134 - 30 days gratitude challenge

It's been over 2 months since my last challenges. Indeed, I'd created one in the occasion of this blog's 100th post, that might have been too big for people to participate in (and which I can understand) and before that, I'd followed Cortnee Deyarmin's 7 day posichallenge. 

So, I'm now joining in with Brenda, my friend from twitter who shared Mindfulness Welness' challenge:  30 days of #Gratitude, starting September 1st, as follows : 

133- Feminism (3) - how I became a feminist

***trigger warning*** domestic violence, abuse

After my two previous posts about feminism (99 & 132) I thought to discuss now how I became a feminist, a few years before I even knew the term... 

It all started with my various traumas, evidently... but, more precisely, the examples that my misogynist father gave me through his violence towards my mothers. 
The first mother, my birth mother, was badly abused by him. Although I repressed all memories pertaining to those few years, I am more than certain that it impacted my psyche and emotional predispositions... 

132- Feminism (2)

It's a been a while since I started talking about one of my biggest passions in life : feminism. 
Misogyny's one of humanity's biggest issues, and from it, I believe, many others arise. 

In fact, in my opinion feminism should be fought with another important term : humanism. We need to find our humanity and become equal in rights - not just in theory and on paper, but in acts and facts. 

131- ''Worthless to accomplished''

I have been reading Brian F. Martin's InVincible, a book about surviving domestic violence, un-learning all the lies that we had learned during our youth, and learning new truths to set us free-er from all limitations we have set for ourselves as we grew up with the lies. 
It's chapter 8 gives the title to this blog entry, hence the quotes. 

I haven't discussed much my low self-esteem issues which is quite odd, because it's one of the worst long-lasting effects of my upbringing in my father's religious cult and having been constantly put down and berated by him, as well as my my step-mother. 

130- PTSD 10- Drugs and long term effects

I have to admit that I hadn't planned on telling you this part of my life ; but, in all honesty, it has been on my mind lately. So, my ***trigger warning*** is probably more valid than ever as I'm about to detail horrendous, criminal acts my father forced on me throughout my youth and adolescence. 

129- Depression (4) : Suicidal ideation

Continued from 20, 60, and directly from 128 & 127

***Again, I'll remind that any of these can trigger ptsd. ***

As I experienced multiple depressive episodes in my youth, and especially in my teen years, with growing gloom and despair, I lost all hope. I saw no way of improving my survival under my father's religious dogmas and saw no end to my suffering. 

The last blows were political unrest with repeated attacks in public transports to the point of losing many hours each week, as I had to get off buses and be put to safety whilst the specialty squads would come inspect abandoned objects and stop any possible death toll by neutralizing these back packs... 

128 - Depression (3)

Continued from 127.

*** trigger alert***


I cannot tell precisely when I experienced my very first feeling of depression, but I can recall, however, that I felt like I'd died when my father had kidnapped me from my (birth-)mother  and uprooted me to a whole different country when I wasn't even 5 years old. 
To this day, I have to admit that I feel very strong emotions when I read anything remotely similar on the news, especially of children of about the same age kidnapped or abused by a parent, because it really traumatized me greatly. 

127- Depression (2)

I hadn't planned to take this long to discuss my depression when I posted the introduction to the topic back in March. 
But, since then, I have posted over 100 additional entries and totally forgot about posting a second part, and discuss more about my numerous experiences with this illness.

First, I need to point out that there are two basic ''types'' shall we say for depression - 

• as a mood : ''a state of low mood and aversion to activity'' - the shortest and most concise definition, that won't do it justice, so I'll let you read a fuller definition on wiki (since they use less jargon than the DSM, the official manual psychotherapists use) 
• and then,  Major Depressive disorder, dysthimia and other Mood Disorders, which are more precise in their definitions

Secondly, depression affects every person differently and anyone can experience it - especially in our modern society which puts so much emphasis on personal achievements, efficiency and speed in reaching our goals ; normalizing and setting high standards or totally wrong sets of ideals (about topics as varied as beauty, politics and so on). 
Those aren't the subject of this particular blog entry and are too big for me to address in full on my blog at all since they are massive social issues that are studied by experts... 

Thirdly, I didn't even know the term depression when I first experienced it. It's a term I learned much later in my life - after many depressive episodes. 

I'll remind you here that I am not a therapist, and not going to discuss at present the exact terminology to which kind of depression I was going through since I cannot back-diagnose myself, short of time travelling, right? 

126- Mental health Shout-outs shutdowns

 

Back in June 2016, I had started sharing shout-outs to various mental health bloggers I'd met in twitter MH community. Now, by June 2021, I have lost touch with most of the people I did the shout-out for. Some actually had stopped blogging, retreated from social media ; others used me and I don't feel leaving a shout-out for them on my own blog anymore, as I don't accept some of their actions towards me. 

125- I am more than the sum of my parts...

As the philosopher said, the Whole is more than the sum of its parts. Sadly, far too many people forgot that about me. People I thought were friends and who have ignored me for 2 years - ever since I lost my passion and even interest of astrology, for this current example. 

