Trauma Support Community Check In: Thursday-Friday 17-18 December
Hello Trauma Family,
This week, the check in is simple.
Giving you a place to be safe and breathe. Release the tension you've been holding in the muscles of your face. Let your shoulders relax, lean back on some pillows and let your back sink into them. Feel the surface you're sitting or lying on. Breathe. Let your mind focus on right here right now, in this space, in this moment. Breathe. Smile. Maybe do a little stretch with your arms out to the side or pointing your toes. Let the stretch feel good, don't push. Allow yourself a moment to expereince, and to feel, and to be still and content.
If you would like some question prompts, feel free to proceed!
How has your week treated you?
If how you feel was a colour, what colour do you feel today?
As always, thank you so much for checking in, please remember to be kind to yourselves today because you deserve it <3
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@Hoxenos, hello. Nice to meet you.
Mmmhm. That description makes me want to go to bed, and be relax.
How has your week treated you?
It's a week with some ups and downs.
If how you feel was a colour, what colour do you feel today?
Right now, the color I'll associate with my feeling is gold. Something makes me sparkle with joy.
Bye-bye. :)
@SnippyHam
It's nice to meet you as well Snippy, or is it Ham? I'm glad the check in gave you some feelings of peace, we all need them sometimes. It's neat that today you're feeling gold, perhaps today you are a honey ham! :D
@Hoxenos
You can choose whichever name to use for me. Mmmm. Honey ham sounds delicious, :D!
@Hoxenos
I've been feleing upset lately. There has been alot of internal chaos and disosciation due to some things that happened. I feel like I was never able to protect my own self. Growing up I was used in some videos. Thoughts of it is very overwhelming
Ann
@pencilmarks
Hi pencil, thanks so much for checking in today. It is so frustrating when things are outside our control, especially things in the past. It is so dificult to move on from things we didn't feel in control of, because if we didn't have control then, how can we have control now? I find when thoughts of something are overwhelming, I try to take them only "one drop at a time" while I do a grounding activity or have someone I trust with me to keep me present. Do you have a way that you deal with your overwhleming feelings that have worked in the past?
@Hoxenos
Thank you for your reply. There are some things that I do that help me feel grounded. There is also a heavy feeling (I'm not sure how to describe it) that how can adults hurt a child
Ann
@pencilmarks
I really connect with what you said about that heavy feeling. I think when I look at my own heavy feeling... it is something like grief. I am grieving my trust in people, in humanity as a whole, to care for and protect their children. It is so unimaginably sad to see the truth of this all and accept it. It is definitely the sadness I feel when I grieve because there is a ... finality to it. Like a heart broken in a way that can heal but will never be the same again nor look at the world the same way again.
Is this similar to your heaviness, or would you describe it another way?
@Hoxenos
I think you've described it alot better than me. Thank you for getting me. There is also a heavy feeling of not being enough and the feeling of part of myself being lost forever to the videos that were made of me
How has your week treated you?
My week has been very kind to me, despite my emotions hollering otherwise. I actaully had a good time this week. I've been stressed out, I've been disappointed, I've been sad, and I've been really angry. But, I've also been grateful, and I've had some fun, and I'm learning to be happy with what I have
If how you feel was a colour, what colour do you feel today?
I feel a lot of colours today. I think I woke up feeling a bright magenta, then it was a gentle but still uncomfortable yellow, and after that it became a willowy blue. Right now it's probably green.
@honestpanda81
Hi Panda, thanks so much for checking in today!
I love that you're reflecting within yourself and seeing the difference between what you're perceiving and what is actually happening. It is such a key and important turning point in healing, to realize that the negative way we see things isn't always the actual truth of what is happening, it's jsut how we've been taught to see. You're taking such an important step in breaking that habit by taking in the good as well (even if it's not fully believed yet, you're giving it a chance to be real!)
So many colours. It's amazing how things can bounce around like that, but at the end of the day life keep happening and we keep living it right :)
@Hoxenos
Hello. It is nice to see you again. I liked the cat image, it was funny and unstressing.
How has your week treated you?
