(((( Jill ))))

That’s so nice of you to apologize, and I’d say there’s no need. I’m guessing that you are feeling a bit guilty? Or a bit scared at having said too much? In any case I’m glad you are happy about finding the forum and have found a place where you can say some of the stuff that no-one seems to get in real world. Please don’t beat yourself up about what you have or haven’t posted - it sounds like you’re going through a pretty bad time at the moment and it would be awful if you felt you couldn’t keep posting about it.

So do keep posting!

LL

thanks, lamplighter...jill

Hi Jill,

I just want to echo what LL said - there's no need to apologize, and I certainly hope you keep posting.

Hang in there. ((((Jill))))

I agree w/ LL - you are new- so be the sponge and soak up all you can- for this is how you grow.

I agree with everyone else. I think it can just be such a relief to find other people who understand.

Hi Jill,

Well, if there had been any doubt in my mind as to whether or not you "belonged" here, this thread would have removed it completely. Being too hard on ourselves is something we all do from time to time...and you are being a wee bit too hard on yourself, don't you think? You only joined the forums nine days ago. And the reason you were looking wasn't just because you couldn't find anything good on YouTube...it was because you'd gone through hell with T1 not hearing or seeing you, and then you had to deal with T2 falling asleep and then denying it. You needed reassurance and validation and you found it here, and I'm really glad you did! That is one of the main reasons we are here. And your "taking" from the forum didn't diminish it in the slightest, in fact you've added to it just by being here. One way you've helped me is that your description of T1 has helped validate some things that happened with my ex-T - for example, my ex-T also avoided ever saying anything that could sound like a compliment, and we also had a discussion about my possibly having borderline "characteristics" or "traits" without having the full "disorder". In fact, a few times when I was reading your account, I wanted to ask you privately if your T1 and my ex-T were one and the same...except my ex-T was definitely not a minister, so that ruled it out. Also, your asking for support and reassurance gives us the chance to give it to you, which actually helps us too. And in just the little time you've been here, you've found T3, who so far sounds like a keeper, and you are already working so hard. I appreciate that you want to "give back"...well you already are, and you will. So keep feeling that "glee" and keep enjoying that nurturing feeling!

SG

Sheesh, Jill, I think I deserve the bill "post-hog," not you. You have nothing to apologize for, and I think everyone here is glad to have you among us. Please feel free to "take" as much as you need to, because we all need to learn to do that, and I do believe that this place is full of individuals like yourself, who are more than willing to "give..."

Peace, Jill,

BB

Yikes, Dragonfly, come back! Please! Hold it right there before you go any further!!!!!!

Little Dragonfly, you are in a spin.... But it needn't end up in you buzzing away from us. Please just hold on and have a think about some things I want to say - and I'm sure others will want to say other things too - before you fly off into the sunset.

DF, what a beautiful apology you give.

Jill, I don't know how you are but I want to say I'm sorry you both went through this - hurt feelings all round I'm guessing - and I want to talk to DF first but while I do to say that you too are a really valued member here, and I want you to come back too! Nothing I will say to DF alters that.

Okay, DF... your apology is so beautiful because you recognised that you got triggered and you acted out of your trigger. That is SO HARD to see! But you did it, and what you are feeling now is so uncomfortable partly because you are aware of the hurt that can come of that. And there is such a beautiful opportunity for a repair here... but a repair doesn't work if one or both parties run away.

We all bring SO much emotion to this place - we give it so much of our inner selves, and there are potential triggers in every single thread. It is amazing that this kind of disruption doesn't happen more often, and I'm betting sometimes it does happen behind the scenes and others don't see it. But the reason this place works so well is that there is also love and honesty in every single thread too. So we take the risk that we are going to get triggered or that we might trigger someone else, and we put the stuff out there and we hope for the best.

As in therapy, I think, the only way to make it 'safe' would be to not come here at all. And as in therapy, we have to accept some risk to get the growth and the healing.

