Inner Peace and a way to share it that is what I do and what are you looking for?

Dear Bloggers,

I travel forty minutes by car to the area of woods where I plan to hike. I drive up to a hill and park next to a couple that is taking their dogs for a walk. The hill that I am climbing is an old overgrown garbage dump. I open my door and step outside to a green grassy world. I take the dogs out of the trunk. The sun is shining overhead surrounded by a bright clear Dutch blue sky. I instantly feel more at peace. I head to the opening in the woods, and begin looking around, noticing the beauty of nature which is awaking slowly from the winter sleep.  I breathe in the clean air deeply, wanting to take it all in.

The head of the trail is lined with flowers; yellow daffodils, and crocuses in  purple, and white. The trees are of all sizes, and as I walk further down the path, the trees start getting bigger, taller, wider. When I walked here last summer it was becoming darker here. When I begin walking deeper into the woods, I’ll see just a few streams of light shining through the tree tops which are getting green.  The wind is gently blowing, creating shadows of the tree tops and leaves as they dance on the rhythm of spring.

I continue walking further and deeper into the woods and up the hill we go.  I notice a large dark grey concrete kind of staircase up ahead. As I get closer I see a rich green moss covering one side, a man made waterfall is near, I can hear the water trickling over the small steps. I keep walking, and with just a few steps I can see the water from the spring as it moves across my path. I step over it’s only a few steps wide but the stepping stones are wet, and I look at the beauty of nature as our dogs are running around like nuts.

The path begins to climb in elevation… My sense of peace deepens as I continue going to the top into an open field. I keep walking. I keep climbing in elevation. The path curves to the left and then back to the right. I keep moving forward, in my own speed I’ll find my way up the hill.  I love that it’s a total different level and again beautiful and it’s sunny up here. I walk closer to the edge of the other side. Here I’m looking at the city in the distance. I look down below on the other side and see a canal  gracefully winding through the base of the landscape, and when I look up to the sky, overwhelmingly, I feel a grateful energy called live. I breathe it all in.

On the next few months I will be coming back to this hill as often as I can to cultivate the peace within me. It was shortly after I began driving busses that our life began to change in a big way. My wife was loosing everything that she had, but I didn’t know it yet that her brain snapped and she stopped functioning as a wife and mother and slowly she was falling to bits and peace’s. 

I had to go on unemployment benefits due to Dutch regulations I had to be laid off for half a year, it was not really working in our favor. I dove deeper into myself practicing Tai Chi again using channels like You tube and remembering it from my past, and surprisingly I found even deeper moments of peace. Once I realized how simple it actually all really is, it made me a little angry at myself for all the years I wasted living an incomplete life.

When you find something that gives you that gift, after all of the years of searching for  a better you and your only suffering, you want to share it out to the world. You want everyone to feel the peace within. I’ve been looking for ways to share it with others ever since. Because once you find something so good, so wonderful, you feel as if you have to share it out to the world. Unfortunately not everyone understands what you are telling them.

As I continued my journey in life, I began noticing more, and having more awareness of habits and patterns. For instance, I would of never been able to have this realization and be on the path to living my life, if I didn’t lose everything I loved.  If you lost people that you have loved with every inch of your being, Yes I know it sounds a little airy-fairy or even a bit insane.

Anyway time continued on, I took a lot more training to keep contact with myself and the world around me, taught a lot more  things to our dogs. Sharing the peace that i found within. Creating the habit of practicing at the beginning of the day and hoping for a sensational sunrise. Since I had to spend my time during the  morning I started taking long walks, I decided to go hiking towards the sunrise every Thursday morning to stay in balance and practice. And it is so beautiful and also inspiring that I again felt like I needed to share this. Somehow I feel better than ever before.

The Old Sailor,

Maybe February is the time for endings

Dear Bloggers,

The bus company I work for has offered me a steady contract for 32 hours per week. I am happy and on the other hand I feel a bit sad. I have been living my life on the wild side if I may say so. I have never been a regular Joe if it comes to jobs. All the jobs that I have done in my past are not all the best paid ones in the world. At least I had fun and saw an awful lot of our planet. And now it’s the last day of February the last day as a Temp. Tomorrow it is the first of March and my contract is activated. It gives me the shivers.

