And so, once again, repetition is not redundant when
My main goal seeks clarity of absorptive mental retention ...
This morning, I awoke at 4am feeling drawn to write down
A train of thought that has finally clarified an inner conflict, based
In polarized self assessments, which, having been subconsciously
Repressed throughout most of my life, created a conundrum inside
My mind that deemed this internal power struggle between
Fear and courage impossible to identify until
Today's train of intuitive thought ignited a string of insights, which
Pin points the primary reason why
The traumatized portion of my brain had remained
Stubbornly resistant to being rewired during
By-monthly sessions of EMDR therapy until, this morning when
I felt ready to dive so deeply into my psyche as to
Specify the unidentified, negatively focused belief, which
Catalyzed my positively focused think tank to weave a sense of
Underlying confusion into trains of thought, thus disrupting
My conscious sense of clarity ever since I was three
Thank goodness, my current therapist assigned this homework
Assignment to me during our very first meeting in her office:
When next we meet I'd like to see a list, compiling
10 traumatic events that you've experienced, over your
Lifetime, beginning with the one that frightened you most of all ...
Ten? I questioned? That many?
As many as you can remember, so I compiled the list, and
Since disassociation had been my chief defense mechanism
Whenever terror consumed my conscious awareness ...
Janet's death and sexual assault were not number
One and two on my list ... In fact neither event, which
Had traumatized portions of my brain, saw their way onto that
Consciously composed list, because, at that time, my
Conscious mind had no clue of my need to expose
Secrets that I'd kept from myself, which compelled
My intuitive mind to engage with a series of therapists
As I quested toward mental clarity over most of
My adult life, and the fact that two diametrically opposed
Polarized beliefs (which finally felt ready to
Expose themselves to my conscious awareness for
The very first time, today) proved so stubbornly difficult to
Correctly identify and rewire until now suggests
My need to work at resolving this inner conflict, which had
Stressed me beyond belief when exhaustion, during the
Weeks following Passover, compelled me to feel
Eager to high tail it to my next session of EMDR, scheduled
This afternoon, at which time I plan to be prepared to do
My utmost best to resolve this internal conflict, which
Up until this morning, had escaped conscious detection until
Intuitive thought began to whisper through
My wall of denial, inviting my sense of
Readied awareness to identify and absorb
The main root of the conflict that
Has served to torment my self image with
Subconscious confusion since I was
A terrified tot, so without further ado, let's reconsider
The string of insights that felt so eager to
Edify my conscious mind with clarity when
I found myself awake and alert, this morning at 4am:
Ever since my grandpa's sudden death
Followed two months later by my baby sister's Janet's birth
Followed two months later by Janet's sudden, tragic death
My undeveloped thought processor, at
The vulnerable age of less than three, felt reason to
Operate on one of two polarized channels:
Everything in my little corner of the world feels as perfect as heaven
Or everything in my little corner of the world feels scary as hell
And in this way did the shocking sequence
Of 'Life and Death' events (which worsened when I felt need to
Hide in the closet to save myself from watching
Terrifying arguments, flinging blame for Janet's death) heighten
My anxiety to levels that proved so overwhelming to my
Over taxed think tank as to stimulate Mother Nature to turn off
My thought processor, suggesting my disassociating
From (blocking) each episode of many-layered
Emotional complexity that my undeveloped, inexperienced
Thought processor could not possibly fathom, much less
Process, when, in truth, much of what I could not
Understand had confounded the minds and hearts of
Every adult (all of whom had previously taken
Such good care of me) to feel so utterly dumbstruck and
Deeply stricken, themselves, as to have had no clue of need to
Assuage the terrifying nature of trauma, suffered by
My psyche, which at not quite three years old, was
Busy programming itself to absorb irrational emotional
Reactiveness, which I'd watched in a riveted state of being as
My primary role models switched tracks from
One pole to the other at such lightening speed as to
Boggle my brain with very little wiggle room
Separating intense grief from intense anger, suggesting why
My self assessment absorbed these polarizing self perceptions:
I feel so perfectly strong as to believe my voice as fully capable of
Resolving every conflict that divides the grief struck hearts
Of my loved ones into separate, angry camps
Or
I feel so exhausted, because of this or that, to the point of
Feeling myself incapable of coping with any problem or
Conflict that feels so confoundingly insurmountable as to
Find myself utterly overwhelmed with anxious spikes of
Mental tension so intense as to suddenly be unable to
Breathe or eat! and while berating myself for imperfections
(which the traumatized portion of my psyche exaggerated
Ever since my grandpa's and sister's mysterious
'Disappearances' confounded my three year old subconscious to
Carry the heavy burden of questioning
My role in their unfathomable deaths so as to drive
The subconscious mind of a good, little girl to harbor
Overwhelmingly guilt-ridden, terribly frightened
Feelings which I shared with no one ... Including myself until
EMDR therapy coaxed my subconscious to reveal how utterly
Abandonded and emotionally alone I'd felt while
Believing that I had reason to beat my psyche to a pulp–each time
Extreme exhaustion deems my brain incapable of
Handling anything, at all, and the swift nature of each
Unconscious switch of self perception from
Super hero, solution-seeking sleuth to harshly judging myself as
Utterly worthless (likening exhaustion to kryptonite) illustrates
Just how quickly an eruption of subconscious fear can distort
An intelligent, highly educated, deep thinking, quick witted
Adult's sense of clarity, the moment that an eruptive episode
Of PTSD disrupts my brain's connection to
Reality as it stands, today, and here is what made
Matters worse until my current therapist had correctly
Diagnosed my episodic strikes of high anxiety with
My psyche's need to recover from PTSD:
Over my lifetime, no other professional had recognized
The telling symptoms, which caused my think tank to switch tracks
From brainstorming with heightened degrees of intuitive intelligence
To tensing up with need to curl myself into the fetal position as
Fearfully as had been true when I was three and had
Experienced sound reason for my level of anxiety
To spike so high—for months without end—as to have deemed my
Terrified brain incapable of finding my way out of a paper bag, first
When Grandpa's death shocked both households, which comprised my
Entire world and then, four months later at which time I experienced that
Same heightened sensation of mental terror when
A little girl's big round eyes watched her
Screaming mother, father, and Grandma find my baby sister
Dead after Janet's limp little body could not be awakened
From her afternoon nap ... now
Let's toss this flaming fact into that fire: Sexual assault is
Known to exacerbate irrational reactions of worthlessness, most
Especially when the victim is an innocent child, who having swallowed
The self assertive portion of her voice, leaves her traumatized mind to
Believe that her tremulous smile is all alone with
An affectionate adult, who having won her trust, proves
To be a dangerous predator, and as this voiceless child has no way to ask
For help or seek adult guidance out of this on-going
Personal nightmare, because her overwhelming fear of frowns and
Yelling suggests why her brain resorted to enlist the same
Defense mechanism that saved her sanity when family life turned
Horribly crazy at the age of three—disassociation, which, mercifully
Blocked my conscious memory from remembering even one
Horrified detail about Grandpa, Janet or the predator, who
Stalked my innocence for years (though I do have
Vague memories from early on of crying in
A crib, all by myself, holding tight to my doll, Annie Muggins, which
I'd named after myself (Muggins was the way I'd pronounced
My last name) when I'd been hospitalized just before
Turning two, and not until PTSD was correctly diagnosed and
EMDR THERAPY began to peel away at layers of
A tormented, little girl's wall of denial does
The woman, Annie, begin to see both sides of her nature competing for
Space inside her brain as she alternates between being every bit as
Adventurously courageous as a super hero, leaping tall buildings at a
Single bound (like her daddy), as she also proves to be as
Fearsomely injured (as her mommy, who having been blamed
For her daughter's death can't lift her head off her pillow) So
Thank goodness the intuitive nature of
My life long quest for clarity led me to believe
My intelligence fully capable of following
The astute guidance offered by my well-trained, deeply esteemed
Therapist, each time we meet and work at this step by step process that
Proves necessary to heal the portions of my brain, which
Have suffered the effects of undiagnosed PTSD ever since I was three ...
