today i went from 9-4. the first four hours were spent talking about my highest areas of concern, goals, hopes, and memory listing, as well as doing an attachment exercise. i brought my wizard101 blanket, my yoga weighted pillow, my lambie and whisper plushes, my therapeutic notebook i write everything down in, a vial of roll on essential oil that smells like lavender and patchouli, my leon keychain, and some tea. the attachment exercise was the hardest as she prompted me to imagine my life growing up with someone real or fictional as my mother/parent. i couldnt think of anyone so i said the Virgin Mary. i began to cry involuntarily as i struggled to describe answers to my therapist's questions. it started with what she would do when i was born, how would she clean me off, how she would soothe me, and i couldnt even imagine myself as a baby. i struggled to think of even the shape or form of any baby, and could only see myself watching the Madonna holding me in the corner of a dark hospital room with a warm glow emitting from her face. as the therapist prompted me to describe growing up with her, a few months old, to one year, i tried to describe what i was seeing, but i could barely see a baby or toddler or child as i tried to envision it. the tears just would not stop even though no emotion seemed to flood me besides the extreme urge to cry. i tried to describe her letting my baby-self roam around on the carpet, or bring my face close to flowers, and i tried to describe how she would toilet train me, or how she would be patient, but when i would see "myself" as a baby or child i was completely stone faced, limp, like a rag doll, not emoting, responding, i just would not attune. i tried to describe halloween or christmas, but the world in my mind was dark with no other people, no other children in the preschool, no other parents or f*m***ly. just me and her in a dark world where it seemed to always be night time or just before dawn. i tried to imagine myself on a carousel with her watching, but my eyes just followed her blankly as my head turned, and i became limp just holding onto the pole on the horse. i cried the whole time i described, and then watched this life back as a movie. it was bizarre, frustrating, and hurtful. i couldn't imagine wanting a mother's love. i couldn't imagine wanting to belong or attune to someone like that. we also did a body scan, and that went fine i think.

we took a break for lunch and i just expressed how i felt that no one believes me about anything, that i don't make an impact on the world, and other concerns i had with the therapy. we then did flash technique for the remaining 3 hours. we did a not so difficult memory first, and then a more shameful memory. my diaphragm hurt so bad. the memories became skipped, blurred, and strange, instead of being like a movie i could replay, but the pain in my body seemed barely to dissipate, and it took a while for it to go down rather than flooding me. we will also do progressive counting and EMDR soon, but flash is a good way to start she explained. she also gave me a work book to borrow and take home, "The Polyvagal Theory Workbook for Trauma by Arielle Schwartz". I want to photocopy it, or i'll copy down the questions. the room was nice and the breeze and sunlight felt good. i liked the blue carpet she had. for my flash, my positive images were strangely enough all from when i had my double ear infection, when i was carving my carousel pumpkin, when i was making halloween cupcakes, when i watched halloween commericals on repeat, then they shifted to when i decorated my christmas tree this year, wrapping gifts, house sitting, making cookies and cakes, baking. it slid around a bit through my focus on these happy memories. i felt focused the second half, and she said i articulated myself well, and she believed me. i don't know how we'll approach my rape nightmares. i don't know if it will come up during EMDR or flash but i hope that i can work through it.

i feel like i want to return to the intensive, and i'm not feeling the urge to run away. i just cried so much today that i feel depleted and somewhat gross. i sweat a lot too. i was really nervous and kept having to clear my throat in the beginning. tomorrow i think we'll start on the memory list from my earliest memory, and probably begin with flash and i hope then go to EMDR from there. there was definitely a part of me hanging on to the pain of my memory when i would process them in flash technique. i tried to explain it like a hospital, where the memory is sick and needs to be healed, then dischraged, not erased. i hope that will stick with the part that kept trying to keep me activated. my therapist's voice is really soothing and calm.

