Still need to work through early trauma

[Gaining Strength]

I haven't been here in a very long time.  But I have some early trauma that I need to write about and this is a safe place to do that.

I still struggle daily with severe paralysis but I am so much closer to the origins.  I don't want to live the rest of my life this way.  I have found a number of tools to use but I need to share my process.  In the past week I texted two friends to tell them that I was having a difficult couple of weeks.  One didn't respond and the other texted back, "OK."  Fortunately I am in a place where I know this is what I have normally received.  It tells me that they are not able to hear my pain.  At least here I can put my pain and struggle down into words and bring it out into the consciousness rather than let it continue to fester inside.

I have so much I need to do and I am determined to get some healing.

Being voiceless is one of my biggest wounds.  I had no voice in my earliest days - no one cared but worse I was the recipient for my father's animus and my mother's though they dispensed it in two very different ways.

Every minute of every day I live with a kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop feeling associated with nothing specific.  My dreams are filled with rejection, fear, hiding.  Before I can get up I have to work through conversations with my inner self, reparenting with love and care.  I spend long hours avoiding normal chores because they bring intense feelings of doom, failure, rejection and punishment.  I know where this comes from and that is a major achievement but now I must find some healing.

I look forward to using this space to help myself heal.

[Twoapenny]

I haven't been here in a very long time.  But I have some early trauma that I need to write about and this is a safe place to do that.

I still struggle daily with severe paralysis but I am so much closer to the origins.  I don't want to live the rest of my life this way.  I have found a number of tools to use but I need to share my process.  In the past week I texted two friends to tell them that I was having a difficult couple of weeks.  One didn't respond and the other texted back, "OK."  Fortunately I am in a place where I know this is what I have normally received.  It tells me that they are not able to hear my pain.  At least here I can put my pain and struggle down into words and bring it out into the consciousness rather than let it continue to fester inside.

I have so much I need to do and I am determined to get some healing.

Being voiceless is one of my biggest wounds.  I had no voice in my earliest days - no one cared but worse I was the recipient for my father's animus and my mother's though they dispensed it in two very different ways.

Every minute of every day I live with a kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop feeling associated with nothing specific.  My dreams are filled with rejection, fear, hiding.  Before I can get up I have to work through conversations with my inner self, reparenting with love and care.  I spend long hours avoiding normal chores because they bring intense feelings of doom, failure, rejection and punishment.  I know where this comes from and that is a major achievement but now I must find some healing.

I look forward to using this space to help myself heal.

GS, welcome back   I think it's great that you're reaching out to different places for help instead of giving up when your calls go unanswered.  I think that shows real strength and determination.  I do know what you mean about friends; some people just aren't tuned in to helping other people out, they don't know what to say or how to act.  It's hard because it feels like rejection but you know that people here 'get' what it's all about and anything/everything you write is bound to resonate with someone.  I find posting about it helps because I express myself better in writing than I do verbally and it's good to be able to read things back further down the line and see that you have come through it, you have made progress and you've learnt just that little bit more aobut yourself.

So I hope you feel able to write whatever you need to and know that we're all here with you (((((((((((((((((GS))))))))))))))))))))))

[Hopalong]

GS--so very good to hear from you!
I'm sorry it's because of renewed pain.
I hope it does help to spell it and spill it here...
nothing harder than feeling alone in 3D world.

And you know I can relate, intensely, to the paralysis
over routine chores of life. I've gotten better, but when
I was most on the edge economically and needed most
to focus, I remember it was harder than ever. Then add ADD...

Are you on a precipice, or just rebalancing after wobbles?

love to you,
Hops

[moonlight60]

Hi GS ,

 It is good to hear from you ....It has been a long time.

I also understand early trauma and a feeling of almost being doomed before you start.

My answers were found when I was treated for PTSD .

In EMDR, you will bring to mind emotionally traumatic images, beliefs about the self, and bodily sensations related to a traumatic event.

