down those little neural pathways and into some memory my brain is shut away for good reason? What if I get stuck in a memory and have to relive it over and over again? What if my SmartBrain isn’t fully on board with letting my FeelingsBrain wander around and notice stuff? What if my FeelingsBrain doesn’t *want* to notice stuff? What if I learn stuff I don’t want to know about my mother? What if I remember the real reason I cut my father out of my life? What if... yep, my SmartBrain was in full flight. Thankfully, I have a fabulous psychologist who knows how to help my SmartBrain to have the knowledge it needs so that FeelingsBrain can be safe too. So here’s what I learned:

EMDR doesn’t stand for Every Monster Deserves Rest. It stands for Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprogramming. My psych will help guide me through different memories and spaces while helping keep my SmartBrain occupied with bilateral stimulus (eye movements, vibrations, etc). This will give my FeelingsBrain the space it needs to wander about unsupervised.

EMDR has 8 stages, which can be split into three rough sections- preparation, where we give my brain and anchor and a safe space; processing, where I can look at the memory and replace negatives with positives; and re-evaluation, where we can make sure I’m okay.

EMDR also takes a past-present-future approach to the memories that are giving me problems. We look at what happened in the past, make sure I’m safe in the present and protect me against any future triggers.

For complex trauma (like mine) we can pick a theme to start with. This means we can start with my mother, move onto sexual assault and the church and then tackle my father at the end, when my brains have had lots of practice at staying on the path. This makes me feel much safer because I can get some skills in before I have to deal with missing chunks of my childhood.

I’m still scared. I’m still worried I won’t be able to do it, or that I won’t be able to control my brains and I’ll end up ashamed and guilty and messy. But I’m also determined to do it. One of my proudest therapy moments was when I figured out how to make the WiseMind approach work for me. I built SageBrain and showed my psych and with a slightly amused, slightly impressed grin on her face she told me I didn’t need to do DBT. I knew this, but it meant so much for me to have it confirmed by someone I respect and trust with my brains. I know that my psych would not even consider doing EMDR with me if she wasn’t confident that it was safe for both her and I, so I’m using my SageBrain to try and be calm and trust what my experience tells me.

I have my SageBrain and I have Better Options Than A Cliff, and I am going to get through 2020 just like I’ve managed all the years before it. Because even the abominable-snow-monsters in my head deserve a rest.

[insanityinherited]

THIS IS NOT A DRILL!

It’s also not anxiety. I know what anxiety feels like for my brain. This is being up and down at the same time. This is my SmartBrain working at 200m/h while my FeelingsBrain hides in a corner.

Currently, my SmartBrain is timelining out a list of Christmas shopping, babysitting an octogenarian, planning a week’s meals and devising lesson plans for two days of work. Not lightning-fast-one-after-the-other; it’s doing those things at the same time. If I had to plot my SmartBrain on a graph right now, it would be wayyyyyyy up. Like alternating between +16.75 and +17.25 on the y-axis for every 0.3 units on the x-axis. My SmartBrain is literally vibrating. Even though that’s the incorrect use of the word literally. My feelings brain, however, has been on an exponential decline from 0,0, which is where I woke up. I think the line has almost bottomed out but I’m not sure.

This is depression and a high at the same time. This is destructive. This is where I engage in risky and stupid behaviour. I like to avoid that, because despite a vibrating SmartBrain, I can’t appropriately calculate the risk because my FeelingsBrain can’t accurately gauge the potential harm. My brain has learned that the best thing to do in this situation is to sit in a corner, eat some junk food and have a nap- essentially the human equivalent of “have you tried turning it off and on again?” Except that I don’t want to be the person who just shuts down for a day or two any more. It doesn’t fit with my values. I don’t want to block out my girlfriend, family, friends or community because I can’t meet their needs. I want to maintain connection. This is a new thing for me. I also don’t want to cause people hurt. It’s a very real fear because I know I’ve hurt people before when I’m like this. My lack of FeelingsBrain combined with a super fast computer processor means that I can break people in a few sentences. I do it without thinking. And so I hide, because now that I have feelings, I love people and care about them and our connections and don’t want to hurt people. So hiding is safe. I need to go and hide.

I’ll go and hide just as soon as someone comes to take over babysitting the octogenocerous sitting in my living room.

[insanityinherited]

Happy-Happy-Joy-Joys

I don’t know how to start this post. I’m not good at talking about this stuff. Give me astrophysics over touchy feely crap any day. Better yet, give me neuroscience. Alas, apparently I’m going to talk about my feelings and personal stuff that’s happened it the last little while because I have feelings about it. But I’m also going to have to warm up my FeelingsBrain. Let’s start with some dot points

I’m dating a person (an actual human person)

I really like her.

We’ve had happy-happy-joy-joy times.

I haven’t freaked out about all of this yet (much)

I did freak out a little bit last night.