Maybe February is the time for endings. Some of the worst things in my life have happened in February. No, that’s untrue- they just feel like they all happened in February.  Endings tend to have a similar quality: a slowness that’s not the same as a bleak, cold, February morning. 

Then your blood seems like it will never be warm again, sluggish through your veins, now, it just feels like it’s gone underground. It’s not the slackness feeling of a hot, humid, summer, with the sun merciless on your face, turning your skin from brown to a burning and glowing sensation, when you can’t make the effort to even reach out to that cool glass of beer that your wife has placed on your table. No, this is the hushed, sticky quality of the air before the rain suddenly falls in a sheet, and you’re soaked from head to toe; your umbrella dripping uselessly onto your shoes, as the “road” that you walked underneath turns to a muddy river in two minutes flat.

What just happened, you ask yourself, even as you sigh and think “February”. Snow has gone, Winter just packed it’s suitcases and springtime has not arrived yet. Afterward, you try to pick it apart: And loop the past on a scratchy rewind, like those tapes you played over and over until they became scratching, static bursts between the snatches of that so familiar love song. Where the hell  is it, you think, just that one moment, the turning point when it all started there were you found the right one, the moment that you found love is coming undone.

You’re looking for the sign, that one dark cloud in the distance, the flash of lightning, but sometimes all you’re left with is the clear sky ahead and the thickening air, that is taking your breath.

One morning I woke up and found a baby spider that  has crawled into the folds of my fading grey lounging set that sits outside the deck in our garden. It has been unexpectedly cold the last few nights and the little rascal had probably sought out the warmth of the couch cushion.

I flap my hands at the furry resinous intruder: unsurprisingly, it moves not an inch. “I’m giving you ten minutes while I brew the coffee for myself and the tea for my wife”, I tell it solemnly: “after that, you’re out”.  When I step out again, my hands slowly warmed by my steaming mug of coffee, it’s gone. I feel both smug and guilty; like I’ve won a battle and lost a more important war; like I’ve missed the forest for the trees, like I have once again, failed to read the signs.

How are you feeling, my wife asks me. “Okay”, I say and she accepts it for what it is: a barefaced lie. We are, neither of us, strangers to this; when all the stuff inside is so tangled that the only possible answer is just a simple “Okay”.

There’s a dissonance that leaves me tongue tied; the inexplicable chasm between what I know I should feel, and what I do feel; akin to letting yourself in with the key and just finding yourself in a stranger’s house. This is familiar territory, I remind myself. You’ve been here before, you know how this goes.

Endings are not an undiscovered land. And yet. I look up The 5 steps that I learned in the past years again; try to see what I’ve missed. Everything, it looks like; there is no progression, no gradual climb down. I’m just here. But there must be, I think, increasingly desperate for something, anything that feels familiar.  But no, this is the fun house mirror version of myself, everything in its place and just that bit distorted, rendered unrecognizable.

I imagine what a therapist would ask me: how are you sleeping, are you eating regularly, do you shower, do you make the bed, do you change your clothes, do you exercise? Answer: Well, yes, yes, yes, yes, no, but I never did, it’s not unusual. I still hate work for the usual amount, not more or less.

You should be happy mate, a colleague  tells me, I’m not saying who had some rough times in his past. I tell him a long and involved story about how I have lost many people on my way that kept me company. This is not a problem but having a contract is also having some obligations towards my job before it was easier to get a day off as there were no strings attached, to me life is like a friendly cow a huge white-and-black speckled beast. It moos at odd times and reminds me that life goes on; that February, in fact, can be great for some species: plentiful green grass, the fresh air that comes with some springtime smells; outside it’s getting more and more pleasant, of course with slightly unpredictable weather and cool nights.

I lie in bed and listen to the night sounds the squeaking of the roof, the occasional drunken song from two houses away, the rain showers that bash into the windows, a faint siren in the distance from a firetruck, some kind of chirping sound.

That gives me exactly that feeling that you’ve got during the long lazy summer nights. That moment your sitting at the kitchen table and a moth wanders in, flirts with the dazzling white light and then wanders out. It’s not hard to fall asleep on these days, when my thoughts seem to have no particular direction. When I wake up, I don’t remember my dreams.