You will also identify alternative and more positive views or evaluations of the traumatic memories and the self.

 With these thoughts and images in mind, you will be asked to also pay attention to an outside stimulus, such as eye movements  guided by the therapist.

The goal of this to facilitate the processing of traumatic memories.

After years of talk therapy EMDR has brought me  inner peace .

Hope you find the path that helps to heal the trauma and find the peace you so deserve.

Love and Light ,

Moonlight

[Ales2]

This is an important post, thanks for starting it.

Anyone have any experience with hypnotherapy? I was thinking of looking into it to relieve subconscious issues -anxiety associated with Nism,  shame, and other issues that result in habits (procrastination, futility etc) that are killing my productivity and stalling my life. Here is a site that has information that I am considering.

http://andersonhypnotherapy.com/effects-trauma-abuse/

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

[Gaining Strength]

I have not tried hypnotherapy but did go to a craniosacral therapist for a year.  I find it helpful but it didn't get me through enough.

I still go to the 4 Steps described by Jeffry Schwartz and The Tools.  I've tried a couple of other therapies that might be more effective if I were working with someone, therapies like EFT and other psychosomatic therapies. For now, I am working on connecting the behaviors that are crippling to me with the early trauma.  I think of this as Step 1 from Schwartz - identifying and naming what is going on.

This year has been an exceptionally difficult year filled with traumatic event after event, sabotage, betrayal, and more, all of which would have been difficult in an of themselves but even worse for me because they pile on my base experiences.

[Gaining Strength]

Moonlight, I have found that recognizing that PTSD is at play is very helpful.  Peter Levine's book Waking the Tiger helped me to see so clearly that my experiences were indeed traumatizing.  His writings also demonstrate that having power over the perpetrator can be healing even decades later. 

I don't think I'll be writing about specific events because each one sounds trivial in description but the cumulative effect was devastating.  Doubling crippling was that my parents took the occasion of my request for help or my verbalizing hurt to double down their humiliation and belittlement.  They trained my brothers to participate.  To be an adult and find myself expecting any simple request for help usually met with closed doors is still quite frankly traumatizing.  This has made it double difficult for me to deal with any type of bureaucracy - it is one other place for paralysis when ever I have to deal with governmental agencies, banks, utilities etc.  Right now I am totally overwhelmed because I cannot find paperwork I need to get my expired car tag renewed.  It is very crippling. 

[lighter]

GS:

You'll find your paperwork.

I SO understand that particular struggle....

having to lay your hands on something you know is there, and it is, but in a time cruch, and buried.....

it's an overwhelming shame spiral.

((((GS))))

Lighter 

[moonlight60]

Awe GS ....

 I would not ask for details of the trauma. Maybe my experience will help.

My childhood abuse caused conflict within me.

On one hand I had a parent that loved me but could not stop the abuse ,

And a parent that inflicted (because of inner rage) physical and verbal abuse upon me  and other siblings.

As a child I remember knowing I did not deserve to be wounded and yet at the very same time I asked why ...why what had I done ...am I just bad...I felt these emotions strongly at the same time.

I have spent a lifetime  finding my answers .The rage was not mine , and it was just sad for all ...I have found compassion and acceptance for what has occurred......I do not feel any  responsibility for this parent's rage... compassion for this parent is compassion I gifted to myself.

It took a lifetime of very hard work.. But I am free.. now finally I am free.  

GS please be so gentle with yourself ...I am filled with tears of understanding .

So much love to you ... just know right now you will find your way ..

love and light and so much more .....

Moonlight
 

[Gaining Strength]

As a child, if I had a task at hand and I performed 9 of 10 steps well and one less well, my parents would take me to task and highlight the error.  If I then made an effort to fix the problem the humiliation would escalate. But it would not be contained to that incident in time, it would be brought up over and over. 

