After 3 years no contact

[Guest guest]

Hi all KOs,

I am celebrating my 3rd year of no contact! (Hmmmm, maybe Hallmark

should start a new brand of anniversary card?) I believe I have

something special to celebrate this year - although time will tell.

It is already mid-November, and I have had no sign of the SAD

(seasonal affective disorder) that I have suffered with for most of

my adult life. Depending upon what was happening in the foo, this

seasonal depression would start as early as late August, and by

November/December I was pretty much a basket case, living in pajamas

on the weekends, barely making it to work during the week, etc. I

am prepared to deal with perhaps a mild case, depending upon how

gloomy the days become in the northeast. It certainly seems that

the external impact of the foo played a very big part in how

severely I was affected.

Another cause to celebrate is that I finally made a breakthrough in

one of my PTSD issues. I had been dealing with my therapist on this

issue for years. One of the reasons that I stopped therapy was that

she was unable to help me with this issue, and I felt that I was

just maintaining a status quo with her therapy, which as she finally

described was more self analysis than therapy. The issue was that

sometimes I would get this very strong feeling of fear, and the

words that came into my mind were, " No, please don't, go away, leave

me alone " . (I am now not sure of all the words, because once the

connection was made, the words and the feelings have pretty much

gone away.) The feelings were a combination of anger and fear.

Through the use of a guided imagery CD, I was able to connect the

words and the feelings to the beating my dad gave me when I was 16

years old. I had been listening to this CD on an irregular basis

for about 6 months in the evening before going to sleep. I just

woke up one morning, and the first thought in my mind was the

connection between the words, feelings and the event. And the

strong emotions were gone. Yay! The CD I used was " A Guided

Meditation for Healing Trauma (PTSD) " by Belleruth Naparstek. I

bought it through Amazon.com, but she has a web site at

healthjourneys.com. When I read the reviews on Amazon, this

particular tape was better recommended than some of her other

tapes. I have always had a good response to guided imagery, and I

am very happy with this particular success.

There have been some disappointments over the past years as well.

Because of my own fleas, I had already placed myself in a position

of very few friends. And now my relationship with my sister is

almost non-existant, and a relationship with another friend has

ended. I am accepting this as the fallout from my growth and

recovery. It is always uncomfortable to have these voids, but I

believe these friendships will be replaced in time. I have learned

from the losses as well as the successes.

Please join me in celebrating my 3 year NC anniversary!

Sylvia