Fact: time moves forward and I am getting old.

Fact: February seems to last forever.

It’s cold at night, during the day it shifts rapidly from sunny spells to bashing rain showers. Running around in winter jackets and sunglasses on. I’m doing my job for the last day as a Temp. Tomorrow I am one of the guys with a steady job. It feels like a new episode in my life, is this the final destination to my pension.

How are you feeling?, I used to ask others; and now I ask myself: How are you feeling?, the answer is that It feels pretty double and even a bit emotional. Although inside of me the salty blood is still flowing through my veins. I will be an Old Sailor forever.

The Old Sailor,

Men and Women are not that different

Dear Bloggers,

It took me a little while to write a story again as there have been a lot of things going lately in my life and this can make it pretty hard to sit down for a while and relax and get the brain going on and find a suitable subject to spread my thoughts on the net. This time I made the choice about the friendships between the guys and girls, well according to me there are not that many differences although I think that most women are a bit more tactful in their answers and men have more often a stronger opinion about difficult issues.

Women surprise themselves regularly about the fact that men can settle a big fight with a beer, a men's night which consists watching football, poker, a game night or going out to the pub, important events are superficially informed towards the other guys, and so we can still go on.

Men are amazed about the women; why every single event needs to be told in detail as it can be done in two minutes? Why are women being so difficult in this and remain stuck in that one remark made by that one friend? Why must everything be so over analyzed?

Are there real differences between the friendships between men and women, or is it most based on prejudices and stereotypes? To me one thing is clearly. Men do more physically and talk less. Women find talking just more important than sharing their hobbies. The emphasis is on friendship between women therefore more based on intimacy and openness, while men believe more in things as status and physical fitness being more important.

This would be a confirmation of the stereotypes: by itself being men and talkative women.

But is this so, is there really so much duality? There are hundreds of studies on gender differences put together in a meta-analysis, and there were still be some other results coming forward! They looked at the differences in language and feelings and guess what? Men and women were not as different as we previously were thinking. The conclusion is that men and women normally are psychologically seen the same. This rule has some exceptions, but these exceptions are not important in terms of friendships. What is particularly relevant for friendships is how easy intimate and frank a person with another person speaks. And about this fact, there were precisely these supposed men and women differences. But there appears to intimacy and frankness there is only a very small gender difference. Women were found "showing a little something more" of themselves than men.

How is it possible that friendships between the two sexes still are as different as the needs for intimacy and frankness on both sides is present? The answer is simply that we focus too much on the differences between them, and they will be made much bigger in mind. With the result that the idea that we have on men friendships and women friendships would be different from the reality. Conclusion: We are brought up to think in stereotypes. Silly isn’t it?

Mostly studies that are done about these subjects are build up with questions in which people are asked how they would describe their friendships. And because this is such a general question, we can not but give a general description, or fall back on the idea that we have about it. And that idea is influenced by stereotypes.

The idea that there is a totally different between those friendships is a myth. It is often culturally rooted and we get to hear things now and learned at once from childhood. It is in fact a story that we tell each other about how it works and how it should be. And because we tell it, it occasionally will be true. Conclusion again: Yes we are brought up to think in stereotypes.

"If people define situations as real, these situations have real consequences." The only differences in male and female friendships because we believe that they exist. Furthermore, we are all like friends alike. This is what the American sociologist William Thomas said already in 1928.

In the end we are physically different but mentally quite the same.

The Old Sailor,

Just another Christmas

Dear Bloggers,

A bit late for the time of the month in this last month of the year there is so much to do and work is more irregular than other months. Although I have some free time but many people want something from me. They are all needy and I am working a lot of late shifts to earn my money as a bus driver.

