As a child I loved to draw maze-like drawings. Not anything specific just flows of lines of ink on paper. Beautiful waves and curls untill my whole paper was full. I don’t know why I did this but I always was full of thoughts when I did. And I did it often. The result, in my eyes, looked beautiful. I’ve never heard anyone else say anything about it though. I’m not sure if I even ever showed them to anyone.

they took many hours to create but I didn’t mind. I was lost in thoughts while at it. Any thoughts really as far as I remember. And not one was the same as another. They where all different eventho I used the same style. At some point I stopped drawing them. I can’t exactly tell you when. But I just didn’t anymore. I wish i still had the patience to draw them. It was calming and relaxing.

These drawings remind me about my life tho. It’s like I’m stuck in one of them. There is no exit and I feel lost. Every turn brings another one with no ending. No solution.Much like my life and the thoughts in my head and heart I’m wrestling with. I want out but there’s no exit

Today I feel sick. My head hurts, my stomach hurts, I’m tired. But most of all my heart hurts. I don’t want to feel lost anymore. I dont want to be in this maze anymore. I want to be the one who draws them again. Not the one stuck in them.

These mazes are seemingly much like my life. I know it’s somewhere what I’m looking for. It has to be. Today my therapist asked me to tell about what happened when I told her I was not ok. I told her it wouldn’t make a difference. I know the answers but have no solution because the solution is not something I control.

Even tho I didn’t think it would lead to anything I gave her a chance to help me. Not even to proof I was right and that she couldn’t but with the hope that I’m wrong and that she could point me in the right direction. A few times she tried but the things she brought up all required just that what I don’t have. I need a loving and caring environment with supportive people who I can count on to be able to heal.

I told her about what happened and she didn’t really could understand all ofbwhat I told her. But when I was done she didn’t really had an answer either and she told me this. I wasn’t surprised only by the fact that she told me that she had no answer either. We made a new appointment and that was that. I feel I wasted my time.

No one is perfect and no one has to be I just don’t want to feel taken for granted anymore, used and not good enough by others. The others that I care for and love. But I get excluded, pushed away, lied to, cheated on, betrayed, used and taken for granted. It doesn’t matter how hard I work on healing when I don’t have this environment where I can finally feel save, I can’t heal and there’s no substitute…

High standards should be about how you care for and about others and yourself and not being used to put other people down. It’s good to have high standards; Knowing right from wrong is important, Being good and kind to others is important.

That friend you just belittled because shes not as funny or as good as your other friends might have a whole lot of worries and stuff on their mind that they are just happy to finally be able to relax without having to worry about meeting anyone else’s standards. They finally let their guard down because they thought they could around you since you are their friend.

She may have a whole life behind her full of abuse, setbacks, struggles, and downfalls that she’s still fighting and climbing out of with very little support. She’s being told to make friends and get a support system when every person she gives trusts to make her feel less than worthy. You may have no understanding of this and think it is easy and you only have to try.

High standards should be about how you treat other people when it comes to your friends. Not about how good they are and what you can use them for. You should appreciate ppl for who they are and what they can and not make them feel bad for what they cant and who they are not.

The current situation requires new ways of dealing with things and this just shows once more how flexible we as humans are if we want to. We can find ways to make things work naturally because the first instinct humans have is to survive and that is exactly what we are doing right now. And to be frank and right out extremely blunt to you all crying about haircuts nail do’s and whatever more nonsense you think is more important than the life you have been given; we are surviving in luxury! Most of us that is.

There still are those that have fleed the wars in their countries and now live in encampments with little protection against this virus or even clean water and materials to live to begin with. They already were surviving with minimums and their chances to survive are growing lower per minute. We all can do something about this by stopping this virus. As we know now the virus travels while we travel. WE MOVE IT AROUND it doesn’t travel by itself. So, STAY PUT!

Take care of yourselves, your personal hygiene especially but don’t forget to get a fresh breath of air, cause we still can. Not all aspects are easy but the main point is to do what we can while we can and get our priorities right. For example in homeschooling. I don’t have an essential profession and I don’t work from home so from my point of view I have a “luxury” others don’t. If you work from home you will have to find a way to manage this while you also take care of your kids at the same time.

This asks for even more flexibility, from you but also from our children. Keep in mind that them not being able to do their homework always as they are supposed to do according to a schedule you might have gotten or made yourself is not as bad as your family tarting to have serious problems because you focus too much on the scheduled work than their well being.

We can teach our kids other values and lessons they don’t learn in school that actually teach them a lot of the lessons they DO get in school at the same time. I found my daughter’s problem-solving solutions very clever and this required progressive thinking. We don’t need to entertain them ourselves the whole day, they will be able to do this when we give them the chance to do so. They can take certain decisions.