So okay, there's risk, and here we are in a bit of a risk explosion and some bits have gone flying and there's been some hurt.

But... does this LOOK like a community for perfect people!?!?!! (Have you read my latest post? ) And what kind of community would this be if we couldn't accept and care for each other in our imperfections? Messing up doesn't stop you from being lovely, DF, or from deserving to be amongst us other lovely imperfect humans. It just means you were in here with your heart on the line, like all of us, and the circumstances happened to set you off like they could happen to all of us.

You have done the most honourable thing possible by owning up to the slip-up and apologising. You have been so brave in showing us what's going on and showing us your lovable imperfectness - and by showing us this you're letting us all learn from this happening, about how important it is to look after ourselves while we're here, to listen to our triggers.

But falling on your sword or putting yourself into isolation will just take you away from us, and we really value you a great deal, and we want you with us.

So I ask you not to do that DF, Dear Friend, Dapper Flapper, FlagonDry, DragonFly. Please stay.

Jill, please let us know how you are. It is triggering to encounter another person's triggers, and it is hard sometimes to come back from that. I don't want to say too much to you right away because I don't know how you are feeling, but I so hope that you can feel comfortable enough to be here, and to talk to us or directly to DF if there is more repairing needs to be done before that is possible. You have been with us just a little while but have already contributed so much with your openness and your brave speaking of your experience, so I am really hoping this will be just a little glitch we can get over.

Love to all.

Jones

Dragonfly, Jill, please come back. We love you both. DF, you are a sweetie. Don't be so hard on yourself honey, we know you welcome Jill, you were just triggered. Please come back both of you, we really care about you. I would say more, but I do not have the words, I don't want to hurt.

(((((((((((Dragonfly and Jill))))))))))))))))

BB

first of all, dragonfly, i really appreciated you taking the personal time to care about me enough to tell me how you had been hurt. and i became aware that i had just been, really, taking. not aware of who said what on my public posts, just clinging onto the litle bits of hope and life and nurturance i have felt. what is probably good, as, now, maybe we can be FAMOUS for handling a trigger in a public way, and instead of running, which we have both felt, we STAY, we HANDLE IT, we RESOLVE it instead of RUNNING!!

are YOU up to that challenge sweet friend dragonfly?? I am, but only if YOU stay with me...OK?? PLEASE??

you, and i, feel WAY TOO MUCH GUILT for anytime we think we might tippy-toe out of our TIGHT, TIGHT boundaries we have for ourself. so let's work on that together, ok?? Please don't leave. neither one of us need to be isolated, those are old ways, my friend, old ways...we are here to grow, not shrink. it is a struggle for me, too, so let's just show people how we can GROW through conflict rather than run away, feeling like we have sinned, when we did not, you respectfully and privately told me you had been hurt (nice and reasonable comment), i replied with an apology and tried to explain how it was not you, it was me being 'extra-needy' (nica and reasonable reply) and we picked up from there and all is fine between us. i felt obliged to touch others in an apology to 'right my relationship' with them if i had marred it (nice and reasonable response).

so, really, we handled it fine. let's not let it go in a bad direction in the ninth inning!! we are really almost done! In fact, i think we are...we understand each other better, and our relationship is deeper because of it, and, who knows, someone could learn by our example. let's look at ourselves from a new perspective and not the knee-jerk reaction that we have 'screwed it up again'....((which is one of my favorite old tapes!!))

ok??

and thanks jones, monte, and blackbird for your 'hug-full' comments! big and little jill

thanks too to strummergirl, kashley, mayo, STRM, and lamplighter for chiming in on this as well....((did i just get an academy award and forget anyone??))

DF and Jill, just want to second everything that's already been said - we love you both as you are! Jill, so glad to see you "back"! DF, please, you are being WAY WAY too hard on yourself. You belong here, you are beautiful, you are welcome here. SG

(((( Dragonfly ))))

Please don’t go - you are really beating yourself up big time here - it’s so not true, you DO give, all the time. I have to support 100% what Jones has said she’s explained it so well.