Slowly but definitely is the nocturnal horizon sliding by. On the radio their playing Christmas songs and easy listening songs it's that time of the year again and I hum them along softly. A typical ride home after a late evening shift. Suddenly, there are shooting all kinds of thoughts about the past through my head. I plink away a little teardrop that is rolling down my cheek. I think about all the beautiful moments of my past and see myself in the smoking ruins that remain of it. I dance in my mind together through the night with my dearest girlfriend who just all too soon slipped away from us. Gently giggling we shuffle along, tightly pressed against each other by through the splinters of my present life. By now I'm used to absorb all the blows that life brings me. Though I sometimes wonder why I and I question myself did I deserve this mess? I'm really happy in life and a great sense of humor is very important, so please do not misunderstand me. I have a wonderful family and I can enjoy their being to the fullest every day. Already there has changed a lot in the last few years. But that doesn't keep me really from working hard for them and I do it with love.

My eyes stare into the darkness of the night and I roll quietly on to the highway. Beautiful thoughts flickering through my mind, thoughts from long gone. I go all the way back to my early childhood. The time when everything was just right and the only thing we knew about violence and terror attacks were from the time of the Second World War, the village where I grew up had everything a man needed. There was a butcher and two bakeries, a haberdashery shop and two small supermarkets. There was a drugstore, a cigar shop, a hairdresser and a bicycle repair shop. There were a few restaurants and some bars. Not much bigger than this was our world. If you had to go to a hospital or other needs you had to travel to a bigger town. 

My late mother was not having a driving license so we had to rely on my dads free time or we had to take the bus, which only stopped there three times a day. Yet I do not feel I've missed something. Maybe going on vacation because there was unfortunately not a chance to do that. Of course I listened with red glowing ears to the beautiful holiday stories and adventures that other children had experienced in my class, like some guys who went with their fathers in the truck all the way to France and the others had gone to a camping place in places that sounded completely foreign to me. I camped with my parents in the backyard and I needed to help them out to earn my pocket money. And no I there's really no harm of doing some labour. At some later age, I was staying with an aunt and uncle of mine, but it turned out as a big dip because I was severe homesick. 

Since I'm quite a bit of a dreamer and I am not always being convenient for things that I said, so I got lost during a school trip. In my teenage years I was quite defiant and rebellious and I had trouble with authority from teachers. And teachers were to me more a target to argue with and kicking against the rules and yes I often could win these battles with all its consequences. Through all the hassle I got expelled from school because I had hit back a teacher because he could not win the debate so at that time you just received a blow to your head from the teacher. And no I did not sit back and let it come over me. So I gave him a punch back and he went down. After speaking with the principal of the school, we had to find another school. Not easy I must say. After a while I felt a lot better at the new and much smaller school I felt much more at home here but it was too late for me too pick up all my grades and I did not have the knowledge to leave school with a diploma. 

In the meantime, I drank my first beers and I got into a preconceived plan of a certain "Monique" from the area of Sneek my first French kiss. My God what was I upside down of this first real kiss and I was nervous for this moment to do something with a girl so intimate, yet there was no follow up on my fumbling and she let me know that it was only one time. A little bit disappointed I went home with a hundred thousand drowned butterflies in my stomach. 

And on the other hand I am so glad I did this. In a way or another, the ball was rolling. And the fair in the autumn I had suddenly "thick friendship" and out of nowhere after a month or six it was suddenly all over and we broke up. My heart was not simply broken but completely shattered into a thousand small pieces. After a few months I started on something new and I had to join the military in the meantime for my service that we had to do for our country. Just before that I had to join the army, I had my final exams at school and out of the blue came the sad news that my dear girlfriend had passed away. It tore my heart into pieces and I lost at that time all the confidents in having a relationship and in faith of the Lord. I could hardly swallow my grief I had a hard time with my feelings and anger was playing tricks on me.

BANG, she all of a sudden was there and I was staring at her as if I had been struck by lightning. There she was a beautiful but very shy girl from Germany with the looks of an angel. After a couple of days I dared to make contact with her and we exchanged addresses. It was a long and warm penfriendsrelationship. Unfortunately I was too shy and anxious to express my feelings to her. So in that respect it was therefore nothing sexual though we were staying over at eachother homes and were occasionally together and slept in seperate bedrooms. We were just very good friends and I really learned a lot out of our correspondence. With lots of fun and sometimes mixed emotions I wrote down things that were on my mind and all in handwriting I expressed my troubles and she just gave me good thoughtful answers. And yes, She is still having a very beautiful and special place in my heart.