(With lights flashing back and forth or buzzers
Buzzing in an alternating pattern within both of my hands I hear:
How do you feel about yourself, right now, Annie?
What do you know to be true of yourself?
What do you want to free yourself from feeling?
How can you reconcile that which you know to be true of
Your adult traits with what you were made to feel when
You were three and then five and then twelve ...?)
Night after night, a good little girl, whose inner life
Proves to be private nightmare, draws forth blood, when
An agonizing itch makes her yearn to scream of
Repressed pain as she scratches to get out of
Her own skin, suggesting why today's string of
Insights points to my brain's need of
By-pass surgery, diverting unhealthy veins of
Thought away from my habit of self flagellation ever since
Sudden Death ... Birth ... Sudden Death ... And
Sexual assault, followed by bullying and finding myself
Uninvited to pre-teen parties catalyzed
My spirit's bright, fun-loving psyche to swirl between
Subconscious sensations of inexplicable polarity, concerning my
Birth family's extreme emotional swings, which aroused anxiety that
Propelled a three year old mind toward unwittingly willing myself to
Grow up to become a super-human sleuth, whose sparkling smile
Never gives up on identifying and resolving conflicts based in
Underlying power struggles until everyone's heartfelt goals have been
Addressed and realized or as an emotionally exhausted, utterly confounded
And thoroughly defeated individual as had been true when my three year old
Devastated sense of personal safety in the aftermath of experiencing
Terror so overwhelming as to have caused my injured self esteem to feel
Shattered beyond repair, rendered traumatized portions of
My brain to disassociate from any reality that was not positively focused when
I'd felt incapable of fathoming life's complexities, which is why I tended to make
Decisions, based in denial of my needs, thus, eventually causing
My brain to exhaust at which time my conscious mind became
Highly susceptible to feeling so wasted as to slip into
Another episode of PTSD where underlying attitudes of
Self conceived negativity catalyze my self assessment to feel
As terrified of life and as utterly alone and as
Completely inept and tense (from an over-production of
Adrenalin pumping through my veins ) as to be unable to
Breathe or eat, thus fulfilling my three year old child's predetermined
Belief that all that I treasure within my safe, sunny, little world is about
To implode, and as long as my exhaustion feels disconnected (disassociated)
From today's reality of my being worthy of love, my inability to save
Everyone from everything that could possibly go wrong colors my
My conscious awareness so darkly as to blind me to this fact:
Extreme exhaustion, which knocks out my think tank
Gives rise to my feeling highly vulnerable to feeling helpless to
Stop subconscious fear from grabbing control over my conscious
Mind at a time when a problem (any problem) pops up, which
Due to my current state of mental exhaustion, I can't solve, sweeping
My self esteem into a downhill spiral so quickly that
The sum of my parts feels sucked into a bottomless
Black hole of fear where impending disaster, crashing into my smarts
Seems to smash my host of inner strengths to smithereens until
The only view of myself that my mirror reflects, concerning
The person I feel myself to be is reduced to
Sharply jagged shards of splintered glass (and thus does
An extreme state of exhaustion see me stumbling off
My positively focused path to find myself drowning in a
Cloudy quagmire of subconscious negativity, which serves to
Severely diminish my state of well, and as that has happened
Four times in my life, I see a pattern where
My self assessment is rendered to feel as confounded as had proven true
When my brain was severely traumatized at the age of three, before
Cognitive thought had had a chance to develop—and that is
Exactly what took place inside my head during recent weeks when
My mind felt as foggily befuddled in the aftermath of our
Festive Passover weekend as had been true when
The revolving door of death, life and death had spun so fast as to have
Traumatized my mind into reacting in a polarized manner at the age of three
And over these past few years, I've been gathering puzzling pieces that
Comprise this pattern, which began to shape itself into a bigger picture as if
My life's five hundred piece puzzle (sans picture on the top of the box) was
Actually coming together, at last:
As long as that bigger picture remained foggy, blocking my sense of
Clarity from identifying the inner conflict that divided my
Self assessment into polarized attitudes, confusion ran interference with
My ability to sustain a true appreciation for the personally
