Springtime In The Mountains – An Awakening E-Book

Sarah Meier

• Herausgeber: novum publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 860

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

"It's not all as you believed" Suddenly the author's seemingly normal life was thrown off course by the outbreak of complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Her story is a profound description of the long path she had to take to uncover the trauma and start the healing process. In doing so, she spares neither herself nor those around her, since only a clear view can bring about change. Anyone who accompanies her on this long journey will be rewarded with insights into another, wonderful world. The author takes the reader along in a captivating and moving way as she peels back the many layers of her experiences to discover the truth and, in the process, heal.

Leseprobe

Introduction

For everyone who has the courage and perseverance to watch with me.

If I had known you were with me, I would have been a little less afraid.

Thank you for your companionship!

For the one I call Ursula in this book: thank you for becoming my “wild mother.”

“Many of us have lived desert lives: very small on the surface, and enormous under the ground. La Loba shows us the precious things that can come from that sort of psychic distribution.

A woman’s psyche may have found its way to the desert out of resonance, or because of past cruelties or because she was not allowed a larger life above ground. So often a woman feels then that she lives in an empty place where there is maybe just one cactus with one brilliant red flower in it, and then in every direction, 500 miles of nothing. But for the woman who will go 501 miles, there is something more. A small brave house. An old one. She has been waiting for you.”(Pinkola Estés, 1992)p.36

“It is this brief, perhaps only minute-long, but consciously brought about union with the soul that moves us to radiate our inner life for all to see, instead of burying it under mountains of shame, fear of revenge or attacks, lethargy or excuses.” (Pinkola Estés, 1992) p.328

These two quotes from the book “Women Who Run With the Wolves” by Clarissa Pinkola Estés (Pinkola Estés, 1992) have always given me strength and courage when I was on the verge of giving up. They ultimately ensured that I continued despite all the setbacks and that this book found its way into the public. Anyone who reads it will understand why.

Introduction to the English edition:

Many thanks to the person, that was such a great help for me with the translation, she doesn’t want to be named.

Preface

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” attributed to Joseph Campbell (quoteinvestigator.com, 2024)

The diary entries written here correspond to the truth and my experience. The stories from my past, which were brought to me in astonishing ways, reflect my truth because they make sense to me and explain my nature, but I do not presume to claim that everything happened exactly that way. As far as I am concerned, the past experiences are stored in my body and speak an unmistakable language, because the body does not lie. I cannot and do not want to judge whether the images and explanations that my mind has produced are just as unmistakable or rather an attempt to explain the inexplicable.

The names of the people mentioned in the book have been changed for their protection and mine.

I am also writing this book under a pseudonym for personal protection reasons.

I wrote this book for people who resonate with something when reading it. Just follow the sound.“And see what you find.”(Pinkola Estés, 1992) p.40

Part one: “I”

Book 1

Dec. 2019–February 25,2020

“How can we know what we are missing if we never knew it existed in the first place?” (Levine, 2010) p.294

December 2019

Find something that can comfort me.

A friend gave me this notebook a long time ago. It remained empty for so long.

I always knew that I wanted to write and could do it well. I just have nothing to say - just that nothing works anymore.

I can only lie down and even lying down everything is spinning, I'm so dizzy.

January 7, 2020

Dream: *Iwrite a message to Felix: He should give me back my key.

Which key did I lose? The key to my heart. Felix found it, completely by chance.

A thousand doors opened inside me all at once. I just depended on him holding the key.

When I realized he was just playing with his power over me, my world collapsed.

“Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.”, Matthew 8.8(biblegateway, 2024)

I don’t believe in God. But this sentence from the Catholic liturgy has always touched me. If I could pray, I would do that right now, but I don't know how to do it.

My psychologist Ursula says: “Say no to boundary violations, say yes to your truth and your needs.” But I only ever notice boundaries being overstepped when they have long since happened. I even actively contributed to their ability to last as long as they did. I actually felt particularly good about it. So, what is my truth and what are my real needs?

With my craniosacral therapist:There is a black, living, threatening mass in my stomach. I put a lot of effort into packing it into a package because it resists it very much and is extremely slippery and agile. Only with the help of Stefan, my husband, is it possible. I load the package onto a large slingshot, but I'm unable to cut the slingshot's rope and hurl it away. The package has been lying somewhere in my stomach ever since, well tied up, but still a threatening foreign body.

My doctor says what I have is not burnout, as I first suspected, but PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). I'm a bit confused: I'm supposed to have a trauma?

In the summer of 2019, I suddenly became ill. From one day to the next I couldn't work anymore, nothing worked anymore. At first, I thought it was just heartbreak. I had an affair with Felix for a year. I didn't really understand what had happened to me.It just happened. I thought everything was fine with my relationship. I was satisfied and wasn’t missing anything. As accident would have it, Felix and I were both alone in the same place for a few days on vacation. It just happened. I remember him asking me, “Do you really want this?” and me saying “yes,” but it all happened in a strange, distant way, as if I was suddenly a different person, watching from afar. For a long time afterwards,I didn't remember the first moment when he came up to me from behind and grabbed my shoulders with considerable force. I had a secret relationship with him for a whole year until his wife informed me that he had no intention of leaving her. I realized: I had reached a dead end. I took a few weeks' leave of absence to process the pain of the end of this affair. When I returned to work, it wasn't long before the next breakdown occurred: During a session with my craniosacral therapist, I fell into a state of complete immobility1. A huge pain overwhelmed me. I wanted to open my eyes and say something, but I couldn't. I was frozen. As if my body was already dead, I was floating above myself and couldn't go back there. According to my therapist it couldn't have lasted long, but to me it felt like an eternity. I wasn't with myself and didn't know if I would ever come back.