I do understand the feelings of shame and guilt, and I’m hoping that when you read these posts and what Jill has written our words will temper those nasty feelings a bit and you’ll feel able to come back and be our Dragonfly again. You’re just too nice for your own good

Jill I’m glad you feel a bit better about it all - yeah guilt is a real killer. It’s always a tightrope though isn’t it wanting to say what’s going on in your head but wondering whether it’s acceptable or not to other people? Hug for you Jill, don’t stop posting.

Have to add another comment too. Monte your words:

quote:

My golly-gosh, I struggle frequently with feelings of , "Hmmmph, noone appreciates what I have to say here, so I'm leaving...why didn't so-and-so respond to my wonderful post...I'm sure people think I dribble shit...oh I probably come across as cool or detached and noone likes me... blah-blah-blah..."

Could have written that myself! And I’m guessing nearly all of us at some time or another have felt like that? It certainly makes me feel better knowing someone else feels like that too. I know I’ve deleted one post because not only didn’t it get acknowledged but the OP’s next post made me feel like I’d really screwed up in what I’d said - anyway the point of this is that maybe there’s an object lesson in here somewhere? Don’t quite know what lol, but Dragonfly’s brutally honest post has certainly got me thinking.

Dragonfly please think seriously about coming back! Big big hugs to you.

LL

Please don't go DF. I would miss you terribly and I know others would as well. I just want to echo everything that has already so eloquently been said.

Jill, I'm happy that you are still here as well and hope that you will continue to post. I look forward to getting to know you more.

(((((DF))))) ((((Jill)))))

(((((draggers))))))

Hev x

(((((((((Dragonfly, thank you for coming back!))))))

(((draggers))) i like that nickname best. you are a sweet lady, we all relate to what you are feeling and your selfless sweetness. you are very much a friend to me, and i wish i could hug you personally. please shine your smile up to the Lord, as He loves YOU! and i appreciate your friendship. and as for a 'second go' ??? i will give YOU a third, a fourth, a fifth...draggers, here is UNCONDITIONAL LOVE!!! most of us never got that, and we ALL DESERVE IT, so my first heaping spoonful is for YOU!! ok?? don't run, my friend, we are all in this together!! ((((draggers)))) xxoo, jill

((((((((Dragonfly)))))))))) I'm very glad you've decided to stay. But may I very gently say you're being way too tough on yourself. The truth is that a healthy human being should be able to make their needs known or express when they're hurt by someone else's behavior. So many of us were taught that our legitimate needs and feelings were a terrible imposition or an incredibly taxing demand which was totally wrong. So you need to hear that you were acting from a healthy impulse to take care of yourself. And when you decided that you were wrong about what you said, you did NOT take the action of a selfish or terrible person, you took the amazingly courageous step of not only apologizing, but publicly apologizing, taking responsibility in front of the whole community. I find that admirable in the extreme.

This gets tied up with something really important that I learned in therapy which took me a long time to learn, I share it in the hope it might give you another perspective on this.

For as long as I can remember, I was searching for somewhere "safe" where I would not be hurt, could feel loved and good about myself, could get my needs met and completely trust the people around me. I never found it because it doesn't exist. Life will always contain hurt, and times we don't feel good about ourselves, and the people we love, who love us, sometimes failing us just because they're human.

What we were supposed to learn growing up was that when bad things happened (hopefully rarely) was that we could face those things, tolerate the uncomfortable feelings, take care of ourselves and even more importantly repair the relationship. That safety lies not in finding a place where nothing bad ever happens but knowing within ourselves that we can handle whatever happens and keep ourselves safe. That relationships can have things go wrong, but still be loving, intact and trustworthy.