It took me almost 15 years in therapy to understand that I had been abused.  And even when I recognized it it took me several more before I could fully accept it.  I had been so fully brainwashed into believing that I got what I deserved.  That phrase was repeated to me over and over.  If, as a young child, my feelings had been hurt and I sought comfort from my parents I was met with that sentiment.  Only in the past couple of years have I come to see that they were both so deficient that they totally refused to offer any compassion - at any time in my life - no matter what my struggles. "I don't want to hear it."  from my mother and punishment from my father.  It was worse if the offenders were my brothers. 

I remember clear as day when at age 4 I was told to brush my teeth.  Our toothbrushes were all kept in my parents bathroom and my brothers went in before me.  (In everything done my brothers were grouped together and I singled out.) They said they had put toothpaste on my brush and I knew they were up to no good and I cried and asked for protection. I asked to put my own toothpaste on.  My father excoriated me,  told me I was ungrateful (a constant theme) and demanded I brush my teeth.  I did, in tears  (crying was also a punishable offense.  They had put soap on my toothbrush.  I cried out and again was punished.  This time my brothers were punished as well but I was sent to my room. 

I was so powerless to protect myself.  My father never apologized, not that night nor any other time - EVER.  My mother did nothing to protect me nor to comfort me.  I was 4.  This memory so clearly helps me understand why that sense of powerlessness is so controlling this half-century later.  I will overcome it, but I still face the paralysis, humiliation and shame echoed by this story on a daily basis.  It is exhausting.

[sea storm]

Dear Gainiing Strength

That one memory encapulates the ignorance and sadism of your parents who were not equipped to love a little girl in a healthy way. It is just so sick and so tragic that you feel the shame instead of them.  If I was there I would speak up just as you would.
The work of remembering the past to free you is so hard but it no longer needs to be an endless agonizing slog uphill. I agree that EMDR is a wonderful way of deleting these memories that bring us to our knees. I have found that even moving the eyes rapidly from left to right about 15 times will help with panic attacks.  For me that has been a huge help. I know it sounds whacky but it does make sense when one realizes that the brain cannot work through extreme trauma like what you describe.

I worked as a children's therapist and came to have huge respect for children because they often were so ok and their parents were maliciously cruel and stupid.  I dealt with the most severely abused children and one's who were scapegoated as the sick one in the family. What i wonder now is how did you survive it?  Where does that strength come from at such an early age. God bless the child in you who somehow managed to survive that insanity. It wasn't yours it was theirs. As a child you HAD to believe they were ok or you would be swamped by fear and vulnerablilty. This is what is true........ You were completely lovable and anything else was a LIE.  Those cruel caretakers in the past are dust and you are now. You know how to gain strength even from ashes.

It seems rare for someone to even embark on the kind of journey you are willing to take in order to be fully alive. I celebrate your courage and hope you feel you are heard and people here care. Even hearing that story about when you were four was hard to read and it keeps coming back to me, so living it must have been ... overwhelming. You can go back there and visit that little girl and be her ally and witness. This is the beauty of God's time, not "real time".

Lots of love,

Sea storm

[Hopalong]

OH, the shame spiral.
I am sorry, GS...it's the core enemy.

Ales, hypnotherapy saved my life.
Literally. It was the only way to break a
two-decade smoking habit that had twined
its black roots all through me and was going
to kill me. But I had failed a hundred times.

After, I also worked with the hypnotherapist
on my fear of paperwork and my procrastination.
This was pre- ADD diagnosis, but it helped a lot.
And I would like to do it again sometime.

Hops

[Gaining Strength]

Sea Storm - your validation so perfectly expressed in your first sentence is just a pure gift.  thank you.  I love your suggestions of the simple EMDR technique.  I will add it to my repertoire.  I have come to learn about the amazing connection between the body and healing.  Even holding the body in positive postures or holding a positive facial expression has a therapeutic effect on the brain.  The effects can be very subtle but i am convinced that they are accumulative.