today i went form 9-4 am today. we did another body scan, i feel like im good at those. my therapist im working with gives me a lot of compliemnts on how i articulate things, that i'm very descriptive and she has a clear idea of what's going on and it's very helpful. she always says good job. i did the body scan and then i did the attachment exercise, but instead of narrating as i went through her prompts which last time had caused me to involuntarily cry profusely, i was just to go through the prompts in my head as a movie as she said them. it didn't make me cry this time because i wasn't narrating them aloud, i brought everything from yesterday, she said i can leave stuff there but i don't wnat to need something and then not have it. we're working through clusters she said, starting with my m****th****r then my f********th******r. we started with flash technique for a new memory, which is a video of me as a baby with my m****th*****r talking in the background, and did flash as well as flash and eye movements to process it. it went okay, but took the majority of three hours. i think flash is good, i think having a positive pool of memories gives me a lot of supply of self compassion, self acceptance, and understanding there are things about myself and the world i love and like. processing went i think pretty smoothly. the memory became washed out, smudged, skipping and more like a thumbnail and then disconnected. i like envisioning the process of my memories in the hospital, needing to be healed so they can't hurt anymore with the sickness inside me. i introduced the part that was hurting about it, showing him that the memory was going to exist in a special place for my memories that hurt to be. the part seemed to accept it, and i used a vaccine to guard him against the pain of the memory again, and he liked the idea of it strengthening his defenses and not causing more pain and distress.
it was much harder to pick a second memory, i was struggling a lot with frustration. i felt calm and fine after coming to a place of understanding and processing with the first memory, so having to reactivate myself was difficult. my worst memories are not activating unless i really dig, so trying to pick one on face value was frustrating and i became guarded of myself in my frustration that i could not tap in. my therapist chose for me to do flash with the next sequential memory. this second memory was a much more difficult memory. it is explicit, about me being observed doing something that should be done in private, and instead being laughed at in an aside and asked about what im doing, and i just answer that i'm exercising. the memory connected to so much self-blame, self doubt, disgust and repulsion. i said what would help me survive the memory is a big iron maiden clamping down around me, so i can be cold and sterile and separate. this was a big over arching defensive cognition i had. we tried eye movement flash for i think an hour or two, but i became increasingly lost in defeat and melancholy. i was crying so much, i described it as a waterfall pouring down defeat and sadness over me, disappointment, disgrace, unreality, and the feeling of being subhuman. i just felt like a monster, like i was raised to be an in human creature, that no one cared about me enough to make me into a person, into a human. i felt no belonging in the world, and just so much defeat.
we then had to break for lunch and it was good to break because i was so stuck in flash. i thought a lot about house sitting and halloween and christmas, and my therapist said i had good intuition with my positive images. i was so stuck with so much bleed through as the memory brought up so many other cognitions and beliefs and memories.

the break was needed to reset and attune, and i went to lunch at a different cafe. someone stole my drink so i ended up waiting 30 minutes until bookseller asked the barista, and it turns out she made it a while ago and someone took it, which i guess i didn't see even though i was waiting the entire time right by the drink table. it wasn't a huge deal but i definitely was extra sensitive, so i felt a pang of sadness and rejection.

when i came back from the break, we began EMDR directly with this memory, and it was a 3 hour processing session. i went down and down and down and down and farther into the tower of sadness. my body fell into the pit of soul murder. i felt so defeated and alone, my crying was on and off with each eye movement repetition. i went from the memory, to my associated fears, to my nightmares, to self blame, to being a child in general and how it felt to be in an unreality, how it felt to be inhuman, i traveled around and down in the tower of mourning. i tried to think of myself back in the memory, what it would be like for the house to burn down in white hot flames, and then for my smaller "child" self to have ash fall out of me and to become ash in the sky, but they could not go anywhere. instead she just went into the dark missing parts of me. there was no safety and no belonging for her to go back there. i said it felt like i had been split in half and that half of me with all these important memories and information was missing. it feels now like i had a dead body sewed in that half, and that the other half of me is floating in a tube somewhere, holding onto all those memories and information. i then moved on from that to thinking of a feral werewolf child who would be struggling like i had, and how i would let her discharge all her energy, run around in the mountains, play in the sand bin in preschool, play and run and be guided. i thought of being watched over and guided, and then i thought of the basilica in montreal, and how i felt watched over and guided from my angels and Christ there. then i thought of the memory becoming a mermaid in a big aquarium and swimming around. i mentioned my book "Healing the Shame that Binds You", and how toxic shame is either being more than human or less than human, and how this werewolf child was like me where it would be okay to be less than human, and also okay to be a person in a way. i thought about RAIN of compassion, and how it would wash away the toxic shame. i felt a swell of liking myself and my perception, and feeling safe and accepting myself, and how it was okay i did those things. that i would have the werewolf child with a bunch of other children like her in a class, and she would belong there. i thought of having a parade for the memory, where all my parts shook hands, cheered, clapped, there was lots of confetti and they were all cheering so much. i then vaccinated all of them with the memory. i ended the session with some nervous excitement within me from how much my emotions had swirled and become like a tempest, threatening to drown me, yet the sea had calmed in the night, and the stormy clouds were just beautiful, and it was okay to be there. i felt okay with myself, and self acceptance. it was a big change, and my therapist said i did very well, that i described everything very well, and she liked my imagination a lot. i was relieved and confident, and i felt very in my self, and in that feeling of compassion and being okay with that. today was a lot more actual processing bad memories, so i hope tomorrow will be better and i will get a lot of progress. it's a little hard to feel like this will end. i just want to keep going.

i had a bad time last night, where i woke up from a nap extremely hot and disoriented, i felt trapped and scared, and very disgusting. it went on for a while, and i just wanted to cry. i felt so trapped and there was no where to go. it was scary. i hope tonight is easier.