After this experience it was clear: This was much more than “just” lovesickness. A trauma, my doctor suspected. So, I got books about trauma because lying on the sofa and reading was the only thing I could do. Any contact with other people scared me. Even going outside into nature gave me anxiety. My body was on constant alert and at the same time I felt completely exhausted.

As I read, I noticed that what I read didn't stick with me at all. I read the way I had always read: for me, reading had been a kind of anesthesia, a film that runs inside and provides momentary entertainment, but doesn't really affect me and is therefore immediately forgotten. This meant I could read the same books over and over again. I literally devoured them and read at an incredible pace.

It was only much later that I realized that this had been one of my tried and tested trauma coping strategies: As long as I was reading, I didn't have to feel my body, I was in another world, one that wasn't dangerous because I could close the book at any time. It was a world over which I had complete control.

But now I looked for clues, wanted to understand what I had read and not forget it straight away. So, I started slowing down my reading pace by using the highlighter pen to mark the sentences that seemed “somehow important.” Sentences that resonated with me, even if I initially had no idea why. When I finished a chapter, I read the highlighted sentences again. If I still thought they were important, I wrote them by hand in my notebook. I often had the impression that I only really understood the meaning -- and that something about it began to stick in my head-- when I re-read what I had written down several times, marked it again with a highlighter, and sometimes even copied it again...

So, I worked through entire books and began filling my notebook with information.

In between, I also wrote down my dreams, which I thought were insignificant and completely incomprehensible, but I still followed the impulse to write them down. I had to start somewhere.

January 19, 2020

Dream: *I got the key back. The lock is huge, the key is big and heavy. The key fits when I put it in, but I do not open the door.

The first key was the books. Luckily, I didn't know at the time how long it would take and how much work would be necessary for the gate to open. I always had the impression that I was close, the key was already in the lock.

January 25, 2020

Dream: *I should take my daughter to the dentist. We have a long way to go through a strange city and we should hurry up, but we don't know the route exactly. I think I've found a shortcut and lead my daughter through a cemetery that's on a steep slope below a church. The dentist must be right on the other side, I hope. Then suddenly I take a closer look at this “garden” we are walking through: there are stinking, dead fish and even body parts on the ground, and dead snakes dangling from the trees. I am horrified, not only by the condition of this garden, but especially by the fact that I had led my daughter down this path without realizing how terrible it is here. I wake up with a feeling of indescribable terror.

January 26, 2020

Dreams:

*My daughter and I are in a very large house and are looking for something. The house is huge, and we enter all the rooms, even the large and very winding basement, but cannot find what we are looking for. Then we notice that there is still a winter garden outside. We go in. There are lots of plants there. At first, I think they're all frozen because it's winter outside. But then I discover that many are still alive. I collect them and bring them into the warmth after repotting them and providing them with fresh soil.

*I'm outside in the snow. I find the keys I'm looking for, one after the other, on a snow-covered path. Stefan, my husband, follows me with a sleigh and keeps the keys safe that I have already found. The path is so covered in snow that I must crawl on all fours and dig deep to get them, but I find them all.

I started writing down texts in the first person, that I suspected had something to do with me. This way, I thought, I could “identify with them” better. (Here, in the book, they are of course quoted in their original form.)

Since my doctor said I probably had trauma, I wanted at least to understand what that meant exactly. This led me to the book “In An unspoken Voice” by Peter A. Levine. (Levine, 2010) . The title alone scared and confused me a lot: Is there supposed to be a language without words? That was unimaginable for me.

“On the other hand, ‘simple’ awareness, along with fortified tolerance for bewildering and frightening physical body sensations, can seemingly, as if by magic, prevent or dissolve entrenched emotional and physical symptoms.”(Levine, 2010)p.290

“Perhaps the most concrete reason to pay attention to your body is that it is a ready tool to resolve various physical, emotional and psychological symptoms. …It is not a mere alleviation of symptoms. Rather, it is a descent into the parts of our being that are alien, that we might prefer not to deal with – the parts of ourselves that we have split of from and, at one point, ‘chosen’ to deposit out of sight and touch.”(Levine, 2010) p.291

“While awake we may not be aware of this inner world, but it is possible to entice it from far background and then gently seduce it, if only fleetingly, into the foreground of our awareness.”(Levine, 2010) p.293

“If we experience things too quickly and deeply, we might be overwhelmed, leading us to further suppress or dissociate.”(Levine, 2010) p.294

“The idea is not to try to ‘remember’ anything (repressed or otherwise); though it is entirely possible that some sort of ‘revivification’ may occurspontaneously.”(Levine, 2010)p.297

“It turns out, however, that a key to processing traumatic material successfully (as well as avoiding the pitfalls of so-called false memories) is in cultivating the ability to hold a dual consciousness with an emphasis on the sensations, feelings, images and thoughts that are unfolding thehere and now.When this is done, fragmented sensory elements, which make up the core of trauma, become gradually integrated into a coherent experience. It is this transformation that healing trauma is all about; it is not about ‘remembering’ per se, but gradually moving out of fixity and fragmentation into flow and wholeness.”(Levine, 2010)p.297-298

“One of the keys in this process is to eliminate the idea that any of these sensations are insignificant. While they may appear that way to you, labeling them as such interferes with their advancing in a manner that reveals their significance.(Levine, 2010) p.300

“Furthermore, you will find that continuing application of directed awareness is exactly what will allow for ‘corrective procedures’ – not so such by doing anything but by standing out of the way of your own organism’s innate capacity for self-regulation.”(Levine, 2010) p.301

What I read here scared me very much. I felt: He is right, and this is the path I have to take. However, I had no idea how to do it. Feel something inside me? I felt nothing at all, or if I did: huge fear.

