My New Diary and Daily Progress

02/14/2023

Today is the Valentine's day and I went to BBQ with my boyfriend, and the food was great🔥 Although we had a smail conflict during that time, we managed to talk it out and become more understanding and trust for each other ❤️ I learned that when there is a conflict, i just need to open my heart and express my feelings in a calm and peaceful way. Also, conflict is not always a bad thing, because sometimes it becomes a window for 2 people to communicate and understand the true self of each other 🙏🏻

02/15/2023

Sometimes I literally feel 7Cups saved my life 🙏 Today, when I was taking the bus, some bad memories from my past came to my mind again, and I began to ruminate every hurt in the past with fury and tension. To be honest, I did feel a lot of hatred in my heart, for all the unjust judgements and hurt I have received throughtout my life, and I don't even know how to deal with them right now. I have tried EFT Tapping, mindfulness, therapy and even psychiatry, but all of them have limited effects treating my trauma, and I still have a deep wound in my mind and heart right now. I was easily triggered by anything people say and do that's unpleasant for me, and I used to either avoid the whole situation or turn on the fight-or-flight mode in my mind and be ready to revenge.

I was sexually assaulted by someone I met on dating app last year, and I must admit part of the reasons is that I didn't clearify my boundaries enough and did not stop that person when he kept doing things I didn't like. Therefore, from then on, I became hypervigilant because I think everyone has the possibility to hurt me and no one will help me, and if anyone says or does something that is possibly considered as "threat" by my mind, I turn on the fight-or-flight mode right away and respond to everything in the most defensive way. To be honest, I always feel I am in a dilemma these days - if I fight back, I might hurt and misunderstand others who do not actually have bad intentions against me; however, if I don't fight back, it's possible for some people to keep doing worse things. I feel tired and I feel lost, and sometimes I even hate myself for not being "poweful" enough when I was hurt by those people. Also, I even have the intentions to use my whole life to take revenge on everyone who had hurt me before (relax, I won't really do anything harmful to myself or others, they are just thoughts). I fully understand these thoughts come from the emotional mind but not the wise mind, and they are basically telling me to do something which will bring me temporary relief but permanent regret in the future.

No matter how hard I tried before, those thoughts and emotions would never go away and I would still ruminate in the same problem over and over again when I face similiar situations next time. However, when I was going through some growth paths on 7Cups, one suggestion I received is to make a forum post, and it became the game changer. There is still pain, there is still wound, but right now I am writing everything down here in my post, and it gives me a window to express all the stuck emotions and energy. I don't know how and I don't know when, but I believe there must be some way I can take which is superior than avoidance or fight-or-flight, as long as I keep writing down how I feel in a safe way and communicate with the people who have gone through similiar things with me 🙌

I want to say something to myself as well as everyone who is reading this post:

Your feeling matters

Your emotion matters

Your hurt matters

Your voice matters

All your emotions are valid

There's nothing wrong to express how you feel

I see you

I hear you

I feel you

It is NEVER OK to be judged

It is NEVER OK to be hurt

What they did to you was unjustice

It's NEVER your fault

Even though these words cannot bring away all our traumas, we still have every right to voice out and let the world know. I am here for you, ALWAYS!! 🙌 Shout it out, let everybody hear this, once we unite together and have enough momentum, WE CAN BRING REAL CHANGES! 🔥

02/16/2023

Today is a horrible day because I lost my electric bike which is expensive during the afternoon, and the police said it was probably stolen 😭 However, even though I felt extremely horrible, I still managed to live in the present moment and let go all my negative emotions by EFT Tapping, meditation and affirmation. Even though I cannot see it right now, I have faith that God (or devine, basically the higher power depend on your religion) will either help me to find the bike or give me something else equal or even better, and I just need to surrender and let go 🙏

Also, I am glad that I am creating momentums by updating this post everyday, as everybody including myself can see my daily progress 🙌 And from now on, I will try my best to write down at least one positive thing in my life everyday and start to do affirmations again 🌟