i went today from 9-4. the beginning we did a body scan with positive visualizations of resource. it was weird, i felt tingling and my feet were like "dancing feet". though my chest is always tight when we start, my diaphragm hurting almost constantly. i also did another attachment exercise where i visualize my life with an alternate caregiver. today was weird because with the attachment exercise i felt like i couldnt see thigns clearly, and got distracted and confused almost. today we processed a memory i had while being hospitalized. we started with flash, which ended up having a lot of intrusive distracting images as well. we moved on to flash with drawing intstead of positive image visualizations. drawing was okay, but the memory was causing extreme agitation, it felt like the whole front of my body was being burned and opened up, and the entire front of my face down to my chest, stomach, and legs was hurting so bad. we moved onto EMDR after that. i was trying to build self trust and feel like my self truth is valuable. it was difficult because i went all over the place. in the end, i imagined franken fran bringing my m***th***r's corpse to the hospital morgue, and opening her up and flies and mold spores flying out, and the inside of her carcass being empty. i then imagined my child version of myself smiling at me from the stormy field, and frankenfran wheeling me around. i imagined that child self changing the stoma bag step by step, cleaning, prepping, applying the bag. i imagined changing my own oxygen, my own central line. the worst part of the memory was the hospital having me go home with those people, and the idea that they kept me alive just to bring me home to torture me. i felt so much anger and grief, overwhelming despair and hopelessness. my eyes and facial muscles hurt so much after today. i thought of franken fran wheeling me down to a big castle with lightning where all the monsters are having a big party. my mind is really all over the place. but my therapist said i should apply for another intensive free with VOCA, and so i'm going to do that. she really wants to see me again. tomorrow i think we're going to focus on my nightmares, so i'm both scared and excited. right now i feel super faint and scared. i ate and had coffee but somehow i feel like i'm about to fall over. i don't know what to do, i feel sick and angry. the second memory we tried to process after the first one resolved was a most recent memory to try and awaken memories i have of her and feelings i had when i was a child. it was so difficult, i hit a wall and we had to stop. i was just so angry, asking why why why why why and knowing she couldnt have done anything different because she is such an insane person who enjoys my torture and pain. she just doesn't see me as a person, and will say anything and characterize me as anything. i was just so angry. i splashed cold water on my face, and i was breathing like i was running really fast and hard, and i was breathing so fast. my therapist says i'm doing really good, and she's really proud and i'm processing everything really well. it's just so difficult. i feel like i'm all alone. but there's a lot of strength too inside me. i feel like i'm battling against shut down and despair, against self trust, self acceptance, and consciousness. i just want to pass out right now. so we had to stop the processing today and instead the last few minutes we did another grounding exercise, the one i did in the morning where i had positive resource and then body scanned. i was sweating so much today. there's just not a lot of room to go at this point with how i feel about what happened to me by my m***th***r since i don't have that instinct to move towards the concept of a m***th**r, which i don't fully understand or get. it's really hard because it is so much unreality, where i'm constantly gaslit or doubted or ignored or accused of things that make me feel like i can't trust myself or understand the real world. it's just so confusing. my therapist agrees with me and is validating me and says it is real and it is okay. it is so hard to write right now, i feel so faint and dizzy, liek i have crazy vertigo and i'm falling out of the chair.

i just am trying to hold onto the thoughts and visualizations of self trust. that's what im trying to focus on. i feel like i'm in a fever dream, my eyes and face really are hurting so much and my mouth hurts. i just want to cry, i feel so much at once. trying to remember how it felt and how it looked. my therapist is really really nice and she wants me to come back so i know i belong there and i know it's real. it just is really hard. i'm having a difficult time. i hope i go back soon. i want to go back soon. it's really hard. today was difficult and i was crying a lot. i dont' feel like i'm myself right now i feel like i'm really dizzy and sick. i hope i don't throw up or fall out. there's more i want to say but i can't. i'm trying to disappear. maybe i need to go to sleep. i feel ilke im going somehwere else and i'm going to go really fast like a bullet train really far down. that's how it's feeling. i feel so disoriented i just wnat to stya hwere i am but i'm really going fast and far away. i watched suspiria last night for the first time and i really like it. the special effects are so funny but it was a really good time and i was pretty captivated. i just want things to be okay. i'm really scared but i need to keep going. please come hold me angels i really need you i really need you i really need you i really need you i really need you i really need you i really need you i really need you because i don't want to kill myself. i just want to cut myself open and purify myself. it's really hard to type like this but i just need to get it odnw' i donw't want to forget it i feel like i ahve to concentrate reall yhard. this sucks. i need to go lay down but i have more to say.