February 4, 2020

My window of tolerance is tiny: actually, everything is too much. I just manage to get up in the morning and wake the children. As soon as they are in school, I collapse and have to lie down. Ursula, my psychologist, says I should “be a lion mother to myself.” “You are allowed to have peace and quiet,” she says. However, I am very worried. I can’t work. How long will it take? My husband is still doing training, who will earn the money for our family?

I searched within myself: What trauma could I have? What happened in my life that I haven't processed properly? What then emerged was the story of my puberty and adolescence:

I had always felt different from the other children.

When I was twelve, I joined a youth orchestra. We heard this orchestra at a concert. It fascinated me because they played very different music than I was used to: folk music from different countries, especially from South America. I was excited and wanted to take part too. The orchestra had members from the wider region, so rehearsals usually took place on weekends. Sometimes we stayed overnight in host families of other orchestra members or together in school buildings or even gymnasiums... I liked the open spirit and the contact with the older members. Finally, people who had similar interests as me. Tobias, the leader of the orchestra, was a charismatic personality who could inspire and motivate the young people. However, I soon noticed that he was also looking for physical closeness to the girls. He also began very carefully to come closer and closer to me. Starved for love as I was, I couldn't say no. I felt strangely attracted to him, but at the same time very afraid. I tried to understand what was going on, but I couldn't. The orchestra made a major trip abroad almost every year. Two or three weeks away from home, so many new and interesting impressions: these trips were among the most beautiful experiences of my youth. I finally found good friends in this group. My whole world began to focus more and more on this orchestra. This always included the strange fascination for the orchestra leader. I watched him and began to realize the approach games he was playing with me and many others. He made contact. When I responded, he ignored me for a while until I became so jealous of the others he turned to in the meantime, that I would do anything to get his attention again. Then he suddenly turned back to me and came a little closer.

I don't know how consciously he did this. He gave me the love I so desperately needed, and I even believe it was sincere. He obviously thought that it was only natural that the older I got, the more boundaries he crossed. Although I suspected something was wrong, I always believed there was something wrong withme.I couldn't tell anyone, especially not my parents, that I loved a man as old as my father. The only person who knew about it was a pen pal from Belgium. During this time, he married again, and he had two children with his new wife, whom I often looked after. I was in an indescribable conflict of conscience when I was at their house: I felt “divided in two”. One part loved them all, another part had an incredibly bad conscience and was ashamed to death.

It wasn't until later, when I was eighteen, when I had real sex with him, that I told my best friend from school. I had a few friends in the orchestra. It became more and more clear to me that he was playing the same games with them as he was playing with me. I talked to them about it because I was hoping that together we might be able to understand better, what was happening to us, and support each other. When he found out, he once again exploited this fact for his own purposes: one can have sex with several girls at the same time. That was the height of shame and humiliation. Still, I loved him. Outside of school, this was my only existing world and I saw no way to take myself out of it. I would have lost everything and especially had to give up the person who I really loved for years and who advised and supported me in so many areas.

There were attempts, but I couldn't do it. I changed schools, went away from my family to another town, but I didn't make it. I felt so alone and lost; it wasn't possible.

I was in my twenties when I finally drew a radical conclusion. I changed towns again, started studying music and I knew: now I just had to do it. Sometime later, while I was studying, I met Stefan, my current husband. As soon as I was with him, I fell ill with Pfeiffer's glandular fever. During this illness the whole story came back to me. It was only then that I realized: What Tobias had done to me, and the other girls was called sexual abuse. It's not true that I did it voluntarily - as I had always told myself. I had had no other choice. He had made me dependent on him and put me under massive pressure by withdrawing his love. I had an understanding violin teacher who supported me a lot. She recommended books that helped me. However, I dealt with the topic more on an intellectual level. I had buried my emotions somewhere deep in my body after the radical cut that I had to make in order to be able to go through with the separation from Tobias. It was the only option back then. This was the only way I could carry on and concentrate on my studies. Burying the emotions wasn't a conscious decision, it just happened.

Since then, I have suffered from terrible stage fright, which has only gotten worse over the years. It felt like a huge monster that I was fighting in vain and that was getting bigger and bigger. Music was the most important and precious thing to me and yet, or perhaps because of that, I was so afraid of making music when other people were around.

When the story of abuse came to me, I knew: I needed someone to help me work through it. I knew: It had to be a woman and it had to be someone who had experience with it. That's how I came to Ursula. Looking back, it was providence. I was recommended someone who didn't have space and he gave me her address. She called me and told me: “Yes, I am sure I can help you!” This sentence stuck in my ears. Whenever I was in despair, when I was afraid, I heard the conviction and confidence in these words.

February 18, 2020

With Ursula:

What I'm missing, she says, is a basic need: "Resonating with other living beings" she calls it and says it's one of the most beautiful things you can experience: "Having the same vibrations." I always thought I was stupid to wish for something that is obviously not possible.

Tobias took advantage of that.

Ursula says: “Children and young people are always dependent on adults. They cannot act autonomously. They cannot defend themselves or free themselves.”

Ursula says: My behavior back then was the only possible and correct thing. I can have pity for the child I was instead of blaming myself.

That sounds plausible to my mind, but how is that supposed to work: have compassion for myself?

Can you even have feelings for yourself?

Where can I resonate with others?

Why am I cutting myself off?

The technical term for this, I learn, is dissociation: I literally leave my body when my anxiety becomes too great.My ears are ringing louder and louder, so loud that everything else fades into the background. I no longer feel anything, I shrink into a tiny dot and that dot is pure fear.I am no longer capable of any thought, I no longer hear when someone speaks to me, I am only afraid. This can go so far that I lose consciousness. I remember having this condition before, for example when I had severe menstrual pain.