Today is the day 1 of me doing affirmations and I am grateful for my boyfriend who is always by my side and took me to Chick'fill'A because I was feeling sad❤️

Finish today however you are able to*

We can always try again tomorrow 🤗🤗

02/17/23

I was dating with my boyfriend that night so I didn't get the chance to update my post. I am adding more details today

02/18/2023

I felt pretty down in the morning because I had a nightmare about breaking up with my boyfriend which I understand is rooted from past abandonment trauma. Then, I did a meditation and several rounds of EFT Tapping to get myself back to real world and reaffirm myself that we will be OK. However, after that, all the hurt and judgement I received from others before came to my mind again and I began to feel very furious and sad. I tried my best to open a video of tapping and followed it, and fortunately, after I finished this round of tapping, I felt much better and confident, and I understood that all love and support I need come from within and I DON'T need others to prove I am lovable ✊

After lunch, I took a nap and when I got up, I started to feel anxious again. To be honest, I am pretty tired of the drastic shift of my emotions because I want myself to stay in the positive state as long as possible; however, even though I felt horrible, I still managed to did several rounds of tapping and started to read self-help books. The book I was reading is called The Journey from Abandonment to Healing, and I highly recommand this book to everyone who has abandonment trauma and is unable to heal 👍

When reading this book, I found out I have so much trauma from the past not only from abandonment, but also from the hurt and the unfair criticism and judgement from my family and other people. I even felt like my subconscious mind is like a battlefield full of buried landmines, which can explode anytime in anywhere 😰 However, although I felt overwhelmed and anxious, I understood that healing is not a linear process and I am really doing my best every day🙏As I become more and more mindful, past pain will no longer haunt me and the anxiety about future will also lose grasp on me, as I am always living in the present moment ☀️ I know there is still way to go, but I can already see the light at the end of the tunnel:

02/19/2023 - 02/24/2023

I had some problem with my old church last Sunday and was thinking about going to a new church. There were a lot of consideration and struggle in this process but I am glad right now I know what to do at least for the first step! I will come back and add more details later when I am available 🙏

02/25/2023

Today is another intense day for me, but I am glad that I still mananged to cope with all intense emotions eventually 🙏 I was doing well in the morning that I got up early and did some EFT Tapping, and then I had a Zoom meeting with a small group leader from my church. However, I started to feel worse again during the afternoon and all negative voice and painful memories came back 😰 I was feeling completly shxtty at that time and did not want to do anything, just continued to think about there is no hope in this world 😢 Then, I tried my best to open my Youtube playlists to see if I could watch some self-help videos for encouragement. I found and opened the videos of Tara Brach, a world-famous mindfulness teacher, and I started to listen to her talking about radical acceptance and how to go back to the true nature of ourselves. To be honest, Tara Brach is the ONLY self-help expert who can make me feel peace during an episode of intense emotions, and I could feel the vibe of love and peace she was sending to this world while listened to her 🍃 Some self-help gurus just tend to stand high and tell you to do this or that, without understanding your unique situation; however, Tara Brach is really different, at least for me - she is kind, compassionate and always trying to understand ❤️ As a survivor of sexual assault and a chronic mental health symptoms carrier, I absolutely understand that sometimes we feel horrible not because we don't know how to do to feel better, but we feel lonely and isolated in this world and nobody can understand us 😔I highly recommend her to anyone who suffered from extremely intense trauma including myself, because she NEVER blames anyone in her video, and she does not force you to think or do anything you don't want or are not able to do at that moment 🙏

While I was watching the videos of Tara Brach, I also opened the website of RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) and joined the queue to talk with a crisis counselor. I actually felt quite better after I watched those videos; however, there was still hatred in my heart and I did not know how to deal with that. The crisis counselor assigned to me was also very nice, and he understood everything I said (in which I even used very intense words) without judging, and he also praised me for reaching our for help during a crisis. After I finished talking with him, I decided to create a DBT-based emergency coping list, which includes most DBT skills and whom I should contact if I felt hopeless 🙌 I added a lot of organizations and numbers to the list including 7 Cups, and I understood it is extremely important for us to get some help immediately when we feel hopeless, in order to prevent ourselves doing behaviors at the point of no return 🙏

