Dealing With Pain (Contains potentially triggering content. Read at your own risk)

A quiet night in as we write and try to focus on a sense of balance. Body pain is still there at times. In your arms, legs, hip and elsewhere. Dissociating still happens and is tough to not slip into. You could go back into destructive dissociative stuff. Then again, do you really want to disappear for literally days at a time? No.

For whatever reasons, it seems like there's more destructive stuff out there. Violence, rape, murder, I-don't-give-a-f**k-what-you-think attitudes and more. How many times have you heard nobody's MAKING you watch/listen to/read this. If you don't like it, shut the f**k up and go away! Is it because they're evil, powerful and want to dominate the world? Is it because they have money, power and think they're way better than the rest of us? Who knows.

One answer is to screen all content. Block where necessary and say no when needed. Many survivors talk about wanting to save the world. While that's nice, in reality it's too much by yourself. Instead, what's more important? If you're well being isn't okay, how can you be effective?

In my case, dissociating at times is still violent. Think of it as severe alcoholism. If you do it, you'll escape horrible pain? Your first impulse might say yes. In reality, no it won't. It just makes it worse.

What should you do? In the most positive way you can, don't dissociate. Do anything that's positive that makes you feel good. If you're dealing with addictions and you slip, you didn't ask to have them. Odds are you were using to make long term pain go away. Some heroin addicts use because they feel like someone cares for them afterwards. They feel like a normal human being.

In the same sense, does violent dissociating make you feel like a normal person? It might shut off the pain and give you a sense of quiet. In my case, it makes you forget about time. Then you feel like you're trapped in a cage with no way out. Your fight-or-flight mechanism is stuck. Mine is still stuck. I still struggle at times to get anger out without literally snapping in two and blacking out.

This tells me that my severe symptoms are still there. They're not my fault. Also, denial isn't an issue. It used to be. But not now.

If you feel like you've had a relapse in some way, be as nice as you can to yourself. Again, in my experience I was a notorious alcoholic and junk food addict because of horrible pain. I didn't ask to be. However, it happened.

Now, I'm sober and still struggle with the junk food. On the other hand, I know overall I'm covering the right things. I can't control other horrible people and the idiotic s**t that they say and do. That's their problem. If they rich, famous and powerful, even more so.

A lot of people talk about self care, but they should because of the importance of it. No trauma survivor is evil. Instead, they just want among other things a sense of validation. If you give me a reassuring hug, you won't get raped. Then again, you can't control others.

Just keep in mind that you exist and you matter.