Looking for a home

[rivergirl]

Hello, Beany. I missed your post somehow. Perhaps a kink in the Internet between Australia and California. Thank you and all the other good-hearted folks here.

This evening a work acquaintance sent me photos of clouds from her flight home from Texas today. The thought that I too might fly on a plane again one day and see clouds below me made me feel a bit lighter. I think my unconscious is convinced that I won't have a life beyond my current responsibilities, living situation and this pandemic. I don't often understand the timing of my anguish or how it ebbs and flows.

[Beany Boo]

I don't often understand the timing of my anguish or how it ebbs and flows.

That’s a very interesting insight to me.

I have lots of situational triggers; entering empty corridors, people suddenly talking to me about me, sensing a moment where a decision should exist but doesn’t, being interrupted without hearing my name first, suddenly feeling like I have to hold my tongue but having nothing to say, people standing over me...

I think these are shifts in my general arousal level, which occur involuntarily but are enough to put me on guard, or worse. Sometimes I react as though something real is happening, sometimes I shrug it off.

It’s difficult to stay hovering in today, in adult cognition mode.

[rivergirl]

I think I understand to some degree, Beany. It must be difficult and/or tiring to feel triggered by other people so much, and yet have to be around them at work. I think I get triggered more by being alone too much, but I also have environmental triggers. Empty corridors, argh.

I agree that it's difficult to stay in the present and in adult cognition mode.

[Beany Boo]

Thanks Rivergirl,

Sorry, I didn’t mean to hijack your post. And I sometimes reach for the meaning in what I write and don’t get there.

[rivergirl]

It didn't feel like you hijacked my post, Beany. It's also comforting in a way to know I'm not alone in struggling, even though I don't enjoy knowing that you or anyone here experience distress.

I appreciate all the moral (morale?) support getting through the weekend.

[oak]

Since y’all have explicitly said so, here goes:

I may be joining you, dear Beany Boo and esteemed Rivergirl: I’ve not gotten my lease renewal form, which usually comes by now.

Above all I don’t want to move before receiving the vaccine, but I may have no choice. It is just a question about morality for me.

I probably should move, but goodness 2020-2021 really seems like the time to avoid moving, if at all possible.

With your kind indulgence, I’ll keep y’all updated.

[Beany Boo]

I think I begin to appreciate the pain you experience from wanting a family, Rivergirl. I suspect I put most of my effort into avoiding similar feelings. I respect you for finding the words.

The biggest insight I got from my forced move Oak, was to approach it like that climactic scene from the Titanic where Rose and Jack are shot from behind resting on the slowly descending stern, just letting it happen. It felt like that but while also trusting in people and routines, and quietly taking every next step. And taking as much time to recover afterwards too.

[rivergirl]

Oak, I'm sorry to hear you may need to move as well. I hope that doesn't come to pass, but if it does don't forget that you have support here and that we have Beany's successful example and advice to follow.

Beany, I've been pretty good at discounting or avoiding my painful feelings throughout much of my life. Sometimes the ways I used to avoid the feelings only caused me more long-term pain.

[snoringdog]

(Replying to ideas on this mixed thread)

Hello Oak - I'm hoping it's just the recent slowdown in the mail that's holding up the lease renewal....
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Hello Rivergirl - Glad to see you posting! Your insight -

I don't often understand the timing of my anguish or how it ebbs and flows.

I can relate feeling tossed about by internal turmoil and doubts, and it brings to mind a book title I once saw - "Mercy of a Rude Stream"

Turns out it's from lines by Shakespeare, Henry VIII

This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured,
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory,
But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride
At length broke under me and now has left me,
Weary and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me.

(God, poetry is sometimes a comfort, no? )

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Hello Beany - About triggers. I can relate to some of what you listed, and it might be due to an overactive amygdala- I think that's one of my problems. I have a pretty strong startle response & fight-or-flight sometimes, with accompanying hyperacusis.

There are a number of writeups on "amygdala hijacking" and similar. Have you come across this?

SD

[Beany Boo]

Thank you Rivergirl,

Yes avoiding feelings that crop up by avoiding situations where those feelings habitually occur seems to be a defense. It doesn’t stop them rushing out elsewhere. I might need to more readily form relationships that feel scary, if only to reduce overwhelming dread when I find myself having to move house.

Thanks SD,

I’m familiar with hijack although thankfully it’s not complete takeover anymore. I can attribute certain thoughts and physical reactions to neurological effects of the amygdala engaging - as it’s happening. Those triggers I listed are more like a rocky road I travel now whilst still following my desired intention. It’s not ideal obviously. The onus though is no longer on trying to understand or fix causes, but just accept and get on with it (me) through the midst. If I can maintain a focus, experience a trigger then return to the focus in the... afterwash, then that’s a good win; it’s continuity.