My greatest wish is far away, unattainably far away: to resonate with others, but always feel myself and not give up on my needs. Going into resonance without becoming dependent, without giving up myself.

February 20, 2020

Dreams:

*I'm riding in the car with my mother-in-law. She drives slowly because there are lots of pedestrians around her. A little boy comes on a bicycle and falls right in front of the car. He is able to jump up and save himself, but the car runs over the bike. “Stop, stop!” I shout, but it's as if she couldn't hear me at all. She even drives a little faster now. I think about whether I should just jump out of the moving car, but then I don't have the courage.

This reminds me of a dream from August 2018:Felix, my lover at the time, is driving down a mountain with me and my children. The road goes steeply down. He drives very fast and doesn't slow down a bit. I know that the junction with the main street is about to come, I can even see it and he definitely won't be able to brake. Still, I'm not afraid at all. Everything he does feels good and right, even though my mind knows full well that it will end badly.

*I am on a concert tour. We are cooking in the accommodation. It's very chaotic there, there are clothes everywhere and there are a lot of people there. I know I'm pregnant. I put lotion on my stomach, which doesn’t show yet, and feel: "This child will be completely different!" There is a beautiful calm in me and the certainty that everything will turn out well.

Book 2

"Compassion"

February 27, 2020 – March 20, 2020

“Dreams are portals, entrances, preparations, and practices for the next step in consciousness, the “next day” in the individuation process.” (Pinkola Estés, 1992) p.68

“Thankfully ongoing recovery work…taught me to practice self-care in a spirit of giving to a child who needed and really deserved to be helped.”(Walker, 2013)p.23

My craniosacral therapist says: “The power is within you; you just have to allow it to heal you.” That sounds nice, but I can’t imagine how that’s supposed to work. I wish someone would come and say: “I will heal you,” but there is no one.

February 27, 2020

Dream: *I'm lying in bed all curled up, in the fetal position. A voice says:

“It is necessary that everything contracts like this, so that you can come out of it!”

This physical state of contraction came again and again, always exactly at the moment when I felt like I was finally feeling a little better. When I had the impulse to return to life. I would tackle something: something urgent around the house or I made contacts, wanted to meet someone for a walk, make an agreement or have a phone call. After just a few hours this contraction came. Sometimes I resisted it, just ignored it. However, “It” was stronger than my will. In the end, all I could do was to give up and lie down again. Accepting that it is a serious illness, one that won't go away in a few weeks. Accepting that there is a force at work here against which my will to go back to my previous life is powerless.

I lie down again and continue reading. Writing out passages that seemed important to me was the only thing that was still possible.

February 18, 2020

Dream: *I ride with Felix on a chairlift. I would like to hold his hand and am wondering if I can do that. His daughter is also there, she could see it and condemn it. Then my head gets very quiet, and I just do it. He surrounds my fingers with warmth and strength, it's a good and strong feeling, but I stay with myself and don't lose myself.

March 2, 2020

Flashback

It's just another deeper level that I've reached. It comes so hard in order that it can be seen. Otherwise, I would have gone back to “normal life” long ago. I now know that it always comes when I have enough strength to endure these feelings.

“It”, this incredibly strong, absolutely paralyzing feeling of inner contraction, always came when I thought it was over. I had already worked so hard and dealt with this abuse again. Now I could put it away, just like I did back then: put it aside and move on with life. There was also a voice that kept saying: “Now don’t act like that, it wasn’t all that bad. You wanted it yourself too. You thought it was nice, you loved him after all. Now you're just looking for a reason, an excuse, because you're sick and you're ashamed that you can't work. Don't be so lazy. Finally put it away and do your work! What will people think of you!” But it was no use. No matter how hard I tried, that contraction came and forced me to lie down again. What else was there?

There had to be more. Something I didn't have access to. So I continued searching through my books. If I read a book, there were usually references to further literature. Sometimes I didn't even finish reading a book, but instead followed the next clue that I found somewhere "between the lines". Books were good for me because they were safe. Unlike the people who scared me so much. I could put the book down if it became too much for me.

Who else can I trust if I don't even trust myself?

March 3, 2020

Dream: *The voice calls:

"Compassion!"

With Ursula:

She says that dissociating is no longer necessary: I have to learn to get my soul back! I could ask the higher powers for help. I remember the strong, warm, yellow light, the happy children's voices from my near-death experience when I lost my child. I've already been there and know that this place exists. She says I should tell that which wants to get out so badly not to come until I'm in therapy with her. I need companionship and support! I promise “It”, this tremendous power, that I will take care of it and not just “leave it there”.

My despair feels so real but is a flashback state. The pain always comes right when I'm happy that I'm finally feeling a little better. There is a certainty: “Enjoying beauty carries great danger; unbearable pain will follow.” This conviction has grown from my experiences. In the end it only hurts me and the others too, that's why there can't be anything nice for me anymore, it's too dangerous. However, I can no longer live without the beauty, love. I tried it, but it doesn't work. It just doesn't work anymore!

Abysmal despair and deadly pain overcome me. Only dying could bring relief, but my sense of responsibility to my family holds me back.

Nevertheless, I kept thinking seriously about what possibilities there might be to end this life, which only caused me pain, in a somewhat decent way. My luck that it didn't happen was because my body was in such a state of pain, it fell into an absolute state of paralysis, and I was unable to do anything concrete.

Well-being and relaxation are the triggers for my pain, but I can no longer be constantly tense because I simply no longer have the strength. Which condition is worse?

Once I have stabilized in isolation, my desire for connection with the outside world comes. However, as soon as I establish a connection: total overwhelm! Renewed paralysis.

Up until now, feeling good for me meant: merging into others, immersing myself in them, completely giving up and surrendering. But then every time the fear of losing myself, of becoming dependent, returns.

