Flashing

Flashing? Not like showing my naked body. More like showing you my naked mind. Also as in "flashback" I guess, but I'm not even sure. I just know it happened..... like this.....

He was petting the dog on my lap and his hand brushed my breast. I became upset, compounded, because it's stupid to get upset over my husband's hand brusing over my breast. Upset as I was, I went to my room to relax. I cried instead, and he didn't know so he went out to the garage to do man stuff. My brain kept saying "He touched me, then left. He touched me, then left." I argued with the intense feelings of molestation followed by abandonment, but feelings sometimes cannot be argued with. My mouth began to scream. Up from my chest came the sounds, animal-like, expressing the sadness and fear and confusion. As much as I tried to argue with those fucking feelings, they kept on coming and the argument only added additional confusion. In the middle of being lost in time and space and emotion and logic I saw clearly that what happened back then stripped me of a normal sexuality, stripped me of a normal marriage, stripped me of a normal emotional life. Sadness and fear and confusion multiplied. One part of my brain understood what was happening and another part was screaming from being raped and another part was kicking the shit out myself mentally for not getting a grip and another part was grieving for paradise lost. Lost. I got lost in the screams. I needed to pee and I was terrified of getting up out of my bed in my own fucking home to go pee because I wasn't sure I was in my home. My brain told me I was safe. It also explained that indeed I was touched without permission by a man who was supposed to love me and then that man left. That happened. When I was little and today. No amount of argument could stop the screaming and no amount of argument could get my entire self to understand that it was seriously no big deal today, not like it was a big fucking deal when I was little. I couldn't separate the two, not totally, like the two experiences shared neural pathways, crossed wires, black on red when it's supposed to be black on black and red on red and BOOM! the brain explodes in firey fucked up-ness.

Sensory Integration

Epiphany in the sauna! Rae and Sarah do a lot of communicating in there, and Rae was telling Sarah how much she appreciated her work with Doug and just her insistence that something needed to be done to figure out a bit of a solution to the the work stress problem. Having 15 minutes of lights out, very quiet time in the middle of the day to breathe and look out the window and feel and watch the stream go by with so many leaves in it, floating and moving, relaxing.....is going to make a huge, positive difference in System Management.

The epiphany was that sensory integration and emotional integration are very, very intimately connected.

Sarah gets easily overwhelmed by both emotions and sensory input. Too much sensory input, and all the energy of the system has to go into overdrive to make sense of it all, as well as determine what input can be dismissed and what input must be addressed and what input is pleasant, dangerous, tolerable, etc. If Sarah has access to too much sensory input, she gets frustrated because everyone else in the system can, for the most part, integrate it quickly and efficiently and move on. She can't. Also, if any of the inputs are potentially dangerous Sarah's frustration quickly becomes rage and then not only is she overwhelmed, the whole system is overwhelmed. To make matters more complicated, if any event has happened (and by event we mean anything from a comment of a co-worker in passing, to a joke over heard, to a touch, to a triggering word...anything) that might potentially be dangerous, Sarah's energy is spent dealing with the overwhelming fear and shame and panic and rage which easily spills into the rest of the system and then the rest of the system has to work to function appropriately under the looming shadow of threat and chaos and disaster.

We don't quite understand this intimate connection of sensory and emotional integration yet, we just know that it's very important to explore both the connection and the role sense plays in the functioning of the system. Dealing with sensory integration does not seem scary or overwhelming, it seems exciting and doable and brings hope to everyone - even Sarah. In fact, suddenly, the system is quite motivated to seek weekly, controlled input and professional help in the form of massage one week, followed by acupuncture another (the dude does some great reiki and burns incense and plays soft music and there is candlelight), followed by the goofy chiro the next week.....

I dreamed last night about this. I dreamed I went to my psychiatrist with this epiphany and explained it to him. He was distant and withdrawn, with dark circles under his eyes. After trying unsuccessfully to connect with him, I asked him if something was wrong. He said "yes" and proceeded to rape me. He couldn't get an erection, so he did it with his fingers, while choking and hitting me in the face.