Not good. The begining was pretty well with my best friend being an angel to me and making me feel self confident about my body. Also, the weekend with ny mom made me feel pretty and I was optimistic. But bad things have happened. A dear friend was attacked. She says she's ok and I don't know what happened but I've been scared about it. I relate to it and, somehow, it has triggered flashbacks, nightmares and dissociationd. And I'm feeling powerless about her amd guikty about me. Yesterday was even worse, I was out skating and I got a disgusting picture in my whatsapp. It triggered me and I dissociated. I came back to a lot of people surrounding me and I was too scared. I revived memories that were deep in me and now I can even feel a gross taste in my mouth. The guilt and blaming are unbearable, the hate for my body is worse than ever and I harmed myself. It is 4am and I just had a nightmare about my friend being chased and me being beaten.
If how you feel was a colour, what colour do you feel today?
I feel dirty. White.
@Kimmkimm
Hi kimm,
Thanks for checking in today. That's a lot to be packed into one week. I know how frustrating it can feel when one day you're working really well on yourself and starting to feel "good" about things that were hard before, like your body or self esteem, but I find that recovery in trauma is a lot more about the long haul, improvement over months and not about day to day improvement. It's a learning process that takes time.
Speaking about learning, do you have any grounding exercises you use to help with when you're dissociating, like when hearing bad stories or receiving pictures you didn't want? Flashbacks and dissociation are triggered to protect us from overwhelming feelings, so focusing on staying present and remembering that you are safe can help a lot.
One grounding exercise is called 5-4-3-2-1, you focus on 5 things you can see in your location, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you smell, and 1 thing you taste. This keeps you in the current moment by engaging all of your senses. It reminds you that right now is what's real, right now you are safe, the past is not happening.
I prefer to touch my surroundings as touch reminds me of the limits of my body and my skin, it stops me from drifting away. I stay within the 4 walls around me, and within the limits of my body "shell"
@Hoxenos
Thank you for your reply. I understand that recovery is a long process and there will be good days and bad days. I can see some improvement compared to how I was a couple of months ago, but I also know that there are a lot of things I must learn and that it will take some time.
I know the 5-4-3-2-1 exercise and it has worked before when someone is guiding me, but I am usually alone and, when I have a flashback, I can't think about anything else. I'm looking for this weekend when my mom comes home and I won't be alone 😊 Being with mom is the best thing on the world. And we have christmas next week. Yay!
@Hoxenos
I had my first EMDR Session and it brought up some stuff about my past that I've questioned, and when I sought out answers to those questions I got answers I didn't expect to get, and so now I feel kind of shook and can't sleep.
@beautifuldisasterx0
Hi BeautifulDisaster,
EMDR can be an incredibly intense strain on our minds and emotions. I personally always felt very raw, like I had exposed nerves after, the tiniest things could set me off. But at the same time, it does get to the root of things quickly and privately giving us the opportunity to process at our own pace.
I'm sorry you're going through this tough time with EMDR and that it's bringing up things you didn't expect. Recovery in trauma is so tricky because it's about us trying to regain control, and then sometimes information comes out or symptoms come up and we're right back in that out of control place again.
I hope that with time, this revelation will get easier for you. Do you have any grounding exercises you use to get through overwhelming times like this?
@Hoxenos
I have a lot of grounding skills and such. I've been doing DBT therapy for a long time.
I'm feeling angry that no one protected me when I was younger. I was just a child.... someone should have done something.
@beautifuldisasterx0
Absolutely you deserved to be protected. Anger can be such an important emotion to feel, because it shows us that we believe we deserved better, and treating ourselves kindly like this is where it begins with us being able to demand it of others. Anger can be scary and overpowering, but in some ways, I'm thankful you are feeling it, because it means you don't feel you deserved what happened, and that's so important.
I know I don't know you, but I'm getting a lot of strength vibes from you right now. You are mighty.
@Hoxenos
Hi, Hoxenos, I would like to answer your questions:
1. How has your week treated you?
My GERD keep getting worse, I kept waking up around 2 or 3 am because I was choked of my own stomach acid. Must be diligent to continue my Sucralfate therapy for 3 months ahead because I hate consuming meds but I prefer meds than swab test + endoscopy. I even missed one of my assignments this week because of it.