She was patient and kind and didn’t judge my freaking out.

We both hate olives.

I think I’m maybe actually happy and this is new and strange. But I’m going with it.

Okay. Now I need to actually flesh those out. My brain needs to keep this kind of dispassionate at the moment. But let’s just go for it:

I’m dating a person (an actual human person)

Yep, this is now a thing. I was kind of ready to be dating, but I had sort of assumed that I wouldn’t find anyone who was okay with the Ace/Grey-A thing I’ve got going on. I guess it’s true that when you stop looking, someone will find you.

I really like her.

Like, really like her. I’ve known her for five years or so and I can’t ever see myself getting bored of her or not liking things about her. I’ve known her for a long time, I know her very well and she’s an incredible person. We might have only been dating a short time but I feel like the past five years have been her showing me that she loves me. I love how smart she is, I love how kind she is, I love how patient she is. I love the way she touches me and how she intuitively knows what I need before I do, not just in the bedroom but in day-to-day stuff too. I’m going to go as far as saying that I love her. (I’ve loved her as a very dear friend for a long time, but now I *love* love her.)

We’ve had happy-happy-joy-joy times.

Yes, this is the way I’m choosing to talk about sex. Or sexual activity. Or relations. Or whatever you want to call it. As a grey-a, I like to kiss and cuddle and hold hands and be physically close to a person while keeping my pants safely attached to my bottom bits. But I *do* like kissing and cuddling and associated-above-the-hips activities. Now, as a trauma survivor, I like for no one to ever touch me and to not have any part of my body aroused by any other human, thank-you-very-much. I had assumed that it was easier to balance this by just not having any kind of physical intimacy at all. I have missed the emotional intimacy that comes with relationships but it wasn’t worth the cost of physical intimacy to gain that emotional bond. Anyhow... not the case here. When this relationship was just a friendship, it was still one of the most intimate relationships I’ve ever had- the depth of conversation, the breadth of topics, the honesty and kindness and willingness to listen and respond and meet each other’s needs... All of that is still there. The easy friendship we had has made it much easier for me to trust, and so far I have very much enjoyed the physical side of things too.

I haven’t freaked out about all of this yet (much). I did freak out a little bit last night. She was patient and kind and didn’t judge my freaking out.

This is not quite correct. Last night when the enormity of my feelings (inevitably) hit me, I cried and played sappy love songs and probably I shouldn’t have done those things while driving on the freeway in the rain. However, I also had an adult discussion with her about how these feelings were swirling around in me. The universe rewarded me with a calm, rational and positive response from my *gasp* girlfriend. She was understanding and shared her feelings with me in return. Apparently this is how adult relationships are supposed to function- honest conversation leading to understanding and a better connection. It’s a first for me, but I quite like it. Last night we also had a particularly *close* physical time which was quite a bit more than I ever thought I would experience again. Emotionally it was powerful and sweet and very, very big. I spent today letting these experiences get filed away in the right places of my brain- I kept waiting for a trauma-related meltdown but none came. I’m still not freaking out, but I do think I need to slow down a little bit. I want to keep experiencing this relationship and I want to work out what life looks like, but I don’t have to do it all at once. I’m going to just let each day come and I’m going to enjoy it. And I’m going to deal with whatever experiences come along as they happen and trust that when I’m told that I’m safe and loved that I really am safe and loved. And if I start to freak out again, then I’m just going to have another adult conversation with my *gasp* *girlfriend* because I like how adult conversations work.

We both hate olives.

Okay, so there’s more to it than that. It’s just that it’s a new thing I’ve learned and it brings me joy. We just seem to have so much in common. Yes, we have plenty of varied interests, but we both love art, music and science. We have similar taste in food and a few hobbies that overlap nicely. We’re good friends, and that hasn’t changed- all the things I already knew about her are still the same. Really, only two things have changed: one, we cuddle and kiss and... well, happy-happy-joy-joys keep occurring; and two, I’ve got a slightly (okay, significantly) more vested interest in the welfare of a particular red headed best friend. I’m delighted to find out new things that hadn’t occurred to me to ask before, like ‘how do you feel about olives?’ and ‘what’s your favourite way to cuddle?’

I think I’m maybe actually happy and this is new and strange. But I’m going with it.

Relationships and I have a complicated history. I’ve never had the pleasure of dating someone who was as smart as me before, or who was as sexually compatible as she is. I’ve also never dated anyone who was able to have an adult conversation about something instead of playing silly games or trying to score points. There’s going to be a lot of firsts for me in this adventure, and I really have no context to predict what they might be. However, I feel safe and validated and cared for, and I really, really care about this woman. After everything I’ve been through these past few years, maybe I’m allowed to just be happy? I know it won’t always be easy, god knows we’re going to have our chanllenges between our rich trauma histories, but I’m willing to work it out for the chance of something amazing.

I’ll keep you posted!