I realize that if I ever felt comfortable at all, it was only in the arms of people who abused me for their own purposes, who didn't even want me, who just played with me. I had to keep my distance for my own protection, but that was exactly what hurt so much.

Questions:

Who am I no longer protecting when I stand up for my needs?

How can I ever believe and feel that I am a good person again?

There is so much shame in me about everything that happened.

How can I ever trust my perceptions of other people and their intentions again?

I no longer trust myself or my feelings.

What am I worth if I can't meet other people's expectations?

What is my life worth if my deepest longing for security cannot be fulfilled?

Where will I find refuge?

Are you allowed to wish you could die if you no longer see any meaning in life?

How much pain do you have to endure before you can say, “It’s enough”?

I kept searching for words to describe my flashback feeling. I learned from the books:“…how varying childhood trama histories can cause CPTSD. We will also see…how profound emotional abandonment is typically at the core of most CPTSD.” (Walker, 2013) p.85

I don't feel any connection to other living beings. I would like to, but I can't connect. I want to act, do something, but I'm paralyzed.

March 5, 2020

Felix's wife came over today. I already knew itbecause she had already announced herself in a dream last night. Where does this feeling of connectedness come from? I don't understand so many things.

The spiral of healing turns. It can get more intense each time. This doesn't mean that I've done anything wrong, but on the contrary, that I've become stronger. However, in these moments I feel absolutely hopeless.

Relaxation is only possible when I am immobile. But then I feel so terribly helpless and useless.

Relaxed action, how would that be? My body should be able to give in to its intuition and act on its own. But I no longer trust it to do the right thing.

What would be the “right thing to do?” I would be in the “here and now”, I could act without having to constantly think everything through.

As soon as my body relaxes, I fall into an immobile state so that I can no longer act: this causes panic!

I would like to be able to act based on my intuition and experience that my actions are right, but it's not possible.

Safe relaxation could mean: giving up responsibility, not wanting to control everything, but allowing things to flow without me.

For me, relaxing and giving up responsibility means being at the mercy of others! Others can do whatever they want with me. My will just disappears. I can no longer judge whether what is happening is good for me or not. Or worse, I'm convinced it's a good thing. It wasn't until much later that it became clear that it wasn't good at all.

Ursula explains to me:

“When you dissociate, you are not connected to the earth, but your spirit is floating somewhere above you.” She says: “There is a connection downwards, to the earth. You could start by noticing this connection. You could let everything that doesn't belong to you fall into the ground when you breathe out." I try, but it scares me so much that I have to stop straight away.

Together we look for a beautiful picture of the “benevolent oneness”: I remember the happy children's voices, the yellow light that I saw when I lost my child. Ursula says: “As you breathe in, try to bring this light down and then as you breathe out, spread it around you like a fountain.” This works a little better than grounding.

Ursula says that I should let the “balloon” in my lower abdomen get bigger with every inhale, tell it: “You are my space, you can get bigger.” I try it and immediately give up because it scares me so much. The fear and the feeling that there is something wrong with me because I can't do all of these things become so bad that I go into dissociation: I lose contact with my body and can no longer breathe. It takes me a long time to come back and calm down a little. Ursula puts her hand on my back. This feels good and helps me come back.

“Feeling instead of thinking,” she says, but that’s also very scary. Only thinking seems certain to me. When I feel, incredibly bad feelings can arise and paralyze me so much that I fall back into stupor1.

Ursula says: “Being present” does not mean “being awake in your head”, but rather “being relaxed and attentive in your body and feelings”.

This was a completely new thought for me. I always thought being present meant being wide awake in your head: hyper-awake3. That's actually how I've always been.

Bring the child out of the loneliness of the incubator. Feel what it needs. Be a loving mother to it. Keep it calm, no movement, no activity, just protection and calm, physical contact. Tell it: “You can always be with me.”

If the flashback still comes, I can tell myself: It's a flashback! “Compassion instead of criticism,” says Ursula. Knowing that it is necessary and that it will take me further.

However, when the flashback comes, I forget all of that. Nothing helps. I just want to die. I'm writing this all down because I hope I can read it and help myself, but that's not possible. When the flashback comes, I don't remember it. I'm so paralyzed that I can't get up and get the notes out. I am cut off from everything and even from myself.

“It seems to me that the essence of psychological trauma is that it raises insoluble emotional conflicts. The experience of trauma puts a person in a position in which they can no longer behave properly. Whatever he feels, thinks and does, it does not resolve this emotional conflict and proves useless in improving his own situation. In this situation, the affected person is no longer able to manage their family and social relationships appropriately. He entangles others in his unresolved emotional conflicts and, in turn, becomes more easily entangled in the unresolved conflicts of others. ... if you consider the basic structure of such conflicts, you can see what a gigantic task a traumatized person faces if they do not want to get stuck in the contradictions of their attempts to cope, but rather want to grow beyond the trauma."(Ruppert, 2005) p.94-95

So, it could actually be that trauma is the reason for my bad feelings and unresolvable inner conflicts.

This realization was a door opener, one that stuck in my head, gave me a little hope: There might actually be reasons why I was feeling so bad.

March 10, 2020

Immerse yourself in my inner world: “The healing water pond” (Hart, 2013)p.140

Since the experience of dissociation was so bad for me, I bought the book “Managing Trauma-Induced Dissociation (Boon Steele van der Hart, 2013) and tried to use specific exercises at home. If it doesn't work with Ursula, maybe it'll work at home alone, I thought, because I actually only felt safe when I was alone.