So for me an extremely important part of therapy was repairing disruptions or hurts. Being heard and understood when I was upset, not being punished when I expressed that, and still having an intact caring relationship. It's something we need to experience over and over again to learn. In this community, we have something really wonderful, which is a group of people who can understand how we get triggered and how seemingly small things can invoke such strong reactions or hurt so much. Since we "get" it, it's easier to repair and restore. This is good place to start to learn this before taking it out into the wider world.

So this was actually a chance for you to have an experience that you should have had as a child. Doing something, regretting it, apologizing for it, and STILL having the relationship. What you did does not make you a bad person, or unworthy to associate with everyone. We ALL do things we regret or see as mistaken later, this one thing is not the sum total of who you are or who we know.

Jill, I also wanted to say to you that what you did when starting on the boards was very natural and what so many of us do. It is such a relief to actually find people who understand, who get what you're talking about, that let you know that you're not alone, that it's hard not to run around posting. It's a very giddy feeling to be understood. And responding to other people is SCARY, especially in the beginning, which we all understand because we all went through it. It's nice to see someone new on the boards who's so enthusiastic! Welcome!

AG

So proud of you both, Dragonfly and Jill.

((all)))
""""What we were supposed to learn growing up was that when bad things happened (hopefully rarely) was that we could face those things, tolerate the uncomfortable feelings, take care of ourselves and even more importantly repair the relationship. That safety lies not in finding a place where nothing bad ever happens but knowing within ourselves that we can handle whatever happens and keep ourselves safe. That relationships can have things go wrong, but still be loving, intact and trustworthy."""

attachment girl, what you said is so wise,
and it is just remarkable how we all have "like" damage. yes, i tend to run away, or 'clean up my act so heroicallly' that i never have needs.

what you wrote is really the process we all have to learn, and teach our kids. i am going to read and reread that, as....if i could GET THAT DOWN, i would shave months off of my therapy!!

btw, friends, T3 is looking really good!! there is hope for a better therapist beyond the frustrating log jam of dimwits!!

Jill,
I'm really glad it resonated with you. I know it had a powerful impact on me learning it from my T. But the hard part is that it's not about KNOWING it in an intellectual way. It's about living it, of experiencing repairing a relationship enough times to teach you its safe. To me the hardest part about healing is that I can't just understand it intellectually, I have to experience it in the here and now, with my limbic system engaged and rinse and repeat a multitude of times before I actually started to change. My T told me early on that if this were just a matter of understanding, they could just hand you a book when you walk through the door and say "have a nice life." I have been very blessed in having a therapist who understands the need for both consistency AND repetition. The man has the patience of Job and then some.

AG

AG,

You are so right. At first when something would happen with my T that I was upset about, I wouldn't bring it up. Then I would bring it up, but in writing so I was a safe distance away. I figured that gave T time to think and not be as mad. Well, of course she never was mad. Gradually, I was able to start verbally addressing any disruptions and most recently was able to verbally address something and set a boundary. Each time I would sit there, curled up and braced for the inevitable backlash that surely was to happen. Nope. T remained calm, safe and steady just like she always is. I (and more importantly my body) and just now starting to trust that and I am getting braver at bringing things up because I can see that we can repair the relationship and nothing bad is going to happen if I stand up for myself. I think my T has the patience of Job as well. She knows that we have to keep repeating the same things over and over and that one day I will "get it" all the way through my body.

quote:

But falling on your sword or putting yourself into isolation will just take you away from us, and we really value you a great deal, and we want you with us

So I ask you not to do that DF, Dear Friend, Dapper Flapper, FlagonDry, DragonFly. Please stay.

Dearest DF,

I agree with 100% of what Jones said, (thanks for writing that- so I won't restate it all) Everyone here understands how hard this place can be. Even Jill is learning (I can see that by her post)

We learn so very much from you DF, STAY. Forgive yourself and stay. What ever happened- everyone here understands.