Meanwhile, I arrived home I reverse the car into the driveway, and the whole neighborhood is into a deep sleep. I walk in and take our dogs out of their benches. Yet here I sit day-dreaming on the couch and then I think of another relationship that unfortunately ended up into nothing after a while. No my heart broke down repeatedly but I don't blame nobody for this, at best I question myself occasionally and ask what I have done so wrong in all of those situations and was I such a jerk that I was worth to leave? I hope nobody's done anything too short. Yes, I'm only a human being and far from perfect I can tell, should this be the case then we can always talk about. BANG !!! Suddenly the joy suddenly hits me back into intense grief. 

Tears are rolling down my cheeks when I think back how many there are who we have lost both young and old. And some of them are easier to cope with than others anyway it is always for someone a drama. With these thoughts I sneak quietly into bed, and I wish my wife a good night and I cry myself into sleep quietly. At moments like this I miss the warmth and love of my Mum to comfort me. Despite of everything, I am a happy person and we have two wonderful daughters and my wife is slowly but surely recovering end does step by step a little bit better. I can enjoy happily lots of small and simple things like our own children that are during the Summer Holidays are camping in our back yard. They do not complain at all because they are here also on a holiday. Yet they do have a wish for more time together as a family for a day to go out together. Slowly but surely our little girls grow up. I try to catch my breath ...... my lip trembles a bit ..... and I wonder "When and where is their first kiss?" I realize again that life is far too short to be miserable.

My advice is: "" Enjoy every moment that tou have, because before you know it is already over."

The Old Sailor,

They call it a conversion disorder

Dear Bloggers,

The recent discussion between me and the caretakers of my spouse are a difficult case and is leading to speculation and misinformation about the nature of psychogenic illness. I therefore thought it would be useful to discuss the concept of a conversion disorder in general.
 
According to one of the doctors who tried to explain me about dealing with the disbelief of most of the patients they react many times like this: “So you’re telling me it’s all in my head?”

The concept of what are now called conversion symptoms is a tricky one for various reasons. There is an unfortunate stigma attached to the notion that our brains can cause physical symptoms. Making the diagnosis is complex. Outcomes are variable and are hampered by the difficulty in communicating the diagnosis to patients. Conversion disorder symptoms often mask underlying physiological disease. And the risks of both false positives and false negatives are high.

This complexity leads some to argue, in essence, that a conversion disorder symptoms do not exist at all. The diagnosis is tricky as the patient might feel it like a way to blame the patient for the failings of the physician.
What are conversion disorder symptoms?

Various terms have been used over the years to refer to symptoms that are generated by psychological stress or other factors. Hysteria is an unfortunate term which was invented to refer to the uterus, as if such symptom were uniquely female. For obvious reasons the term “hysteria” is no longer used. 

Psychosomatic is still a proper term, meaning physical symptoms with a mental cause, but the term does have a bit of a stigma attached. The term conversion disorder is most widely used today, or psychogenic simply meaning having a mental cause.

As my wife has been diagnosed with complex PTSD with anxiety related problems and has a psychogenic overlay. In this case there is an underlying physiological disease or disorder which then results in stress and anxiety which further generates the conversion disorder symptoms on top of the physiological symptoms. 
 

Psychogenic signs and symptoms are real the patient really experiences them. A conversion disorder is a real disorder, it is just that the problem is with the brain’s software, not hardware.

Sometimes my wife is overtaken by her anxiety disorder, which may be reactive or may be primary and due to a biochemical disorder in the brain. Anxiety puts a lot of stress on the body and can absolutely manifest with physical, and sometimes very dramatic, symptoms. Stress itself can also manifest with physical symptoms. My wife is living like she is constantly being scared with very hectic moves

So we all have psychogenic symptoms at some point in our lives, and we take them for granted. The fact that more dramatic symptoms can also result from purely psychogenic causes should not be that surprising.
How do we known when symptoms are psychogenic?

At times patients will have psychogenic weakness, either partial or complete paralysis of a limb. This happens to my wife when the tension gets to high at that moment she loses power in her right hand and she is dragging one leg around. The first times I was very worried and thought she was having a stroke as she didn't feel her face on one side as well.True neurological weakness has certain features which cannot be simulated (voluntarily or involuntarily) and there are techniques they use in the neurological exam to look for these features. And strange enough there was nothing found.