I love hearing that you worked with children.  What a gift you must have brought to so many.  I so often think of Alice Walker's work in understanding that the child needs someone to hear and care, to understand.  To be heard, affirmed, understood.  That is the child's greatest longing - the human need.  That need does not abate with time.  I believe that child which has the profound need to be heard, believed and affirmed must be satisfied for the healing to take place.  For me  that 4 year old and so many more moments of childhood needed, needs to be heard.

Hearing, affirming, believing - those are gifts which restore the voice to the voiceless.

You so clearly are a vessel of healing. I imagine that has been a gift to many.  I hope that has brought you some comfort as well.  Thanks for hearing my voice and acknowledging my story. That little four year old rests in your compassion.

[Gaining Strength]

Hopalong - you are so right about that shame - it is such a stealthy, insidious  thief.  It wears so many faces - even when we think we have called it by name and slain that dragon it rears yet another head and blindsides us from behind.  Shame, once instilled at an early age, is so easily triggered by people and incidents that have no such intention.  It has a long, long life.

I am glad to read you have had such good results from hypnotherapy.  It must be a great relief.

[Gaining Strength]

I recognize that bitterness has taken a toll on me my whole life.  I know the source of it.  I am taking the lid off of the repression of it with some reluctance and some trepidation.  I went to Alice Miller site and found this and found it helpful.


AM: I totally disagree with this theory and think like you that it shows indeed traces of poisonous pedagogy as the rage and anger are condemned by all religions. However, these emotions are the most natural, healthy and logical reactions to endured pain. Since these emotions are forbidden for children, they must be suppressed (in contrast to sadness which is allowed). Neither in family nor in school are these IMPORTANT and life-protecting emotions allowed to be felt and expressed in words. They must thus stay blocked in our bodies and produce corporal symptoms in order to be heard. If they are taken seriously in adulthood, these emotions can be felt in therapy and then the symptoms may disappear. Because their only one concern was to REBEL AGAINST INJUSTICE, cruelty, perversion, hypocrisy, lies and the lack of love. All this bitterness was locked in the body without any outlet. Now, in therapy, they must be respected by a therapist who is not afraid of them. If, instead, clients should believe that their rage is only a defense against sadness and an illusion of “false power,” they will – again – be hindered to admit exactly this emotion that blocks the functioning of their bodies and whose liberation would be healthy for the adult.
Apparently the FEAR of the little child of the next blow that still lives within us penetrates also many concepts of therapy, primal therapy not excluded. We prefer to stay good, obedient children of the Kindergarten who rather do dare to cry without end, than to become adults who can feel the endless injustice they had to endure in their childhood and rebel against it. In my opinion, the adult must dare exactly that.


This is so painful for me.  I may be repetitive but the double bind of not even being allowed to say that I felt mistreated caused an extra booster of resentment.  Lifelong I have found that when others express their emotions and people gather round to empathize I boil with bitterness.  My reactions left me rejected and isolated - the very states I most feared.  It took me decades to recognize the self-perpetuating cycle and even longer to own it.  Because of the message, "You get what you deserve" that was drummed into me daily both covertly and overtly.  I longed to heard and affirmed and empathized with but was denied even at the very youngest of age.

My mother loved to tell the story of a time when I was an infant and some friends of hers had come to visit.  The nurse was dressing me and I held my breath until I turned purple.  The doctor rushed over and announced that there was nothing wrong but that I was strong willed and resisting being dressed for company.  But I recognize that there was great hurt already experienced, hurt that my mother never understood and could never, through her dying day, acknowledge.  Lifelong, my mother turned her back on my pain.  So when I have seen others being lifted up and supported I experienced great psychic pain.  I now know the source of the trigger and am working to no longer react to it or repress it.  But I am still stuck in the "shut down" reaction and that is what I must learn to transform to an empowerment reaction.  That is where I am.  I must learn to stay with the pain rather than alleviate it, stay with it and acknowledge the source.  It is so great.