Rings around the moon.

Another mom I know went through something similar.  Except she welcomed the moment her child got a diagnosis because the school counsellor - not qualified, not BACP registered - went with everything she was told by the child, and blamed the mother. Social services were involved, and despite the teenage child attacking their parents bedroom door with the hammer, and despite this child just running out of the house into the night. Repeatedly. Despite their psychotic delusions, the child was given accommodation away from the family. When the child was found trying to sever their own hands... Things changed and the child was sectioned! So this mom was relieved, so relieved , feeling that finally she was being taken seriously -and that her child was a lot safer for the duration. Years later her child like my son both are stuck in a loop of constant takeaways and dreams that crumble and burn. Except my son can't afford takeaways because he won't claim benefits - because he can't ...

  Visualisation. Imagine a ladder... Your home is close by. You are going out with friends later. You look at your watch - you have three hours - then you can take a shower and get ready. And you are looking forward to later, the swirl of light, friendship, food... But. There is this hole. Today there is a ladder, no idea how far down the hole goes...Who put the ladder there? Are they still down there? You kick a pebble - it doesn't seem to land. You can't hear it land.  Oh my... Commentary. The ANS, or rather the autonomic states are complex.  The three main states are:  Safety - in this visualisation: lights, friendship, food, enjoyment. Danger - the ladder goes down a long way, it might wobble a bit, is it old, breaking, what's below? And it is getting dark Life threatening danger - The bottom of the hole.... There is a LOT more going on than this, but when introducing the theory the ladder metaphor as created by Deb Dana  is perfect! Mapping the states . ~Yo...

 One of my favourite words! OK, let's go. Where am I? I'm below ventral vagal and above sympathetic in the zone called 'challenged' which is a pretty good place actually. Let me explain - I read a post a while ago criticising Porges polyvagal theory and so I headed off to download papers, to read blogs, to get a handle (Gendlin!) on what this criticism of a theory that actually proved incredibly helpful to me, is all about. Oh! Nothing but a storm in a tea cup actually. Gets people excited. Upsets some therapists. But fundamentally, total waste of time - the criticisms I mean. Unless you are going to do more research? And if you are a therapist the answer is probably no - since research means cutting up animals. Between clients? Seriously! It doesn't change anything if you too find that reptiles have a ventral presenting vagus nerve. Simply means that they have a ventral branch too. Perhaps they can be more sociable than the people who cut up animals believed? I per...

Process mapping was useful. I will have more to say about it, a separate page for later. Right now? Triggered to hell. What I know is, I don't have any good associations with this stress state. This is the one in which the person feels as if they are crawling with ants, inside one's body, all across my skin. Ripples of anger that my husband simply jumped from one family to another in response to this, first time around. I don't care how bad things get, I would find the memory of just leaving my family because my son is suffering from psychosis hard to live with!  So, ok.  Here I still am. Accessing memories of playing Half Life and Doom 3. Knowing that in those chosen fear states the important thing is to have a protocol and save points.  I can understand my son's rage when I'm here, thinking of my husband and his lying. There is a magnification, intensification of pain with this stress state. Being acutely aware of other people's inability to see and to be dow...

After gathering information on what you do, and how the experience of doing, being, as you do it - gives or takes your energy and attention. The next dimension of the map is to notice which of the three autonomic nervous system states is managing, directing, your energy and attention. Ok, state one is a primal on off. This is where endogenous opiates come in. This is the place cult leaders send cult members by causing terror, paranoia and love bombing. Outcome? Disorganised attachment. Down here we have dissociation, being petrified, zoning out, bewilderment, confusion, word salad. There are a whole set of physiological effects too. Memories created under this state will not make sense. Reality is vanishing, strobing. Thinking produces weird effects. Overall there is paralysis. Curiously many people find a way to live here - this isn't good. The pathway out of state one leads through state 2. Fight, flight. A person between 1 and 2 may well use 'fawning' as an attempt to fe...

My aim today is something I call process mapping. Anyone who knows the Bullet Journal method understands that keeping track of what you actually do, and noting down what you need to do, creates a framework which can be used to discover what gives your life meaning and purpose. Additionally, to know what you might do to change things in a great direction, it helps to have two more categories of information.  1. What will things be like when they are really good? 2. What needs to be done now so I can shift my life towards that? Process mapping is part one. The task is to describe and evaluate your actions during an hour, or a day, a week or a month, a year , a lifetime even. Bullet Journal folks, You've got this ok! Decide your time period. Next, log what you are doing. Check in every hour. ( If you are logging an hour, check in every 10 minutes).  Log your actions - a sentence or a single word to describe, but keep it simple. Next - rate  the energy the actions took, or ga...