Enriching realities of my life once an episode of PTSD had
Usurped complete control over my mind, and here's why that proved true
Four times over these past twenty years:
Once PTSD colored my perceptions, I couldn't shake the feeling that
The shadow of death was about to darken my door, stealing away
Another person I love, and thus, while immersed within
A current episode of PTSD, my think tank reacted exactly as though
Once again, the very existence of my well-being felt dependent upon
The mercy of adult reactions, which tended to look down in the nose at
Me whenever mental exhaustion was mistaken for
Emotional depression, which, in my family was stigmatized as being a
Personal weakness worthy of shame, and as no one (including me) had
Any reason to fathom that exhaustion caused my brain to become vulnerable to
Episodes of PTSD (for which people offer compassionate support rather than
Casting forth negatively focused judgment calls) until this week's train of intuitive
Thought offered up insight that shined the spotlight of hindsight on the similarities
Connecting my current state of high anxiety with feeling as lost in a fog of
confounding terror as had been true when I, as a child of three, had not
Developed the mental clarity to comprehend my fear of the shadow of
Death, which actually closed in on my family, twice in such a short time as
To have caused such high anxiety, all around, as to have spiked my sense of
Fear and grief so high as to have exhausted my spirit and mind, so when I
Exhaust myself, today, my visceral memory of exhaustion, due to
Death arouses the same deeply stressed, unhealed visceral
(Physical) reactions which had manifested as sudden spikes of high anxiety when
My conscious level of comprehension was too undeveloped to process
Specific memories other than muscle memory of physical torment, which
Accompany childhood's terrors, associated with unexpected death or
Physical assault ... and since this late stage of my life suggests that death is
Sure to tear loved ones out of my arms and away from this life, sooner
Rather than later ... today's realities, combined with my most recent
Episode of exhaustion, releasing an episode of PTSD, rendered
My thought processor incapable of discerning yesteryear's complex set of
Confounding disasters from misperceptions that tricked me into
'Seeing' my personal sense of safety deconstructing and imploding once
Mental exhaustion stirred yesteryear's subconscious negativity to
Wreak havoc upon my peace of mind, which I could not retrieve, no matter
Where I turned or what people said to reassure me that everything's okay
And here's why that's true: Once an episode of PTSD (which, thanks to
EMDR therapy, chokes my think tank for much shorter lengths of time) has
Grabbed my mind, I can't stop feeling that whatever I fear happening, next, is
Lurking around the next corner, and to make matters worse, I fear that
When this imminent disaster occurs, I will be held at fault for this reason ...
At three years old I'd subconsciously condemned a good, though imperfect
Little girl guilty of causing her parents to suffer such extremes of pain and grief
That from then on, I'd feared provoking anyone's frowns, and as frowns
Provoke frowns, I swallowed my own, along with
The self assertive portion of my voice while charging my
Undeveloped think tank with righting everything within my
Little corner of the world that could possibly go wrong—forever—and
Ever since then, my brain has struggled to correctly identify this inner conflict:
When I feel fully energized, my conscious mind believes me capable
Of 'fixing' anything (and anyone—inclusive of strangers, who seem in need)
However, as soon as exhaustion hits (four times, now, suggesting
a pattern) my inability to be of service stimulates an episode of
PTSD to arise and my heightened state of anxiety literally scares me
Half to death until time passes and no one dies, offering my heightened
State of anxiety reason to relax and as inner strengths recoup and exhaustion
(Which had deem me to feel as vulnerable and imperfect and depressed as
Had been true of my mind and spirit when the shocking deaths of loved ones had
Actually darkened our door) reenergizes, my think tank recovers its positive
Focus without having offered me a clue of the fact that the extreme nature of
My irrational, visceral reactions resulted from an attack of PTSD, and as
I'd not thought to make that rational connection until last week, I'd flog myself (as
Had my birth family, for feeling so reactive, upon exhausting, as to render myself
As utterly incapable of handling anything in the same way as that proved
True when my three year old mind experienced sound reason to
Suffer from festering, overwhelming sensations of traumatized fear—which
Until recently, remained unhealed).
