Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Still need to work through early trauma
Gaining Strength:
Thanks Hops! I'm nervously excited.
Gaining Strength:
I really love these pages. They exude such gentle kindness.
Here is a bit I want to share with you:
Until then, do not be known. Stay near me and I will lead you through the maze where we are captives. I will lead you as gently as I can. I have already reclaimed much of myself and I can help you. And then you will help me.
Such words I have longed to hear. I longed to hear that from my mother, from my father, from my husband. That's what we should do for one another. I became completely jaded after my husband died. I longed to help my mother who both demanded my help and refused it.oh my heavens, it is a painful place to go but the other side beckons. I cannot resist the call.
Gaining Strength:
He did not want to help but he did not want anyone else to help either. Rejected, demeaned but required to be present.
She offered no help but would passively demand help and then reject what help was offered. Total rejection but demanding my presence.
When I was interested in something, wanted to do something I had to be secret about it or it would be denied me. Though I have no feelings around this I know the sense of pain and loss are very great. That pain is merely deeply repressed. Feeling that pain cost me dearly in the past. Not feeling it costs me dearly in the present.
Gaining Strength:
He did not want to help but he did not want anyone else to help either. Rejected, demeaned but required to be present.
She offered no help but would passively demand help and then reject what help was offered. Total rejection but demanding my presence.
When I was interested in something, wanted to do something I had to be secret about it or it would be denied me. Though I have no feelings around this I know the sense of pain and loss are very great. That pain is merely deeply repressed. Feeling that pain cost me dearly in the past. Not feeling it costs me dearly in the present.
Hiding what I loved, what I longed for was part of the voicelessness. It was the invalidation of who I am.
Hopalong:
Eww. I recognize that pattern. My Nmother did that too--
would require my presence on pretense terms. What she was
REALLY needing was an intimate adult friend or a T. My mother
had a twisted childhood and she needed to heal and grow.
She clutched onto me and I became her intimate, which I
wasn't strong enough to be of course, as a child. But she
could require my presence for trivia, and did. One of the
worst tensions I felt, for years, was due to her habit of just
calling my name from other parts of the house, over and over...
and I'd have to go. It was like a bell was rung...must scurry.
Then I'd get there and whatever she was focused on seemed
so trivial and I was desperate to do something (creative) for
my own mind/life -- but she broke my attention over and over
and over and over and over.
And yes, often whatever help I offered wasn't quite right.
I got to a point where I really didn't care about that. Do I
care if the books in the study are alphabetized or sorted by
category? No, Mom, but I will happily shelve them for you--
just please, please, please make a decision yourself. That
was it -- she really wanted hours of out-loud ruminating with me
as her audience. Exhausting.
Until she was vulnerable and genuinely needed assistance
and then I was at ease and even often happy in helping.
Compassion wasn't the problem when she was very vulnerable,
it was strong and deep and carried us both through. But when
she was a healthy, vigorous adult, her self-absorption was
still like a sand dune with no top. I just kept climbing and I
was a child trying to get my own footing--and her needs
and and her self-focus were massive, massive, massive.
Wow, that description of yours got me going, GS!
Hops
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