BEST FOR ALL!

The day before yesterday I receive a phone call that very quickly triggered my inner rebel side, Patricia to surface once more, along with her unique set of deeply struggling emotions.  I was supposed to go to post a Student’s study pack around the time of the call, being my lunch time, but the caller left me so disturbed that I was actually frozen in time for a while.  The rising flood of frustration and anger in me became so HUGE yet again, that I knew that it was important to just get up and go… going out would help to defuse the negative emotions.  So, after about an hour of breathing the overwhelming frustration in a distant and foggy place that I fought with myself to surface from, I eventually managed to take myself off to the PostNet. 
 
The intensity of my feelings was still strong when I arrived there, and I had to concentrate on not letting it show on my face.  I’ve learned that if I purposely change my expression to a more positive one and work on my feelings at the same time, I can often reverse the state I find myself in… and it does work.  So, I imagined myself feeling kind and put on a kind expression… smiled at one or two people and it definitely helped, especially when they smiled back… but… the past-damage is still too deep, and I found myself heading straight for the cooked chicken oven and then racing home to eat it… I wanted to dive into it while I was still in the car but forced myself to wait until I got home…
 
It was definitely a surge of overpowering addictive-eating-gratification-need that had returned… surfacing from my past (pre-2013)!  The need to stuff myself silly was totally gripping… I rushed into the house and it was all I could do to take the time just to shut the door behind me before the eating frenzy began… I ate almost the entire chicken as fast as I could and felt euphoric and totally intoxicated doing so… very little was left on the bones by the time I was done and couldn’t eat anymore.
 
I have put on +4kg’s since May when all the trouble had come to a head and Patricia was triggered to the surface then.  I can’t seem to work out what I’m doing differently as far as eating goes… maybe I’m just in denial, I don’t know… but something has changed… it must have! 
 
For a long time, my weight was settled between 74kg’s-75kg’s… and on January 10th, I even dipped as low as 73.8kg for that day.  Then, at the end of April-June I stayed in the 76kg range… and my weight gain started to creep up on me from then on, reaching as high as 78.2kg by the end of July!  I did all that I could to get it under control, but I just couldn’t seem to get it right!  My weight has stayed in the 38kg range for most of August, reaching as high as 79.3 by yesterday!  AARGH! 
 
But then… something wonderful happened yesterday that I believe will help me to take control of my eating once more… I will write about it in the next post… it’s HUGE… WONDERFUL… EARTH SHATTERING (for me) and just the most AMAZING MIRACLE once more to come my way… and NO… I’m not pregnant or getting married… hahahaha! 
 
I cannot wait to share it with you all, but I have been so busy today, that I haven’t had a chance to get to writing about it yet.  I will probably only be able to share it with you tomorrow sometime if work isn’t too heavy.  I hope for a quiet day.
 
For now, though, I have to attempt to clear up some people’s misguided judgements against me for choosing not to attend the meetings connected to the group where the problem came to a head in May.  Once again, I need to reiterate that when Patricia is triggered to the surface, her intensity is too strong for me to personally cope with… I cannot even begin to explain the intensity of frustration, anger and anxiety that rises with her each time.  It is a very destructive force within me which I believe is capable of not only killing me and killing my relationships, but also hurting others… I therefore CHOSE to step out of the situation that had triggered her, so as to not only protect my own mental integrity, but the integrity of the group also. 
 
I am not doing this because I’m sitting in my little corner pouting…
I am not doing it to make someone else feel bad…
I am not doing it to hurt anyone…
 
I am doing this because it helps me to cope and heal from my own overwhelming emotions which had become out of control.  I have felt a real sense of total relief since I left the group.
 
Perhaps you remember reading this poem before:
 
Intensity
The intensity is more than I can bear!
Burning acid on every rip and tear!
Bubble, bubble toil and trouble!
So much chaos, so much muddle!
I cannot bear it anymore...
But I'm not ready for Heaven's Door!
Help me!  Help me!
Please make me brave!
Save me! Save me! 
Please help me...
Save...
 