I dive into the warm water of the healing water pond. I feel the touch of the water on my skin. My body relaxes, it feels nice. Then, completely unprepared, a huge wave of very strong sexual energy and desire hits me.I see a huge octopus coming towards me and hugging me with its many arms. The touch is pleasant, but I feel the paralysis coming back. Even if it wasn't pleasant, I couldn't do anything about it because I can't move. I am afraid of the incredibly high energy of this animal and at the same time I feel incredibly vulnerable and open, but also full of joy because I feel the beautiful touch. Then the octopus begins to push its arms into all of my orifices: my mouth, my vagina, my anus, even my ears and nose. I think I'm suffocating. At the same time my body releases itself in an incredible orgasm.

At some point, much later, I accidentally find a description of the term “full-body orgasm.” I didn't know such a thing existed, but when I read it, I immediately knew that that was what I was experiencing.

This experience left me disturbed: every time I tried to relax, this incredible force emerged that scared me so much. My body reacted automatically, and I couldn't do anything. Afterwards I felt so ashamed that I didn't dare talk to anyone about it, not even my therapist. I wrote it down and then tried to forget it as quickly as possible.

Walking in light rain. Realization: I'm not afraid to go out today. What is afraid in me is a fearful part of me. It can be protected by other parts, especially my adult self. I imagine that this fear is a helpless little baby and I take it with me in a sling. My back straightens and I can breathe freely. My gait becomes different, leaning back a little instead of leaning forward. I walk more slowly, using my whole body. This experience gives me a little hope.

March 11, 2020

I do my oldBrain Gym2exercises(Dennison, 2013), combined with the affirmation: “I immerse myself in the flow of life.”

I'll take all parts with me. My movements are slow, soft and supple. It's good for me, but afterwards I'm so exhausted that I give up on it too.

I used to sometimes do theBrain Gym exercises(Dennison, 2013)before practicing because I discovered that practicing went better afterward. They were useful, but always seemed incredibly tiring to me. I had started doing these exercises regularly some time before my illness began because I found that they helped, at least a little, with my unbearable stage fright. It was incredibly tiring for me to do these small exercises with concentration, but it was a way to get at least a little in touch with my body. Looking back, I am convinced that this was a kind of “starting shot” for everything that came afterwards.

March 11, 2020

With Ursula:

We use Brainspotting3to answer the question: Where does my recurring strong neck tension come from?

It's this great power within me that scares me so much. It shows itself as soon as I relax, in therapy, in love.

It is very strong, alive, pulsating, viscous, dangerous. My head is fighting back, afraid to allow this to happen. It is the fear of losing control and being overwhelmed by that power. The only safe area is my head. If I stay there, nothing can happen to me. That's why my neck closes up, because there's this weird power in my stomach and I'm not allowed to go down and feel it.

(Otherwise, what happened yesterday will happen. But I don't dare tell Ursula about it. My shame is far too great.)

March 11, 2020

Dream: *I had sex with Peter, but it was actually Felix. When I say goodbye, I say: “It was very nice!” He answers: “It was very nice for me too, but you have to know that I can’t be with you anymore.” That makes me incredibly sad.

I had one affair before the one with Felix. Peter was a priest. He was to marry Stefan and me. It happened right before our wedding. I was already pregnant with our oldest son and knew that I wanted to be with Stefan. At the same time, I also felt like I was missing something important: I had no access to my emotions or my sexuality. When I met Peter, everything that wasn't allowed to happen in my everyday life with Stefan burst out like a huge wave. I didn't understand what was happening, but I knew it was something I absolutely needed to live. Of course, I thought it was Stefan's fault that he couldn't give it to me. Only now am I beginning to understand that that wasn't true.

It was Peter who ended the affair: it was too dangerous and jeopardized his career. I wouldn't have been able to. I didn't understand why, but afterwards I believed there was just something really wrong with me. Love and sexuality were apparently things that were only made for other people, not for me. I just couldn't handle it for some reason I didn't understand. Either they weren't there, or they were there and destroyed everything I had worked so hard to build. Then it was better if they weren't there. I believed that it was obviously my fate to have to live without love and sex. I could feel love for my children, but not for adults.

March 12, 2020

Dream: *The voice says:

“There is a connection between shame and the larynx!”

What does that mean? (Translator’s note: In German, the word “Scham” means both “shame”, the feeling, as well as “the pubis”. Both terms are actually relevant.)

Using the search term “larynx” I came across a reference to the larynx chakra, also known as the throat chakra:

“The throat chakra processes experiences of self-expression, particularly the expression of our highest truth as a soul. It connects us to the higher, transpersonal mind. The throat chakra is the source of our understanding and ability to communicate. Our very own discovery of truth is hidden in it as well as the opportunity to share it with our environment.”(chakren.net, 2024)

“The Voice” wanted to tell me that I need to learn to talk about my shame. I didn't understand that at the time. However, her statement kept bothering me; it stuck in my head and constantly developed. At least I've already made a start:

I'm writing a detailed letter to Erika, Felix's wife, because she asked me how I was doing. I described to her what had emerged. Her answer: “You have put a huge burden on me.” No, I don't think that's true, I gave back the burden that belonged to them!

I began to become aware of my feelings of shame and to differentiate my share of responsibility from that of others. Not everything that had happened was simply my fault.

Xenia, a former violin student of mine, calls me: She also had experiences with sexual abuse. Her mother sent her and her sister to live with their father as children, even though she knew exactly what he was doing with them. Her sister also uncovered the long-forgotten topic at the same time as her. Her valuable advice:

Don't tell everyone about it: they'll impose their worries on you and make you feel even more ashamed.

Get me inner protection: bodyguards, warriors, angels! (Are there really angels? I don't believe in them...)

Ask the spiritual powers for protection (I could never really believe in their existence either.).

