Today was hard.

    It stared off well but by the end of the day I'm worn out and ready to sleep and it's 4:30... We went for a walk this morning and learned a little bit of fun stuff about each other enjoy the beautiful weather. My assignment for the day was to write out one of my traumatic events, the easiest one (like any of them are easy). After that I had a break and got to color for a bit before lunch.
    Lunch all by itself was an exposure for me.  I had the option of sitting with a bunch of people I don't know or sitting in the most vulnerable spot in the dining hall. I chose that one, the one with the drink cooler and condiments behind it. The one where everyone was walking to and the door was behind me. I ate really fast, so fast I almost chokers and decided I should slow down  bit. I got my lunch, ate it, and returned to the group room within 15 minutes.
    Then we had to do group which was a great group, we had to think and could be vulnerable to ourselves and the group. I drew this.

    The inside is how we feel, the red is anxiety, the black  is depression and the fave shows it to be downcast with tears.  The blue in the middle is hope, with some room to grow. The outside is how the world sees me, so really it's what y'all have told me, those are the words I chose. In case you can't read them they are: strong, hurt, honest, vulnerable, fighter, and scared. So I was pretty vulnerable with myself and sharing it with the group. I let my wall fall a little. Next group we checked in with how we were doing and someone just started yelling at the facilitator and I felt like I was in the crossfire  and I couldn't move, I froze and tried to concentrate on putting the crayons in color coordinating order in the box. At one point I couldn't even do that. The rest of the day happened but I don't really know what happened, I was trying to stay engaged but I failed.  I waited till after the last group was over and told my therapist I was having a panic attack. She couldn't tell since I was holding it all in, I said I know. This panic aattack was much like one I had in residential that involved yelling too. It's the worst one I've had some then, it took me an hour and a half to get to a point where I felt safe driving home. I made it home and wrote this and I'm ready to face tomorrow. But, the whole way home I listened to 'It is well with my soul'.

    I also had this one helping me write my post so please ignore mess ups.

Thanks for praying friends.

Here's what's going on now.

       I've now entered my second phase of treatment, it's called partial hospitalization program or PHP. The one I'm specifically going to is aimed at those with PTSD. I've been here a couple weeks no w and in starting to get difficult. We do these things that are called exposures that we are suppose to cause anxiety at varying intervals. We get a list on activities and then rank them between 0 to 7, 7 being most. So we start off in the 2 to 3 range and work up from there. I'm just now starting to get to there difficult stuff and having to read my trauma script. (A narrative about all the bad stuff that's happened.) It's been very difficult for me but we meet with our therapist every day so that helps. I have no clue how long I'll be here and I'm thankful for great friends who are letting me live with them so I can do this work. I have a tendency to try to do too much at one time, she calls it flooding so I'm basically guaranteed to have anxiety. I'm not very nice to myself,  I  need to learn how to pace myself and be kind.
      Please continue to pray for me as it is still an awfully difficult process and I still have a long way to go. A good thing though is that I've been able to start crying again and I'll post pictures of the art I've made so far. The first set is a guy under a blue blanket representing total desperation, then the next one is called despair to hope since it's a fetal and prayer position. The next one is called acceptance.

The next group and my animals the turtle because I was finally coming out of my shell. The bears because it's a mommy bear providing for my two boys.

 

               I'm open to questions if you have any, I know this is different experience.

Thanks for caring friends

Checking in

How do you sum up 2 months into a reasonable blog post? The only way I can think of doing it is to just not do it. So there will be multiple posts. This one is going to be a general post with the nitty-gritty stuff to come later.
We had programing all day every day with some exceptions of Saturday and sunday. We had to be up in group with our goal for the day by 715 every morning and the night didn't end till 920 every evening. This made for really long days. There were smoke breaks built in throughout the day so I did get a 20 minute to 30 m ok mutes break every so often.
The lodge I was on was the last to eat every meal which at points made things complicated, like there not being dinner for us one Sunday night or when they would rum out of a particular food. Anyways the microwave was an essential part of eating any how me all the served.
The next important thing is there were 25 to 35 girls on lodge at any one time. It's like living in a dorm with 5 to 10 crisis going on at any single time. Exhausting... because those consist of panic attacks flashbacks dissociation nightmares and yes at one point or another I had all of those. That's going to have to be it for now, I'm still in the thick of everything. I'm not better yet, there is still tons of work to do and I'm just to tired to do this right now. Pray for me text me email whatever, I am feeling lost and alone.