hsphaven

“We are laid low by grief, taken below the surface of the world, where shadows and strange images appear. We are no longer moving in our brightly lit, daytime existence. Grief punctures the solidity of our world, shatters the certainty of fixed stars, familiar landscapes, and known destinations. In a breath, all of this can be shaken, will be shaken, by unexpected loss.” Francis Weller, ‘The Wild Edge of Sorrow’

It was during Year 12, in the middle of my most critical year, that my parents decided to move house, a sudden decision prompted by a bushfire in the hills that summer. They started looking at houses in the suburbs while I was absorbed in study. I never thought much of it until the day they went off to an auction, and won. It all happened while I was still in bed, and by the time I got up, my parents were back and it had been signed and sealed. That was the day the ground caved in beneath my feet. Soon I would have to pack up and leave behind the one place I had found some sense of stability and refuge in my world of bullies and ever-changing schools. We had moved here during my first year of school, and now we would leave in my last. We would move to a house far more exposed to the world. The road our new house was on had two lanes separated by a white line painted down the centre which made our little street seem like a laneway in comparison. It was also on the edge of a roundabout. I had told my parents I thought it was too noisy, but they still went ahead and bought it.

Continue reading “Moving house- an extract from my memoir” →

“No one bites back as hard on their anger. None of my pain and woe can show through.” Limp Bizkit, “Behind Blue Eyes”

For years I’ve been preoccupied with all the external threats to my health, but days like the ones I’ve just had remind me that I can cause enormous damage to myself from the way I deal with my emotions. I want to talk about my new favourite word, a word I discovered while reading a very old and musty psychology book called “The Borderline Syndrome” by Grinker and colleagues. This word is “implosion”, which takes me back to high school Geography class when we learnt about subduction, the way tectonic plates collide and one ends up sliding under the other and into the earth, instead of outwards. The word is used in the context of describing the different types which fall under a psychiatric diagnosis called borderline (which HSPs tend to be prone to, especially those who have traumatic childhoods):

“Thus, in hysteria and impulse disorders there is an “explosion of affect” before integration can occur. Internalization or “implosion” of affect disorganises congnition, keeps informational data inside, contains affect and binds syntax as in obsessives and depressives. From this point of view the borderline extends over the continuum in that some groups “explode” whereas others “implode” [e.g. the “Quiet” Borderline, a subtype tumblr user Casey writes about here].” Continue reading “Implosion” →

“For most of us boredom is an irritation – something that we experience when waiting in a queue or when sitting through a boring meeting – for others though it can be all pervasive and something that creeps up on us whenever we’re not active.” Adam Sinicki

I write this post because I’m bored. Excruciatingly bored. I don’t remember ever having such a problem with boredom until now. It really has become all pervasive, and I’m starting to see where the phrase “bored to death” comes from, as when we are bored, we are not connecting with anything or anyone. We are not connecting to life. My depression further confounds the problem because while there are plenty of things I know I can do- clean up, paint, go out, see friends- I simply don’t have the motivation or energy to do them. Instead I just end up lying flat on my bed. Tears stream my face and I find myself entertaining thoughts of suicide because I don’t see an end in sight. Continue reading “Bored to death” →

One of the most interesting aspects of Pete Walker’s work, which I have been delving into this past year, is his trauma typology. He identifies four defense mechanisms which people use to cope with trauma: fight, flight, freeze/dissociate, and fawn.

There is a great description of each type on Pete Walker’s website here. There is one- the fawn type- which seems to have a lot of overlap with the HSP trait. As Pete Walker observes:

“Some become almost psychic in their ability to read their parents moods and expectations. This then helped them to figure out the best response to neutralize parental danger.” Continue reading “Life as a “fawn”” →

I always have mixed feelings when I come to the end of a good book. There is a certain melancholy which sweeps over me like a grey cloud. I want to find a similar book, but I rebel against the idea that there might be a book that could replace the one I am grieving for and its characters. Lately I have been getting into Enid Blyton which delights my inner child. There is a nostalgia to the musty, yellowing pages and the stories of children building secret hideaways, as Peter, Susan and Angela do in “Hollow Tree House”. I have long been intrigued by the way children and animals seek out cubby houses and other secret worlds within our worlds in which they retreat. It became my topic for my psychology thesis (which I never got around to finishing unfortunately) where I started looking at what these places mean in the context of a child’s life, such Peter and Susan’s abusive home life with their aunt, and what purpose they serve. Continue reading “Secret spaces” →

March the 20^th marked the fall equinox, which means there is equal day and equal night all over the planet. It is a time to balance, and interestingly my last post about my dependency on counsellors fell very much on this date, as well as the day I usually have counselling. I am reminded that I need to develop a good circle of friends, rather than throwing all my eggs in one basket. I need tribe. I find myself in grief as I start letting go of this relationship like an autumn tree sheds its leaves. I always get sad at this time of year. I have been in counselling for five years now but it has had quite an isolating effect on me and I have let everything else, such as friends, hobbies and study, drop away. It reminds me of the shamanic initiation process where the person is removed from their everyday life and put under the care of experienced elders, a cocoon where the transformation takes place. The person then returns to their society a shaman and leader. What I’d like to know is how does one reintegrate into the world after having such an experience, a prolonged period of poor mental or physical health, or a “shamanic crisis” as they put it? When the world asks where you have been and what you have been doing, how do you begin to explain that to them? I don’t know whether it was my recent stay in the bush, or my break from counselling, but when I went to badminton yesterday, which I’ve recently picked up again, I felt as though I’d crossed into another dimension. I have plans to see an old friend from uni later today at the place I used to study, and it’s going to be very weird going back there. Yesterday I was not ok.  I’m not sure whether it was sadness or fear I was experiencing, but it was intense whatever it was, which prompted me to look up how things are astrologically (I also discovered it’s a new moon). I need a lot of support right now. It feels like that first ride we take on our bikes as children without training wheels. I’ve got to take a step back from counselling, but I haven’t developed much else to take its place, and I feel like I may not until I stop counselling, like we can’t take the training wheels half off. I don’t know how to create balance in my life while still seeing a counsellor. Continue reading “Balance, new beginnings, and returning to the world after deep inner journeying” →

Tears slide down my face like raindrops to a window, though not enough to soak my pillow. It is strained, like the big black clouds that rolled in the other afternoon, relinquishing only a light drizzle which soon faded into nothing. I play “Breathe Me” by Sia to try and get them out. Continue reading “Be my friend” →