She recommends the book:“The Language of Letting Go”(Beattie, 1990)

Carrying a piece of paper in my pocket: “Your life is in your hands,” “God will take care of you”: This relieves me of responsibility for people whose problems burden me.

Saying goodbye to people who are not good for me. Endure the consequences (that I feel terribly alone and abandoned).

She thinks that I can find what was given to me in another, spiritual place. According to her, I will be able to experience fullness! (How nice that would be, but it's unreachably far away.)

Pay attention to my perception, listen to it, take it seriously.

Recognizing the unconditional love of my children as a great gift in my life, a resource. (I tear up when I hear this.)

“There are people who swallow your energy like black holes,” she says. I can hand over responsibility for these people to the higher powers.

There are so many “unemployed angels,” Ursula confirms when I tell her about it, “they are happy when they get something to do.” That sounds very strange to me. Are there actually angels?

The phone conversation with Xenia was incredibly important for me. She had experienced something similar she knew this bottomless despair. I don't even remember why she called because she hadn't been in class with me for a long time. But it was a kind of “gift from the angels” because it gave me so many valuable clues.

I think Felix was a kind of “medium”: something flowed through him to me. It wasn't actually about him at all. But then what was it about?

I longed for an empathetic counterpart for myself!

My cranio therapist says I'm a good person! This statement triggers tears because I can't believe it at all. How I wish it were like that.

Meditation: “My safe place” (Hart, 2013)p. 103:I lie safe in a hand that is so big and strong that I can lie comfortably in it.the inside is wonderfully soft and warm, I can feel the energy pulsating within it. But it can also be very strong if danger threatens. It is the leaf of a plant that carries me. The second hand lies over me like a nutshell and protects me. Inside I see the sky. Clouds pass by, they let the sun through again and again, which warms me. I slowly relax, feeling my neck relax, even the top cervical vertebra. “Aha,” I experience, “I can move through the pain in my cervical vertebra.” Then I come out of my circling thoughts even further up into a spiritual level above the top of my head. It is like a yellow, warm mist. I know: This is the mercy that my “voice” spoke about at night. My breathing changes: I breathe in as if by myself, the impulse to breathe comes from far down in my stomach, from where it is so nice and warm and soft. It rises and expands my chest each time. When I exhale my breath stops for a while, it feels like a very long time. Then it comes out of my stomach again on its own. “It” breathes in on the front of my body and “it” breathes out through the back. I feel safe and secure.

I just tried again, even though it had ended so badly last time. What courage of desperation lies behind it, I'm only seeing this now, from a distance. This time I was actually rewarded with a nice experience: I had found an initial resource that I could use again and again, for example when I was overexcited and couldn't fall asleep.

March 13, 2020

Dream: *I want to visit Tobias. First, I have to ride in a kind of chairlift. Then I stand in front of his house. It is a simple terraced house. I ring. He looks out of the window upstairs and shouts: “You can't come in until you've taken everything off!” I do this, although I'm very ashamed because I think someone might see it. As I climb the stairs and look down, I notice that I'm still wearing a t-shirt and a skirt, which makes me very relieved. He opens the door for me, he is naked. I let myself fall into his arms. He catches me and gently rocks me back and forth. I feel his erect member. It's a nice feeling of safety and security.

My shame is showing. What do you have to be ashamed of? Did I have to be ashamed that I needed love and was willing to go beyond my limits to get it? Ursula says: “It was necessary for survival, because people cannot live without love.”

What does it actually mean to be a woman?

Felix not only gave me back a feeling for my body, but also the joy and pride of being a woman. It was obvious to him that it was good that I was a woman. He found everything about me beautiful, good and right. I was allowed to be there, show myself, let myself be touched and discovered, and react to his touch. It was nice for him to make me bloom. Everything was allowed to go its natural way: I was allowed to be one with my female body, let myself be guided by it - actually by her, this incredibly great power within myself. I was allowed to simply let this force that guided my body act. Everything this power did was good and right. “I” was just a kind of spectator.

But that also meant that “I myself” had no control over what happened to me. The very thing that felt so right at the moment was so disturbing in retrospect. It was as if some mysterious force was controlling me remotely.

In my memory I see a powerful image: the sight of my own body, merged with it, in the mirror. That's when I found myself beautiful for the first time. Then the great pain that he had left me, just left it there.

The newborn comes up, so afraid of being abandoned again. I promise it: “I won’t leave you; I’ll take you everywhere.”My body calms down.

Realization: It went so deep so quickly in the slowness and tenderness. What does this mean?

March 14, 2020

I wake up twice in the night with my heart pounding so hard that I become very frightened. I tell myself that this is an old fear. So I can endure it, I slowly calm down, imagine being in my safe place - in the beautiful flower - and can finally fall asleep.

Dream: *I'm lying in Tobias's arms, my hands in his hands. I remember how much I loved his hands. They were soft and delicate like those of a woman.

Who gets to judge what was right or wrong?

I have to be able to trust my gut feeling again.

“See it in a loving light,” Erika told me.

Lots of things that sound so nice but seem impossible to me.

The ambivalence in the abuse situation back in puberty: that Tobias gave me the love I urgently needed.

The thought: Why could only he give me this love? Was it because any person my age would have been overwhelmed by me: why? What was so difficult, so different about me?

Thoughts on abuse by Tobias: Why did it happen to me? There were others too, I wasn't the only one. But there were also girls who were able to avoid it.

Ursula says to me: “Other children had other parents!” This sentence makes me think.

