Tuesday, 5th November 2024
Something I gradually forgot over a period of about three years
It was only towards the end of 2021 that I asked my psychiatrist to write a referral letter to a counsellor.
I started attending counselling in January 2022.
At that time, I was convinced that I must have some, some trauma.
And I wanted to ask the counsellor for EMDR, a form of trauma care.
However, the counsellor was not willing to perform EMDR on me.
The reason for this is not clear, but it could be due to my mental illness.
Then, in the summer of 2023, I was tested for developmental disorders at my own expense in full and discovered that I have ADHD and ASD.
My developmental specialist clearly pointed out that my suffering was not caused by trauma.
Why did I think I had trauma?
I think it was because I read the Japanese translation of Bessel van der Kolk's great book, The Body Keeps The Score.
I found the book to be too much like me and, above all, interesting.
The book is 600 pages in length alone, but I finished it in no time.
EMDR was introduced in the book.
My counsellor did not do EMDR, but recommended me an easy-to-understand practical book on polyvagal theory.
This book was also very good.
The title of the book is "47 tips from a leading polyvegal theory expert on how to grow a 'seed of peace of mind' where anxiety and frustration can quickly disappear".
Polyvegal theory was also introduced in the aforementioned book by van der Kolk.
In the book, it was translated in Japanese as 'Taju Meisoh Shinkei Riron 多重迷走神経理論'.
So far, so good.
But I seem to have quickly forgotten the practice.
Today I am re-reading the book on how to grow 'seeds of peace of mind' again.
When I first read this book, I wrote down each work on a piece of paper so that I could list it and always carry it with me.
I also bought a snow globe.
There is evidence that I also read the book by Dr Porges, who proposed the Polyvagal Theory.
It's in my Kindle library.
I want to learn it all over again.
I also want to read Van der Kolk's book again.
Precisely because I think I have had my fair share of traumatic experiences.
Family discord from my childhood, my mother endlessly recounting episodes to me as a young child about my eldest brother who died at the age of three before I was born, the grooming I experienced at the age of 15, etc. come quickly to mind.
During a session with a developmental disability specialist, when I spoke at length about my memories of my upbringing, I told him/her that my parents became discordant because I wanted to learn to play the piano.
The developmental specialist told me that this was not true, that young children often assume that they were the cause of their parents' discord, but that you were not the cause and that they had been on bad terms for some time before that.
This came as a big surprise to me.
It may well be true.
But as I got older, even as an adult, I still thought that way about myself.
Had I not been tested for developmental disabilities at the time, I would have continued to believe until the day I died that my feelings about the piano were the cause of my parents' discord.
I had to write all this to introduce you the book, how to grow Seeds of Peace of Mind.
It's like I needed to be reminded of it.
And I wanted you to read this text.
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