Indeed, it used to be a very important part of my life, and I spent hours every day talking about astrology and other esoteric, mystical subjects.

Then, something happened, something that I cannot even explain to myself, and I lost interest for these subjects. I don't even know if I'll ever get back to any of them. 

I stopped participating in a forum and a few groups on facebook, and wanted to discuss other topics with my ''astro-friends'' but they have ALL deserted me. 

124- Post traumatic growth

(note : I made the image above from a drawing my wife made). 

Today, I'm going to discuss Post-Traumatic Growth, a term I was reminded off some time ago as I researched trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (in short, PTSD). 

This term, Post-Traumatic Growth, refers to positive psychological changes people who have suffered from trauma can experience and achieve after adverse, challenging traumatic experiences. (you can read more just about anywhere, here's for ex wiki's article)

Many people who have suffered managed to learn how to better cope, adapted to the stresses and found new ways to relate to the world as they positively changed their mindset and approach to their environment and trauma. 

This means that in the future, traumas can have much lesser impact ; it's possible to recover faster than before, and find positive outlets - such as self expression through art, writing, or becoming an activist - to name but a few ways. 

123- The blog is 6 months old!...

My wife had been nagging me to create a blog...for months on end I replied that I had nothing to talk about, that I didn't wish to do it - it was too much work to set up, and besides, no one would read me and I could never be regular about it... 

122- CBT 2016-6

In post 118 I detailed the trip to Paris, and my CBT assignments. I'll let you read than entry, and come back here for the second part of that. 

I had to reschedule this  sixth session with my therapist, because I couldn't talk while being sick. 

I finally went in today and had a positive return from my therapist after I showed her my notes and progress in most of my exposure tasks. 

I mentioned how I managed throughout this trip to tap into higher sources of anxiety than my initial tasks, which were up to level 40/100. 

121- Growing up with domestic violence and abuse (1)

***trigger alert*** 


I have discussed many aspects of my traumatic life, and have mentioned numerous times part of the psychological, emotional and physical abuses I was a directly subjected to - mostly by my father. 

If you want to read, or re-read those previous posts, they are all under the label abuse and more specifically posts 107, 102, 95, 67, 63. 

I also vaguely discussed some of the consequences of the abuse. Lack of self-esteem and trust issues, difficulties asking other's help, post-traumatic cycles, obvious post-traumatic stress, and I even had a period during which I couldn't control myself and bullied back fellow students in a school where I was bullied. 

In spite of these numerous posts, I never truly discussed another traumatic aspect of my youth. One that I learned is experienced by 1 person out of 7 : Domestic violence, or in short ''DV'' like its twitter hashtag. 

120- Book reading - Invincible (B.F. Martin) (part 2)

 Book- InVincible

Author : Brian F. Martin

Note : 9/10

Year: 2014

Perigree. ISBN 978-0-399-16657-0

265 pages

I started reading this book yesterday- if you want to my first part, pertaining mostly to a summary of its content and my first impressions, read entry 119 

This second part will be edited as I progressed in my reading, so you'll have to come back to it again.

Thus far,  I only read the forward and preface, followed by Mr Martin's read me first - where he told of the importance of reading the book in order and not skip the chapters, as one leads to the next, and I read chapter 1, Undiscovered gifts. 


There, the author tells a bit of his story, and how he came to the project that is this book: a childhood in a house full of domestic violence, which lead him through the years to find his inner peace and his hopes that we, his readers, can do the same.
He came to the conclusion that we adults who had survived the difficulties of domestic violence have an inner strength to tap into and use to grow and fulfill the potentials we had and which were stolen from us when we were children.

119- Book reading - Invincible (B.F. Martin) (part 1)

 Book- InVincible

Author : Brian F. Martin

Note : ?/10

Year: 2014

Perigree. ISBN 978-0-399-16657-0

265 pages

> to part 2, detailing this book

It's been a while since I discussed any mental health book that I was reading, so here it is. I started my current one just yesterday (8/08/16), and thus it's a fresh topic.

A fellow MH friend on twitter said on her page that it was a very positive read for her, and I think, thus far, that it'll have indeed enough information to draw upon. 

Brian F. Martin's book's aim - as the cover announces - the 10 lies that children growing up with domestic violence learn, and suggests truths to set ''you'' free. 

118- Paris trip, social phobias & CBT assignments (2)

Just like my previous trip to Paris, I had a CBT session before this one and had up to 4 tasks for the 2 weeks between my 2 appointments. 

• Sending an official email > I did that during the first week, but have had no reply from the mental health organisation that I'd contacted. I plan to send my message again. 
• 
  
• Spend longer time in supermarkets, to reduce my anxieties > I'd been doing it partially since the previous CBT and continued throughout the past 2 weeks.
• 
  
• Continue asking for info & directions > again, this was the previous CBT assignment, and I continued it as much as I could, including during Paris visit that I'll detail.
• 
  
• I wasn't able to invite anyone to spend some time in our apartment, but the visit to someone else's in Paris, with my wife's family fulfilled part of this task.