My daughter is also helping me with cooking. This teaches her planning and math. It tells her how to take care of her self and what is healthy and what is not. She learns to organize things and patience. In school, she had a hard time learning to read the clock during math. With these new schedules I am letting her sometimes make a bit of her own planning but that required to read the time. So she has been really willing to do this now.

And last but not least, don’t be too hard on your self either. Look after yourself too and use your common sense. We are going to need each other, not only now but after this is over too. One person’s downfall may mean the downfall of many others with them. Keep in touch with friends, family, co-workers, etc but also try to create space for ourselves which in some cases now is hard with everyone at home. Make agreements with others on this and respect these new boundaries.

For some reason I like this word but I can’t tell you why. However that’s not why I made it the title of this post. It is actually related to my post.

In my healing journey it is essential to have a caring and loving environment that are supportive cq friends and family. For me (and many other traumasurvivors) that’s a tough one. It’s usually exactly what we are lacking and why we got traunatized to begin with.

The very few friends I’ve had I always held dear and I took care of not taking them for granted. Even when I couldn’t always be the friend I wanted to be. Now the person I’m closest with kind of made me feel bad because my supposedly low entertainment lvl. There’s a whole lot of stuff involved with this and I really don’t want to write all that out.

Where I’m getting at is that in my understanding friendship is not just based on how much the other person can entertain you. I thought people where friends and hanging out together because they like each other, have mutual interest, share the sane kind of ideas, humor etc and like doing the same kind of things and enjoy doing those things together.

Suddenly makes me feel used again. Or rather useless. As if I’m supposed to have a use as a friend. Just being who I am isn’t entertaining enough to hang around with. I would almost apologize for being traumatized and having a lot of stuff on my mind and dealing with a lot. But I won’t because it’s not in my control or my fault.

What I do have is a need to be able to relax and for people who accept me as I am and still want to hang out with me even tho I can’t bring them the lvl of entertainment others can. Relaxing is difficult for me. I’m always on edge and alert so when I can relax with someone else it’s actually a sign of trust. Though now I feel as if I got told just being me isn’t good enough.

The few laughs, a silly video and the humor I can share I dont feel like I want to share with them anymore cause I don’t want to be in a competition with other friends. I have my own value and I feel that’s not appreciated anymore now.

Sadness and hurt is overwhelming and it’s hard to fight the stream of emotions and thoughts that are not helping. I’m debating to go sleep so I don’t feel it because I have no solution for this I don’t control how other ppl feel about me. Though it hurts to be just a name on a list.

Today I found myself in a situation where I felt extremely alone. Not because I am isolated now because of the coronavirus. I’m used to be isolated and have a social distance but because I felt unloved, excluded, unimportant, uncared for, unseen and very much alone specifically by those I love. This is partly related to my traumas because a situation triggered me a little bit and woken up old wounds. And for another part, because I am very much isolated and don’t have a family really that I am close with or hang out and only a few friends I’m not really close with either.

I kept trying to ground myself and partly succeeded. For the other part, I sought company but this didn’t turn out as good as I had hoped for. I explained my feelings but was met with resistance and somewhat rejected when I said how I felt. My mission failed and even tho I did had the company then I was hurt and extremely sad that I was met little to no understanding of my situation.

Then in my communication during the time spent together with this person I worded things in a way that hurt them. I apologized but this wasn’t met with respect or even accepted. This was for me not just any person but someone I truly care for personally. And such situations keep reoccurring to me with those that I love and care for. So I wonder am I too demanding? asking for too much? I have questioned myself this many times and even carefully sometimes asked others who I think have been sincere with me. None said that I asked too much, some questioned if I asked the right person but this person is my friend, they say they love and care for me.

After some time spent together neither of us being satisfied with this meeting, this feeling of hurt, sadness, loneliness and the traumas from my past gripping at me and surrounding me in a dark cloud that only time can defeat until it happens again. Sadly I think it will I just never know when and how long it will last or take.

This whole happening reminded me of a poem by one of my favorite poets, Edgar Allen Poe. Even tho I question the person that he was with what I know of his life, some of his poems I can relate to as if it was about myself. “Alone” Is such a poem. The poem was untitled but added later on by another person. I personally don’t feel the poem fitting with the rest of the wording of the poem altho the poem in its own way depicts the title. However, it remained the title of this poem that has never been published during the life of Edgar Allan Poe himself.

Alone —

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were — I have not seen
As others saw — I could not bring
My passions from a common spring —
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow — I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone —
And all I lov’d — I lov’d alone —
Then — in my childhood — in the dawn
Of a most stormy life — was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still —
From the torrent, or the fountain —
From the red cliff of the mountain —
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold —
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by —
From the thunder, and the storm —
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view —

— Edgar Allan Poe

I know the stains of my tears on my pillow will disappear when dried up after I cried myself to sleep again tonight but the invisible scars stay. I wish I knew how to end this suffering, I’m tired, no, exhausted. I know I deserve happiness too without that shadow and raincloud always there to make sure I dont forget the pain.