Further still, without a detailed knowledge of neuroanatomy, patients with psychogenic symptoms will tend to display distributions of symptoms that do not follow anatomical pathways. Or they will display patterns of movements that do not correspond to any part of the motor system.

To summarize, there are cases in which patients exhibit neurological symptoms which seem to defy neuroanatomy, reveal features of effort, do not correspond to known systems in the nervous system, and lack any hard or objective finding that should be present. Even in these cases, they're likely to do a full workup looking for an underlying problem (as stated above, psychogenic symptoms may simply be overlaying a physiological lesion or disease). In psychogenic cases thorough neuroanatomical scans are normal, as are physiological tests for nervous system function.

It is not a negative judgment about the patient, it is simply an attempt to make an accurate diagnosis.

Sometimes patients are simply uncomfortable with this situation (perhaps because it was not communicated to them well). They may seek a diagnosis until they find someone willing to make one, and then they will blame their previous doctors for “missing” the real diagnosis. Sometimes the actual diagnosis is missed, and patients were right to seek other opinions. But at other times the new diagnosis is the fake, but it is more acceptable to the patient than the stigma of stress or anxiety induced symptoms.

It should also be pointed out that sometimes there is an underlying disorder causing psychogenic symptoms – serious anxiety or depression. These are just as much “real” disorders as anything else.

Patients who have disturbing symptoms due to psychological stress or anxiety will often seek multiple opinions.
In some cases the patient has what can only be called mental illness, and needs to be redirected toward psychiatric treatment.

Conclusion

In a perfect world the unfortunate stigma attached to the psychogenic and conversion disorder diagnosis would disappear. It is very counterproductive. We need broader understanding that the brain is also an organ and can manifest symptoms in a variety of ways. Psychogenic causes are just another item on the differential diagnosis.

The Old Sailor,

Trying hard to win the war within yourself

Dear Bloggers,

My wife is going through some traumatic times as she is emotional abused for almost three years in a row by two psychopathic and narcissistic persons (managers) that did everything to bring employees down that didn't fit into their profile. The company gives them a lot of freedom and it is a very sick atmosphere. A lot of former employees signed for their resignation and got a few months pay so they agreed to keep their mouth shut. My wife wasn't in the flow for leaving the company as she enjoyed what she was doing and this was against all the expectations of her manager. He was not amused with the fact that she was putting up so much resistance to keep her job. 

She kept up the fight for three years and dragged herself to work everyday. I pulled the plug in February of 2014 and she was tired and mentally so beaten up. In the last two years we have been trying to get her back on her feet with psychological help and psychiatric assistance. She has been checked on a medical scale by a neurologist and she was tested on defects by a neuro psychologist, lucky enough that there is no damage found in the brain. She is diagnosed with Complex PTSD with a panic and a anxiety disorder. Our wonderful future has been destroyed by two bastards that should be held responsible. 
 
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, is mostly associated with soldiers returning from war. After the horrors witnessed in such an unnatural setting, many wo/men have a difficult time returning to “normal” life, often suffering from flashbacks, panic attacks, and severe anxiety.

Contrary to popular misconceptions, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Acute Stress Disorder (or Reaction) are not typical responses to prolonged abuse. They are the outcomes of sudden exposure to severe or extreme stressors (stressful events). Yet, some victims whose life or body have been directly and unequivocally threatened by an abuser react by developing these syndromes. PTSD is, therefore, typically associated with the aftermath of physical and sexual abuse in both children and adults.

Any traumatic event can trigger it. Rape, assault, acts of physical or verbal violence, even repeated emotional abuse or the sudden split of a significant relationship, especially if abuse was involved.

Repeated abuse has long lasting pernicious and traumatic effects such as panic attacks, hyper vigilance, sleep disturbances, flashbacks (intrusive memories), suicidal ideation, and psychosomatic symptoms. The victims experience shame, depression, anxiety, embarrassment, guilt, humiliation, abandonment, and an enhanced sense of vulnerability.

