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Default Oct 20, 2019 at 11:22 PM
  #1
I've processed so much while sharing my stuff and reading other people's stuff. For the longest time, my emotions were barely under the surface, largely handled by other alternates within my system. Sometimes, during fusion/integration, I can feel my alternates' emotions and see their memories - sometimes as separate from my own, sometimes with mixed images of their memories combined with mine. Fear makes me want to escape, which makes me want to dissociate (automatically, not consciously).

I do what I can to remain grounded. I feel my feet on the floor. I see a safe image in the room. I touch the table or the chair. I smell nothing or something (maybe my own funk for not showering for a few days, LOL). I hear the purring of my apartment's appliances, and the silence of the new town I reside in. I acknowledge the alternates' words, emotions, memories, and I acknowledge my own feelings, thoughts, and memories. I doubt before I'm convinced.

Then come the bodily feelings. I feel sad right before I feel anxious, which comes right before I feel my stomach go numb and my head slightly aching. My eyes seem to blur, but not enough to warrant a prescription change. I ground myself, but then I feel. The tears are barely there, slightly dissipating on the outside while puddling on the inside of my lids. I don't want to feel teardrops on my cheeks, I tell myself silently. I don't want to feel the emptiness in my tummy that comes after. I don't want to feel the betrayal wounds that are connected with the tears that bind my memories and my alternates together like used gum binds a shoe to the ground. I don't want to feel sad anger, the kind that makes the pain of betrayal more real. I want to pretend that everything in the here-and-now is safe, and that my past is just a faint memory, or an illusion separated by amnesia. But then up wells the tears again, and the pain that follows. Somatic responses to that pain are faint but loud. I want to hug someone, perhaps a person in a big teddy bear costume, so that I feel safe and less fearful. I want my tears to release this pain that I've hidden for my entire life, but I am so afraid that I won't stop once I start. There's a lot of pain. There's a lot of sad anger. There's a lot of fear - fear that I'm too much, fear that I'm crazy, fear that I'm never going to be good enough, fear of being disbelieved, fear of being used by the person whose shoulders are being drenched by my tears.

Distrust sucks the tears back in. The hope in trust pushes them back up to my eyelids. My tears cannot make up their mind, and my alternates inside are confused. My alternates continue to cry. "I'm not afraid of you," I tell the littles when they're crying. "I'm just afraid of feeling what you're feeling, and I'm sorry you took the pain for me," I add.

More tears well up, and almost one drop fell out. I blinked softly, and then I stare so the tears can dry up again. And when my tears can no longer be contained, I use my week-old, dirty, unwashed shirt that I'm wearing to sop it up before anyone notices - especially myself. I ignore the almost-tears for just a minute, and then see them as a distant memory, even though it occurred just seconds ago, while I'm typing this thread.

The tears want to come, but I'm not ready yet. And the big, safe teddy bear is just a hopeful wish for the future.

(Speaking of which, is it ever okay to ask a therapist to put on a teddy bear costume? --I'm kidding, I think.)
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Default Oct 20, 2019 at 11:24 PM
  #2
A tear made it's way through, right after my stuffy nostrils burned from anticipation. It hadn't reached my cheek yet, but it's coming out of the corner of my eye. I guess that counts as a good first step, right?
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Default Oct 20, 2019 at 11:42 PM
  #3
There are tears behind my eyes as I read your post.

The teddy bear dream is something that I can relate to too.

I pray that you can let the tears come. I believe that they heal like nothing else can.

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Default Oct 20, 2019 at 11:52 PM
  #4
@TrailRunner14

Thank you!

It's funny because I was just interacting on someone else's thread on PC, and I wrote this post in the interim, because I was just feeling tears well up a few minutes ago by feeling someone else's pain on PC as well as my own (similar traumas happen that way). In fact, I started feeling all this empathy for so many people here on PC that it started reminding me of my own pain (in a good way), which then brought on my tears.

My littles inside remind me as I'm typing that others are hurting, too. I could see the littles pointing their finger at the computer screen when they said that so-and-so needs a hug (which is why I typically include "safe hugs" now in my posts). Then the littles remind me that they need a hug and that I need a hug, too. The teddy bear is our safe object.

Thank you so much for sharing what you did. Your words really strengthen us. I'm still not yet there with the tears, but I'm closer than I was.

I have cried alone and in front of other people, but usually with an alternate outside or alongside me. Pillows help, since I don't have a teddy bear yet. I told myself that when I quit smoking and completely get all the smoke smell out, that's when I'll get a new and fresh-smelling teddy bear.

Thanks for helping me not feel so alone.

(((safe hugs)))
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Default Oct 21, 2019 at 12:07 AM
  #5
You aren’t alone!

Thank you for sharing your post and allowing me to feel it with you.

Trail.

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Default Oct 21, 2019 at 02:47 AM
  #6
It is hard to put all the dissociated aspects of our experience into one place, isn't it? I can often feel sad, or have tears, or know what happened, but getting two of them happening at the same time is a bit elusive.
Like you I can more easily feel sadness for another person's experience. If someone is crying near me in person, I will very often well up with tears for them. One thing that is sure to bring me to tears is anything about human beings being decent human beings and truly helping one another. Great acts of empathy and kindness can be like a key to releasing emotion for me, so I often read things like Chicken Soup for the Soul or watch youtube videos about kindness when I need to release pent up and otherwise inexpressible emotions.
I hope you can get yourself a new teddy bear soon.
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Default Oct 21, 2019 at 03:25 AM
  #7
Quote:
Originally Posted by Amyjay View Post
It is hard to put all the dissociated aspects of our experience into one place, isn't it? I can often feel sad, or have tears, or know what happened, but getting two of them happening at the same time is a bit elusive.
Like you I can more easily feel sadness for another person's experience. If someone is crying near me in person, I will very often well up with tears for them. One thing that is sure to bring me to tears is anything about human beings being decent human beings and truly helping one another. Great acts of empathy and kindness can be like a key to releasing emotion for me, so I often read things like Chicken Soup for the Soul or watch youtube videos about kindness when I need to release pent up and otherwise inexpressible emotions.
I hope you can get yourself a new teddy bear soon.
Thank you, @Amyjay

You said what I couldn't express, no matter how hard I tried - in your first few sentences.

Hmm... maybe I can try the suggestions you made - to see if I can cry about kind acts. Oh, I did actually cry once when watching Hunger Games and seeing the Mockingjay place flowers around the then late Rue. When the people from Rue's district responded to watching that, that entire scene made me cry. It was kindness mixed with pain. Hmm... maybe I can try that with some of the videos on kindness.

I hope for a teddy bear soon, too.
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