I understand healing is not a linear process and it's actually normal to have horrible emotional strikes, but I have really made a lot of progress by calming myself down and reaching out for help, instead of picking on a fight which I actually did a lot before 🌟 During these days, I decide to not join any large community or communicate with too many people, because it will overwhelm me and is actually harmful for my healing process 😔 Instead, I will try to make meaningful connections with trustworthy people, go to the nature and practice mindfulness by myself, as I do need time and space for myself to rest and recover🌿

02/27/2023

Trigger warning! Intense words and cursings, suicide-related

Something horrible happened last night. Called my boyfriend yesterday and talked about tough questions related to my mental health and my future. Then, I asked him if I still have this and that in the future, is he still willing to marry me? He hesitated and said he's not sure and this struck me into pieces because it gave me a strong message that he either does not love me anymore, or he just does not love me as much as I love him. Either way is disastrous and even though I did not really say anything at the end of the call, I called suicide prevention line right away because of the intense overwhelm I felt. I was literally devastated and crying and yelling over the phone, and the crisis counselor behind the phone who was an older woman I guess, told me that I spent too much attention to him and I should love and pay more attention to myself by doing the things I like. She did not have the nicest attitude but I understand what she said is real, that I need to regain the power to live a happy life by myself.

Today, after I woke up, I sent a text to my EFT practitioner to make an appointment and she offered to meet me at 2pm today. I thanked her for her willingness to help but I still felt intense sadness and headache at that time, and I did not have the power to do anything but scrolling on internet about how to move on from an unsucessful relationship. Most information I received told me no difference than what the crisis counselor told me last night, that "You have to love yourself first", "Put your attention to other things", "You will get better in the future", etc. All of them sounded reasonable but none of them helped with my intense headache and ruminations, which was sad and hiliarious.

After I finished my appointment with my EFT Practitioner, I felt slightly more hopeful and let go a little bit. I actually fully understood that my core problem is not about my boyfriend, or about my future with my boyfriend, but instead is about I don't want to be hurt again in the future and I felt the future was hopeless because I would get hurt no matter what, and I just could not shift the negative belief that things will go badly and no one is trustworthy. One of the most important thing we were working on is to accept myself - stop blaming myself for every negative thing happened in my life and accept it is as how it is. After I talked with her, I ate something and fell asleep because I was just too tired in that moment. After I woke up tonight, I still felt nothing different and I understood that I really need to do something to "distract". At first, I searched some self-help videos on Youtube, and they also talked about the key of loving yourself is to accept yourself, which sounded like a synchronicity for me from the higher power because literally everyone told me the same thing. After that, I did some mindfulness exercise on 7 cups that I went outside and took a breath. It was cold and rainy actually, but still helped me to get calmer and be able to focus on the present moment. After I went back to my room, I checked some DBT exercises to process my emotions. Then, I decided to write a new post which is exactly this post on 7 Cups, and I also wanted to start doing an exercise to accept myself for 40 days, and I would see how it goes then.

Today is the day 1 of me trying to accept myself fully. Yeah shxtty things happened these days and I would just accept it is as how it is. It is all fuxked up and dang! But at least I am still living my life and these things did not kill me. I will also remember that there are always shxtty things and shxtty days in life and that's not a big deal. I don't know the future of our relationship and I don't know if he is so fuxked-up to run away from me just as other men did it before, but it is OK to have negative emotions and mental health problems, and I can just tell the people "Fuxk you" if they judge or accuse me. No matter how shxtty the outside world treats me, I fully love and accept myself!! I don't know how far I will go from right now or how much change I will make, but no matter what I have nothing to lose for trying 😶