My wife is rather ashamed to admit that she has experienced them all. These last few weeks have made me realize just how deep the managers have traumatized me, she said. It was my husband who noticed, actually. He said that I was exhibiting symptoms of PTSD, and he was right. How embarrassing to be experiencing PTSD because of such a short-lived work-relationship. But all of a sudden there it is.

However, this reaction doesn’t reflect her or her ability to cope with it, as much as it speaks to the depth of the abuse. The depth of the trauma caused by emotional, cruel verbal, and even narcissistic pressure abuse, not to mention the sudden change in her personality and subsequent abandonment.

The first phase of PTSD involves incapacitating and overwhelming fear. The victim feels like she has been thrust into a nightmare or a horror movie. She is rendered helpless by her own terror. She keeps re-living the experiences through recurrent and intrusive visual and auditory hallucinations (“flashbacks”) or dreams. In some flashbacks, the victim completely lapses into a dissociative state and physically re-enacts the event while being thoroughly oblivious to her whereabouts.

In an attempt to suppress this constant playback and the attendant exaggerated startle response, the victim tries to avoid all stimuli associated, however indirectly, with the traumatic event. Many develop full-scale phobias (agoraphobia, claustrophobia, fear of heights, aversion to specific animals, objects, modes of transportation, neighbourhoods, buildings, occupations, weather, and so on). My wife has somethings the other way round for example she has no more fear of heights and isn't afraid of spiders anymore. Strange how the brain works

Her fear has been so great, that an email from him throws me into a panic attack, knowing that it just contains more pain. She doesn’t read them when they come in. In fact, she does not longer know if they are coming in or not, thanks to email filters that just delete them before we will even see them.
Thank goodness for technology.

Emotional abuse, like gaslighting as well as so many other insidious forms, is hard to recognize and even harder to prove. Let me first of all explain the gaslighting effect: “Gaslighting is an insidious form of emotional abuse and manipulation that is difficult to recognize and even harder to break free from. That’s because it plays into one of our worst fears – of being abandoned – and many of our deepest needs: to be understood, appreciated, and loved. The abuser is usually a very insecure person. He has a need to put others down in an attempt to make himself feel better. He must be seen as right at all times.” Often, the only indication that your partner is causing emotional damage is to trust yourself and how you feel.

• Are you asking yourself if you’re crazy?
• Are you questioning reality?
• Do you feel blamed for everything in the relationship?
• Do you feel unsafe to talk with your partner about anything? 
  
  
  
   
  

Certainly not all charming people are predators or abusive, but it is something of which to take note, especially if they are particularly charming. Please, please look closer, or perhaps, take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Find out about their past relationships. How many? How did they end? Do they take responsibility for their actions? Their words? Are they relatively consistent in their words/actions?
indication: They don’t take responsibility for their own actions.
Please believe me when I say that these actions are insidious. I mean it. They are so subtle and often covered up by grand gestures of love and excessive affection. It is very intoxicating and convincing, but beneath it all there might be a constant assault on your sense of self through gaslighting and other forms of covert abuse.

The first step is recognizing abuse as abuse. One very surprising thing I learned about this over the past few weeks is that some types of emotional abuse feel like love. Another reason the trauma is so deep: it’s not just the damage , but it is unhealed damage from a lifetime of emotional abuse.

Research PTSD and Emotional Abuse. If you are exhibiting any of the signs, you might be trapped in a betrayal or trauma bond with the abuser. This makes it even harder to get away and heal.

Let us all learn how to protect ourselves from such people, for in this society, there is no other recourse. No way to prove it. No way to make them accountable for the damage they cause. Our only hope of defense against this type of abuse is to recognize the danger early, reinforce our armor, and get away before a trauma bond can be created. Slowly we start with counseling. To me it’s an interesting one, and it might be helpful to you, reading this blog, as it shows how one is in so much denial at first because of the shock and disbelieve, and how, if you commit to healing, you can uncover some pretty horrific things and extensive PTSD.

My wife quotes: “I might never be working again and damaged for life. Still, I’d rather know, accept, and heal than to fall into the same trap with another predator”.
Let's hope the future brings better times.



The Old Sailor,