why did the hospital abandon me i just wnated to be there and i didn't want to go back to those people. why did they forget about me. that was really a painful part. i feel like i'm deliriious and in pain right now so i really should go lay down but i just want to be here right now. please put me in safe place angels i need to go home. it's hard to understand why they kept me alive. it's okay to trust myself. it's okay to believe myself. it's okay it's okay it's okay. it's okay to trust myself. my self truth is valuable. that's valuable. it's really valuable. it's okay to trust myself. it's okay. it's okay to trust myself. it's okay to trust myself. it's okay to trust myself. i think ti's okay to trust myself. i will believe myself. i will believe myself. even if there's a lot of unreality i have my self and my self truth.

some good news first, i have been put back on the waitlist for the free VOCA therapy so i'll get another week in about 9-12 months, hopefully earlier if there are last minute cancellations. i went from 9-4 today. the first half was again the attachment exercise, and then the positive resouce grounding. last night after i wrote i had a panic attack and was sobbing uncontrollably, it was like all my positive memories were drained of happiness, and i felt like i was in hell. i was in that darkness for about 30 minutes, and it was so difficult. i felt just absolutely defeated and crazy. it eventually passed, and i was so grateful. i ate a whole pint of ice cream.

today we started processing the latter half of memories around my m*****th***r and came to a good place of resolution where i couldn't say 7/7 i felt like i was reliable or that i could take care of myself, but i felt that things were different, and that i was comitted to myself. i have to have the skills to prove to myself i can care for myself, and that i can prove to myself i can be safe. it felt good to process and i thought a lot about a big whirlpool in wizard's watchtower. i talked a lot about feeling like my needs were impossible to meet, with disorganized/reactive attachment i both want closeness and closeness is disgusting and unbearable. it was tough, and i made a funny metaphor about you don't just stop drinking water because you have to pee after. it's tough because trying to meet either need of both closeness or solitude results in the other being triggered, or unbearable disgust overall. my therapist said she really thinks im brilliant, and that i make so many good connections and im doing really well. i thought that was really nice. i just thought a lot about how i have to develop skills and be able to have autonomy and agency that i didn't have when i felt so helpless and hopeless. i talked also about female teachers ive had and how everyone else flocked to them and had such loving mentor relationships with them, and how each of them instead in me saw something that i didn't know i had, and just did not connect to me and seemed to mock or jeer at me, making some snide comments. i just thought about how i have almost no understanding of a parental relationship at all, or even a positive relationship, that when i imagined my angel mother saving me she didn't say anything or do anything, she just reached down to fly away with me. it wasn't like i was wishing for a different action or relationship, i just had no concept of what was supposed to be going on at all.

after the break we did progressive counting with the earliest memory of my f****th****r where he grabs me by the face and sinks his fingers into my teeth through my cheeks and shoves my face in some puddle on the floor. during progressive counting my body was super sensitive and i was breathing hard and sweating, it was hard to think of the memory playing out for more than a few moments. we changed to EMDR. during the EMDR my shoulders began to hurt like crazy, my traps felt like someone was sticking needles in them. i felt the crawling muscle pain up my face and in my arms. i was focusing hard, but it was like all my memories were wiped with a whiteboard eraser. it was so bizarre and enraging and confusing, i felt bewildered, so much of my mental energy, my time, my emotions had been into relogging and relogging and remembering and logging and keeping those memories fresh in my head, but then when i went to process and recall, it was like my f***th****r had disappeared from all of them. i remembered one instance that wasn't conciously available of my f***th****r grabbing my s***bl***ng by the neck and thrashing and throttling her in front of everyone and no one acting like it had happened. but i couldnt even remember his face despite just seeing him days prior, i couldn't imagine the sound of his screaming, like when i had ear drum blisters and a month long ear infection this past year and he had screamed at me so much making me cry even harder, i couldn't remember. i didn't even go over the time he told me how much he hated me, listing every way i had failed him and how evil and horrific i was, i didn't even remember that in my consciousness until right now. it's really distressing. i spent so so so so so so so much time and pain and suffering and hatred and rage on him just for me not to be able to have barely any episodic memories or anything even though my whole childhood i made sure to go over every single day every single instance of him. i felt so lost and confused. i felt excluded. like a big gate had shut and i was in this white room and everything else was taken away. it's somewhat like the feeling of half of me being sawed off and replaced with a corpse, all my important memories and feelings and thoughts are locked away in that other half of me. my therapist said it was a good thing, that someone else had described EMDR as there being a hole in her brain where the trauma used to be. but i don't feel resolved, i feel more and more agitated. it just doesn't feel good. i told her that. tomorrow i hope i will process the nightmares i have. i just am not so sure. i feel so shut out of myself and so confused. i don't even know what to do. i look at all my distress and my digust episodes that are so painful and overwhelming i have to run to no stimuli at all not sight not sound and i just thought "why was i even so upset?". it doesn't feel freeing though. i just feel confused. i liked the sun coming into her room. i'm glad i got back on the waitlist for another week eventually.