Lived Experience Forum

[Appleblossom]

@Phoenix_Rising  My anxiety is very deep seated and shifting.  SO much varied history and responses to different things.  I was also a bit of an Oceangirl.  I thought sharing the bush and wonderful wilderness places would heal my husband and family, it did, and he improved, but somehow it became a way for them to mock me. They hated me for my camping holidays, though he could not afford better and should have felt relief or gratitude that I was finding good things to do.

I used to seek out water to soothe me, and surfed a bit, but also had times being burnt by mother in showers, over exposed with communal showering in orphanages, mocked on farm for taking long showers.  Too many different people & different situations. My mother used to bring up water torture for some reason. Flooding, leaky evap cooler cost me a fortune one summer.  What more do I have to do?  WHo more do I have to placate or heal or fix?  No one set of nice easy rules to follow.

NEVER have the rules been about my needs or feelings.  I think after 15 years of severe neck agony as added a severe PTSD load to my earlier anxiety. I can get jittery and fall into dissarray easily, even when singing next to people with BIG personalities.  If they cannot relate quietly or positively to me I fall apart, not mentally but emotionally, I take on the outside, so need to go curl up and lie down.  Something about music and the emotions and the body ... I do all the "right" things by the osteos etc and manage my neck condition but ... unfortunately people dont believe me when I say ... I am delicate ... go into all their skeptical fames of mind and its too hard to explain.

I was pretty amazed about the way you articulated and claimed many things when you arrived at the forums.  I learn from you in that way.

A lot depends now on simply if I am able to be calm or centred or am triggered and agitated.  I am still in a high need mothering position while disabled.  It is just the way it is.  I go down .. he goes down .. so I have to keep swimming ..  like you little turtle ..

There is no one size fits all .. in MH solutions or clothing though I would wear anything ... Sorry that was too long a response. 

I like things simple too.

[Phoenix_Rising]

Thank you for continuing to share your thoughts and experiences everybody.

@Former-Member I just read the following in the DBT manual and it super made me think of what you wrote regarding focusing on breathing. It seems you are definitely not alone in having the experience that you described.

Expecting breaths to become slow or deep, expecting any other specific type of breath, or expecting to relax or feel differently while practicing can induce panic responses and actually interfere with experiencing wise mind. For some individuals, simple focusing on breathing for any extended length of time is not possible.

For many, a focus on breath alone allows their mind to generate trauma memories, ruminating thoughts, and traumatic and/or painful images. Extreme emotion and/or dissociation may be the result. Others get agitated immediately when they focus on their breathing. For these individuals, a shaping process is needed, and it may take a long time and/or exposure-based treatment before meditative breath focus becomes possible...The difficulties those with severe disorders often have with meditation practices are the reason why DBT does not require meditation (i.e. focus on breath) for individuals who cannot tolerate it (Linehan, 2015, p. 175).

[Former-Member]

Thank you for sharing this, @Phoenix_Rising. It helps me to feel slightly less defective and abnormal. 

[Sahara]

Thanks @Phoenix_Rising,

yes, I believe it could be a problem when a therapist says "have you tried mindfulness?" and then doesn't even go into detail about what mindfulness is!! Very frustrating.

I mentioned one resource which I've tried-   www.actmindfully.com.au

And another one I recommend, which I used frquently when I started out is marc.ucla.edu/meditation-at-the-hammer

More recently, I went to an amazing yoga class where I the teacher took us through a guided meditation called yoga nidra. Now I just tend to use my own version of yoga nidra when I want to do some meditation. 

I might go back and look for a specific recording online that I think would help the majority of people (almost impossible) and which would save people listening to a wide range of things...

[Sahara]

@Phoenix_Rising, @Former-Member, @Appleblossom, @utopia, @Shaz51

I did find a really great video that explains Mindfulness in depth and the science behind it. It does include a mindfulness guided practice about 15 minutes into the video.

It's from UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) where they have a mindfulness reseach centre. 

www.marc.ucla.edu/video-gallery

It's the first video- "UCLA Health Lectures: Introduction to Mindful Awareness."

[Phoenix_Rising]

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@bookish wrote:

Thank you for sharing this, @Phoenix_Rising. It helps me to feel slightly less defective and abnormal. 

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Are you sure you are defective and abnormal @Former-Member? People have used such terms to describe me, but I find that when I say them to myself I get icky feelings.

I am a-typical and quirky...and that's ok. I think you've mentioned that you see some similarities in our stories. I see that too. Maybe that means you are a-typical and quirky too???  

[Phoenix_Rising]

Thank you so much for providing those links @Sahara. I am planning to post the first post re. mindfulness on the DBT thread on Monday. I'm anticipating spending 2-3 weeks covering mindfulness there. I had hoped to find the specific mindfulness exercises from the DBT manual online, but the few I found were done in either really robotic voices or with a strong American accent which bugs me (and thus I assume might bug others). I find it really hard to find mindfulness exercises that are done using a helpful tone. My yoga teacher is awesome at doing the "yoga voice" and I find it super calming. I really want to find some online exercises where the narrator uses that kind-of a tone.

[Former-Member]

To be honest, most of the time it feels like I can’t even ‘do’ mental illness ‘right’. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but knowing my thoughts and feelings are irrational and being able to change them are two very different things. Insight is only useful when you have the ability to make changes. (I know I do have that ability, but I also know I can’t do it alone—I need help.)

Atypical and quirky is okay. Unfortunately, my internal critic—that all-pervasive, really loud, really BIG self-hate—screams ‘defective and abnormal’. And because I’ve been hearing it constantly for almost forty years, it is much easier to hear (and believe) than ‘atypical and quirky’. 😕

I really do love the way you use harness the power of language, @Phoenix_Rising. I am always inspired by and learning from you. Thank you for being you. 🌷 🐢

[Shaz51]

Thank you  for  those links @Sahara 

Hello @Former-Member, @Phoenix_Rising, @Appleblossom, @utopia

[Sahara]

Hi @Phoenix_Rising and all.

I've used this yoga nidra before and found it really good. It has the beautiful "yoga voice" that you like so much @Phoenix_Rising. 

www.doyogawithme.com/content/yoga-nidra-sleep