Steady Climb

I am formulating a post in my head about loss but am not ready to write it down yet.

It has become apparent to me that I carried this grief for many many years. Just one loss after another, with no time to integrate anything and certainly no support of even acknowledgement of the losses I experienced. They were so frequent it is hardly surprising I couldn't deal with them. The fact I was an emotionally abandoned child certainly didn't help me either. I brought myself up and it just took an awfully long time to deal with this stuff.

It is also true that I could not have healed the parts I have healed all at once. It would have killed me I think. The experience of 94(severe flashbacks which got me into therapy with the right person), the experiencing of feelings in 95 - intense fear brought about because I had 'told' at last, then again in September - December 98 when I realised the depth of my suffering and also that I could no longer suppress it, nothing worked anymore. If it did, I would still be stuck back there. Then the grieving of my losses and once again intense fear this year, strangely September - December. The sorrow is of such depth I cannot even find the words to express it. It cannot be put right. Yet I know I can live well despite it. I shall do.

I am doing much better as regards my guts - no where near the same level of discomfort and pain. It hasn't yet gone altogether. I hope it does and that this is not going to be the way I experience stress from now on.

Today has been the worst with my gut for a while and even that has been mild but disconcerting.

This morning, at the pool, I was harassed. It was a length swimming session for an hour. 4 elderly people got in the lane I was swimming in. Two of them moved whenever I was swimming toward them. One however, the youngest and biggest, did not. He literally stood in my way. He also made comments to me but I couldn't hear what precisely except it had something to do with him wanting to 'walk' in that lane. He was belligerent. Eventually I was forced to move into the centre of the pool, away from the safety of the edge wall,(in case I spasm). I was infuriated by the bullying-this is NOT SCHOOL!!!!!! And more so because the lifeguard stood and watched me being harassed and did nothing. So yet gain, I find myself being in the situation of having to complain to the manager, which I did AFTER I had done my mile because a lot of my energy was sapped by then and I knew I would talk calmly. Whether or not it will have paid dividends or not I have yet to see. Perhaps I was just being handled. I truly cannot believe the behaviour of 'adults' and that quite clearly no one else complains about such bullying tactics. It is bad enough that the disabled changing room is cold, has an appallingly weak shower and is dirty. No, I have not complained. I cannot be bothered to go thru that again. It was enough that I could swim in peace there. Now I wonder.....

I too am beginning to see a connection with my guts and what I experience, even if the stressor is not so obvious as it was today.