~ Panayiota
(07 October 2014)
 
My mentor wanted me to attend the groups as part of my job description and I’ve enjoyed the experience up till now.  So, I wrote to her first to tell her I would like to stop attending.  I will share parts of our communications to try and solve the problem for those who are misconstruing my motives.  (Should they continue to struggle to grasp my situation and choices, I will need to repost the post that I believe Patricia wrote when she had surfaced in May, because she had experienced the “mother always wins” games once more… and she continues to surface periodically still for the same reason, as with the call the other day!
 

The letter I wrote to my mentor:
From: Panayiota
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2018 8:21 AM
To: Teria…
Subject: Stepping back for a time...
 
Dearest Teria…
 
I have decided after much thought, that I will no longer be able to attend the Advanced and Diplomate workshops or supervision meetings. 
 
I do not wish to explain why, other than to say that for the sake of my own sanity and others, it is best this way and I feel a huge sense of relief in making this decision.  I have learned in my life that getting too close always causes problems and I am completely unable to cope with the emotional fall-out I experience almost as death-loss… it is far too big for me.
 
Please, I am asking you with all my heart, not to pressure me on this.  I will allow no visitors until you have accepted my wish as I do not want to discuss it at all.
 
I love my job and that is all I need and there are so many other very important things I need to be doing with any spare time I can muster… my book/s being at the top of my list.  I finished marking the students’ portfolios this morning, so now I should have more time to get to my book.
 
This is the best decision for all… not only for me.
 
Thank you so much and I pray you will understand and let me do this for me right now.
 
Please… there is no need to respond, other than just to reassure me that you understand and accept my wishes…
 
Teria responded exactly as I had hoped she would:
From: Teria
Sent: Sunday, July 22, 2018 4:31 PM
To: Panayiota…
Subject: Re: Stepping back for a time...
Dearest Pan,
 
To me, this is a right choice.  We all have to sort out exactly where our assigned places in life are.  So many activities, though very good and in many ways satisfying, can eat into our time that we need to spend with things that matter more.  I find it so fascinating that a restlessness, a kind of dissatisfaction, a kind of disillusionment, discomfort and even hurt, can be signs that we are needed more elsewhere.  We are in a sense called back onto a path that only we can walk.  Not that we were not a blessing during the time we spent away from the more central and important things in our lives and that we have not gained a lot away from our primary tasks in life, but is our continued time away from what is still waiting to be done by us, essential?  Are we irreplaceable there or irreplaceable where we are meant to be?
 
I only want you to see this not as something negative, namely, as a self-defensive withdrawing from a hurtful situation, but as something supremely positive.  It is self-defensive, yes, but in which way?  If your energies get wasted or if your person feels abused, then such a withdrawal from the situation is absolutely called for.  We have the responsibility to treasure our persons, to give ourselves to where we are absolutely irreplaceable.  Nobody can write or work on your book or get it completed but you, Pan.  In the same way there are precious tasks as the secretarial administrator of our Institute that only you can do and nobody else.  We have been in the process of removing you from administrative duties that others can also do so why waste your energies even there!  Your role is all the more one of being intimately at my side and at the side of the students at the very inception of their training as logotherapists.  Your interaction with all our new students is invaluable.  And so is your involvement in presenting your riveting story and other power-point presentations during the introductory workshop…  Your role in the workshops was not to be diminished!... I regard the introductory course as a springboard or platform from which all the further courses in logotherapy is launched.  You are absolutely needed and have an irreplaceable role to play there!  I heartily, therefore, endorse your decision!...
 
I then responded:
…I cannot begin to express my gratitude to you for your profound understanding of my deeper needs at this time, and for endorsing my choice in this matter.  I am so deeply indebted to you for your beautiful words that always help me to make better sense, even of my own thoughts and choices… you put into words for me, exactly what I am trying to say to the world… thank you so very much for being such a treasure to my heart and soul… I am very… VERY… grateful for my work and that I can work from home.  I am most grateful for YOU, because I fear that without my job and your steadfast encouragement and profound understanding… I don’t know where I’d be today.  I’d much rather be right here, right now, than to ever go back to all those broken years before Logotherapy found me.  I am so grateful for TODAY!...
 
 
I hope now that if anyone from the group is reading this, that you will understand better and stop saying things that make me feel uncomfortable for making a decision which I feel is right for me and most beneficial to all.
 
Goodnight beautiful world and sweet dreams,
 
~ Panayiota Ryall