But today I am so happy. Me and my daughter joined our company's event at a golf course, and for the first time me and my daugher played golf (me real one, she's kids golf since she's just 7 yo). It was not as easy as I thought but I managed to do it! I can hit that ball after so many trial and error 
So, I can say that my week has been good. Gotta be thankful and stay positive for tomorrow and days ahead, right?!?
2. If how you feel was a colour, what colour do you feel today?
YELLOW! Because my day today has been bright, sunny, and warm. 
That's all for now. Stay safe, healthy, and happy, guys, much 
and God bless us all!
@UndomesticGoddess
So sorry for the late reply. That golf day sounds so fun! I'm glad you had a lovely yellow day :)
@Hoxenos Here's how this past week went. Monday I had a therapy appointment where I talked about my creepy roomie from college. It gave me a huge ripping emotional scar, so I hope I recovered from it. I'm watching psychology videos on the internet every day, and they are very informative, but I don't know if I'm actually getting cured. At least it helps to reduce the invalidation, if nothing else. Friday I had a zoom appointment with my psychiatrist but there was construction going on, so the doctor cut off the appointment early. My recovery is going so slowly, I wish I could do something more to speed it up.
@Regmo
Hi Regmo, thanks so much for checking in. I find that it can be frustrating when we're in that state of "Am I getting better?" But what helped me during those times was focusing on comparing myself to longer intervals. It's a lot easier to see the difference over months and years than it is from days and weeks. I'm glad that these resources are helping with your invalidation, that's such a key step in processing trauma, because if no one every validates how we are feelings, it's so much easier to stay stuck like that. You're putting in the effort and you're takings teps forward, focus on your effort and the progress is inevitable <3
@Hoxenos
Been having a lot of bad days (not like health bad days but like just days that suck) this week. Yesterday just took the cake. The friend we were hanging with kept taking out their frustration on us while seeming to not care at all about our own distress. We witnessed a spontaneous road rage fist fight, and then later heard kids playing next door that sounded more like someone getting assaulted. Then, to top it off, the therapy place we waited a month to get into and claimed they had DID therapists - actually - did not have such and also said we were too fucked up. Instead they recommended us to the hospital that locked us up, retraumatized us, and caused our chronic illness to relapse. And that was just the worst three out of a dozen other shitty things.
Today finally have the whole day to myself to just work on whatever. No work and no appointments and no plans with friends (necessarily). The friend we fought with yesterday agreed to discuss its mistake and setting boundaries. We typed up some thoughts about what to address and how to meet it in the middle. Just waiting for it to be free to discuss those.
Hoping I can finish off the writing we've had on our list for forever and been super stressed out about.
If I was a color, I'd say, like a blue. Not necesarily for being sad, but more like trying to be more calm. I don't know what specific shade though.
@u1146
That must've been really tough that your friend took out the frustration on you when you were distressed. I'm sorry that you witnessed the road fight. Some sounds are triggering for me too
You deserve support and it wasn't right of the therapy place to do what they did. I can attest that it's hard to find therapists who are familiar with DID. It took us some time to understand. It's also hard to find listeners here who are understanding of DID and who can give you a place to talk
I'm sorry that they therapy place recommended you to the hospital and that re-traumatized you. We were hospitalized for 5 months and it wasn't very good. You deserve kindness and support. All of your parts deserve kindness and support. I think you're really strong
Ann
@u1146
Hi u1146, it sucks when things just combine and combine and combine and it's like gah can't we just have a break for once! Like why do things have to be hard ALWAYS? I'm glad that your friend is willing to listen and work with you though, it helps so much when people are willing to meet us halfway, because generally what we go through is enough, we don't need to be carrying our relationships too. As for the therapist thing, that sucks. I have known so many people run into such similar problems. Why advertise that you can handle something if when it comes down to it, you can't. That's retraumatizing in its own way for trauma survivors. It's so frustrating to be told sorry, your problems are too complicated. Like yeah I know, that's why I need help? Hopefully with time you'll find someone that works, although I know the journey can be very tiring. I will cross my fingers for you that you find a competent therapist soon <3