Four times I exhausted to the point of flooding my mind with episodes of PTSD
And each time I recovered without comprehension, my polarized inner control freak
Took charge of my life, suggesting why I'd held myself accountable for
Assuming the role of super hero sleuth, yet again, causing me to make
Decisions that led straight toward total exhaustion not once, not twice, not
Thrice, but four times before the sleuth in me stood up and declared:
Behold! The unidentified pattern of my self defeating polarity has
Finally exposed itself to me!
And now, my friends, you are the first to know of the subconscious
Nature of this pattern, which has needed to show itself to my
Conscious mind before I felt able to plan to create changes for the better by
Way of engaging in sessions of EMDR therapy, which rewire my brain to
Detour away from trains of thought, based in negatively focused attitudes, born
Of unhealed PTSD, and now we know why intuitive thought repeatedly chugged
Forth similar strings of insights, day after day, until today's synopsis of
My host of posts carved an ever deepening groove of clarity into
My conscious mind in order that I could clearly see the pattern of
Polarity which had inspired my compelling need to identify a self defeating
Pattern, which haunts my smarts to faint dead away each time I wear myself out to
The bone by dismissing my needs in favor of satisfying the needs of
My loved ones until, eventually, the anger that it's been my unconscious
Habit to repress (as thought God will strike me down if I so much as frown) when
My spirit of generosity is taken for granted by loved ones, repeatedly, and
Since I've unknowingly vowed not to frown, the anger from which
I've unknowingly disassociated since the age of three emerges in the form of
Subconsciously depressed rage (Who me? How could that be?)
And now, with this puzzle piece in hand, concerning my formerly
Undefined polarity, I have a feeling that the bigger picture of my life
Has rounded out, suggesting that my therapist can gently guide me to by-pass
Narrow, negatively focused, self-destructive patterns of thought in favor of
Expanding the spectrum of my self-image by channeling my thoughts to
Become far less polarized, much more realistic than had been true when
Misperception had colored my traits as dark or bright with little wiggle room in between
I mean too much in the way of imaginative thought, at either end of
A polarizing spectrum is not good for mental health, suggesting why
Each train of thought, leading up to today's epiphany of intuitive insights
Has offered my conscious mind a cleansing, clarified sense of
Self perception, concerning that which my think tank is in need of
Rebalancing during today's session of EMDR:
I need to work at rewiring subconscious attitudes
Which, proving to be black or white (fear-based or courageous)
Undermine my good health, and once we've successfully
By-passed negatively focused channels of mental energy, we
Can work to restructure my internal sense of balance within
The framework of a string of insights that is as healthy and
Positively focused as this next one proves to be:
I have never been all alone, nor do I need fear ever being alone
I have always been worthwhile, lovable and
Deeply loved for sound reason and
For sound reason, the fact that I am lovable
Deeply loved and worthwhile will always be true of me
When exhausted I'll remain aware of two changes:
I will not push myself so far as to completely
Deplete all of my strengths, and if fate offers me
Reason to exhaust, I will remember that any disaster, which
May coincidentally take place at that time, will not be my fault ...
I am a very good person, suggesting
That my imperfections do not equate with
Worthlessness, and if the defense systems of
Others have need to put me down in order to
Mask their own shortcomings, I will
Make good use of my voice to
Calmly suggest where their incomplete assessment of
My best character traits may be in need of adjustment
If, upon further discussion, their judgements prove justified
I'll humbly apologize without beating myself up for being human
I am Annie and being of sound mind
I know myself to have countless reasons to
Be as kind and respectful to myself as I am to my friends
And in addition to acknowledging reason to love the person whom
I have grown up to be, I have sound reason to respect my needs and
Beliefs by making good use of my voice ... so that if I, feeling angry
Have need to turn my smile upside down, I do not need to fear that
God will forsake me and strike a loved one down ...
Gosh! Today's train of thought feels steeped
Within such depths of mental clarity that
I don't think even an iota of editing will be necessary!
WHEW!
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