Hey- sometimes my T is my biggest trigger (you have all heard enough from me on that subject, but I keep going back. I am learning.
Everyone knows that the biggest gains often come from a disconnect- you have all taught me that.

Don't run- stay with us- all of you!

ok, so maybe I should have read more before posting-my bad, but I mean every word- I am just late to the program.

Yay Draggers I’m so glad you can stay - well done you for being so courageous on EVERY front. And thank you for revealing so much of yourself - that’s pure gold. ((((( Dragonfly )))))

LL

quote:

Please everyone,i dont want everyone tip toe-ing around me worrying about whether they have answered my posts or worrying about the contents of their posts, it really important for you all to know that. I am immensely grateful for everyone worrying and apologising etc...... but this is not your fault or stuff.......... this is all my stuff staring me smack bang in the face and I have to deal with it and I want to deal with it.but thank you all for your concern.

Hey Draggers... no worrying or tiptoeing here - just want you to know I'm thinking of you. Don't mind us if we want to take a bit of special care of you for a while, it's not that you've scared us, or upset us, or intruded on us or any of that stuff - it's that we know what it's like to go through those Big Feelings, and you are our friend - it's natural to want to protect you a little bit when we know you've been going through the wringer. But you can tell us to bugger off if you're feeling all better and/or it's annoying.

So how you doing?

draggers, you did promise me you would stay, k??

mayo, i am trying to be nice and encouraging to her, i am not trying to induce guilt, but know my tools may be wacky. whatever.

Sorry jill and BB- this thread was started by Jill.

Draggers! I hope that you are ok and you come back soon. (((hugs)))

oh, that makes sense, I thought you guys were talking about a different thread. If Dragonfly had a thread of her own that would be cool, so I didn't wnat to miss out.

BB

(((( Draggers))))) so good to see you back

Hev

Welcome back dear friend! So glad you are better!!

Draggers!!!!! It is so good to hear from you again. I'm so glad you took care of yourself when Sophie was wanting to cut...and so glad you are feeling better now!

SG

Dragonfly,
Just posted in another thread but hadn't seen this one about you being in the hospital. So good to hear you are feeling better. I will be thinking of you!! (((DF)))

I hadn't seen this either. I'm sorry that you were in the hospital, but glad that you and your T did what you needed to take care of you. Glad you are feeling better.

We have a young alter that cuts as well, but we set her up in a sealed "vacation" place (put in place with the use of EMDR) and she has not cut since. I hope that Sophie is feeling better.

dragonfly,

It sounds like it has been rough. I'm really sorry. Your healing rooms sound nice. We have what we call safe places and then the other areas which are separate from everything else and don't cross over for the moment. So then we are just dealing with the ones more up front right now.

I am typically co-conscious anymore when my littles are talking to T about what happened to them. It is very hard. They get so upset and often times it is so hard for them to talk. Just yesterday I was at T and one of my littles was processing a memory and she was having a really hard time talking. I could sense that T was getting frustrated and kept trying to get her to talk. She finally was able to, but then she fell apart and was really crying and upset. T held her, but she was even having a hard time feeling that. I wish this didn't have to be so hard.

I go two times per week to T and sometimes 3. I'm glad that you are able to go 3 times per week and more if needed. That is really good. I hope that things settle down soon.

STRMS and DF

Thank you for sharing that with us and giving us an insight and understanding into your therapy. I am so very glad that you both have brilliant Ts looking after you and out for you; and Ts that are able to give you the time that you need.

The safe places and healing rooms sound exactly like that, safe and healing,and I am glad that you can keep your little ones so safe whilst they process all these distressing memories and experiences. You both have my utmost admiration and respect for the work you are doing, three times a week in therapy is a huge emotional effort, I am exhausted and brain fuddled with the small amount I do. You two are great and give back so much to others here on the forum. Thank you.

starfish

Thinking of you, (((Sophie)))!