Dream: *Stefan and I are in a meadow. There is a hunting lodge at the edge of the forest, we sit there. There is a hut on the meadow. A little boy who looks very similar to my husband as a child is playing near them. He builds a lot of devices that can fly, and in the end, he even creates a device that allows him to fly himself. He uses a rope that actually belongs to Stefan and me. But the rope stretches more and more as I use it, and when I try to hold on to it, it gives way so much that I fall down onto the meadow. But I fall very slowly and don't hurt myself because the rope is very elastic and very thick. I tell Stefan that this boy is breaking our rope, but he doesn't answer me. "Ah yes, I remember, he's not talking to me at the moment." However, I take it in stride that that's the case.

The little boy inside him is breaking the “rope” that holds our relationship.

Walking together: I can't find a common pace with Stefan, no matter how hard I try and try. At some point I decide not to try at all. Instead, I look for my own pace. It's as if I hear a kind of inner melody that I align myself with. At the end of the walk we even go our separate ways because he wants to take the bus and I want to continue on foot. “Then that’s just the way it is,” I decide. “If that means we go our separate ways in life, I guess I have to accept that. The main thing is that I can finally hear my inner melody again and go along with it.” Walking like this seems much less strenuous to me.

During this time, I discovered the book“Healing Developmental Trauma” (Heller, 2012). This was essential for me because for the first time I had the feeling that I was on the right track.

There are five biologically determined core needs:

1. Contact/2. Attunement/3. Trust/4. Autonomy/5. Love and Sexuality(Heller, 2012) p.15

I didn't know that until now.

“It’s a key NARM concept to support healthy ways of regulating the nervous system by emphasizing connection to the parts of self that are organized, coherent and functional. Analysing problems and focusing primarily on what has gone wrong in a person’s live does not necessarily support self-regulation, and in some cases, increases dysregulation.”(Heller, 2012)p.7

“NARM emphasizes somatic mindfulness – the containment, deepening, and support for the biological completion of the affective states. Tracking and containing emotions in this way puts us progressively more in touch with our core aliveness.(Heller, 2012)p.9

NARM says: Bottom-up (work from bottom to top) and top-down (from top to bottom) – both are necessary!

This realization of both directions was extremely important for me: my therapist Ursula repeatedly emphasized that the head is not needed to resolve trauma. It happens in the body. However, I could not get involved in things that affected my body without my mind first carefully clarifying what was happening to me. I could only agree to work with her physically if I had first clarified in detail why it was necessary, what the background was, and if it had been scientifically proven... even afterwards I had to write down everything that had happened when with her in order to make sure that something overwhelming couldn't happen to me again that I wouldn't notice it until much later. “You can be suspicious for as long as you need to,” she kept telling me. “You can’t make trust. It will come into being and it can have all the time in the world to do it.” “All the time in the world?” I thought. “I want to get well again as quickly as possible!”

"NARM views the mindful experience of the body (the bottom-up process from 'bottom' to 'top') as the basis of the healing process: The body is our connection to reality..."(Heller, 2012) p.33

I wrote down more and more sentences like that because I felt that they were important to me.

“Our greatest desire is to feel alive. Meaninglessness, depression, and many other symptoms are reflections of our disconnection from our core vitality. When we feel alive, we feel connected, and when we feel connected, we feel alive. Although it brings more mental clarity, aliveness is not primarily a mental state; nor it is only sensory pleasure. It is a state of energetic flow and coherency in all systems of the body, brain, and mind. …

learning how to be in touch with our emotions and appropriately express them is a fundamental part of this approach. …Tracking and containing emotions in this way puts us progressively more in touch with our core aliveness.”(Heller, 2012)p.8-9

“NARM views the mindful bottom-up experience of the body as the foundation of the healing process. The body is our connection to reality…By paying attention to the body, we are more easily able to recognize the truths and fictions of our personal narratives.”(Heller, 2012)p.18

“Tracking here-and-now experience in at the nervous system is fundamental to disrupting the predictive tendencies of the brain. Paying close attention to the process of connection/disconnection, of regulation/dysregulation, in present time, helps us strengthen our sense of agency, feel less at the merc of our childhood experiences, and most importantly, it supports the re-regulation of our nervous system. It is in the connection to our body and in relationship with other people that healing is possible.”(Heller, 2012)p.20-21

March 17, 2020

With Ursula:

We continue to work with Brainspotting4: The neck tension has moved all the way up to the top cervical vertebra. I feel a strong tension pain at the junction between head and body; some kind of conflict seems to be taking place there.

I allow both forces to be there, in balance.

It turns out that my neck was probably subjected to some form of violence during the operation my mother had to erect the uterus when she was pregnant with me. As soon as I think about it, severe pain and enormous tension arise. I go into it very slowly, with compassion. Ursula asks that I not be overwhelmed. Something opens up in my chest and at the same time it tightens in my back. Ursula says that's probably because it's letting go and opening up.

My “inner voice” tells me:I was subjected to severe anesthesia and paralysis, but I could still feel the pain of being manipulated. Since I didn't understand where it was coming from, I thought it was my mother who had hurt me so much. This may have later triggered the premature birth. The pain in my neck increased as I grew bigger. I had to leave that place to save my life. Even though it made me so sad.

I hadn't known anything about this operation until now. My mother had told me about it just a few days before because I had asked her about details about the pregnancy and birth. She wasn't even aware that the operation had affected not only her, but that such an operation would of course also have had an impact on me.

I read on the Internet: Until the 1980s, doctors were convinced that an infant could not feel pain! It is therefore actually possible that I was handled carelessly.

Every time I realized that it might actually be the case, that what I was feeling was right, it gave me a little bit of self-confidence back. It was only a little, but at least it was something.

I couldn't write about my feelings back then.

March 19, 2020

I have been trying some exercises out of the book,“Trauma-Sensitive Yoga”(Härle, 2016)for a few days now. However, I feel so bad afterwards that I give up. My body doesn't want to move, apart from the same daily walk, it just wants to rest.