Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Still need to work through early trauma
sea storm:
Dear Gaining Strength,
I am so touched by your story and the pain that you feel. Your courage in looking at the cruelty and rejection is breathtaking.
I am convinced that just as you were wounded to the core, you also have a capacity for joy. There is such life in your words although the pain is there and it feels unbearable. You are freeing the capacity for joy at the same time. It will creep in quietly and you might not notice but after the tears of rage and sorrow, you will feel more alive. Watch for it.
You keep going. It seems a miracle that you could survive that childhood. i am so sorry that your caretakers were deaf, blind, selfish and cruel. You survived under very difficult circumstances. I hope you can share some of your journey here.
All I can say is that what happened to you was wrong. And I care. Remember you are loved and loveable. Anything else is a lie.
Lot of love and blessings
Sea
Gaining Strength:
Peter Levine writes in Waking the Tiger Within that the path to healing from PTSD is empowerment. I am painfully aware that I am living in that psychological place from childhood of dependence. I am waiting, longing for a parental or authority figure to lift me out, to help me. I have actually been aware of this for quite a few years. I may have made some progress in moving forward but not much and certainly not enough.
I hope, I believe that exposing these binds to my consciousness is the first step. I do not know what the second step is but I hope it reveals itself to me.
I think I need to write more about receiving no help in my earliest incarnation. Looking back I see that both of my parents for different reasons saw my needs as a burden that either enraged them (father - clearly a wounded N and more) or bounced off of the wall they erected so that they chose to be blind - total neglect (mother - very passive aggressive.) For very complicated reasons, my mother's supreme neglect and utter lack of empathy or even acknowledging my struggles or triumphs engendered such frustration and anger in me. Sub-consciously I tried to get her to affirm me until her last day. This healing process so clearly requires that I do that for myself. I just don't know how.
Each chore before me stirs up the dust of that pain. Something has to break through and start the healing.
Gaining Strength:
Sea Storm thank you. I am so touched by your words. I am encouraged and touched. I thank you deeply for your generous acknowledgement. It is like a life-giving nectar. I am thinking that I came back here as part of my healing. I am so thankful that Dr. Grossman has allowed it to stay up. I am definitely in a different place from when I first came here. I know what I need and I am able to sort through what is helpful and receive that while letting the other fall aside. In days past, I took it all in and needed it all to be salve, to be understanding and accepting. My being was so raw, my wounding so extreme, I grasped at everything within my reach.
I tried to bare my soul, my wounds but I could not discern the healers from the wounded and I nearly drowned again.
sea storm:
There are breakthroughs on your path. You are equipped for this and it is very clear. I think the way will unfold for you in its and your own time. You might think you have to unearth it all but that is not the case. The psyche is mulitdimensional and works through body, mind and spirit. There are signs that show you the way and they come in a language that is different from psychological terms.
For people who are seriously mentally ill with brain chemistry that is impossible to balance without drugs the journey is very different. They need the drugs I think.
Otherwise there is a way that your instincts lead you along if you remember body, mind and spirit. Sort of the medicine wheel of tending all areas of your life. The vulnerability of reviving the ghosts and bodies of the past can swamp a person easily. If images and events come to surface they can pass like a log jam unleashed into a river. We are built to do that through dreams, writing and sharing with PEOPLE GOING THROUGH THE SAME THING>
Looking back I can see that I went to some clueless therapists and some good ones. The good ones completely accepted me and did not push. The good ones also used hypnotherapy and EMDR. One person I went to said he knew EMDR but he didn't. He was just a very inadequate psychologist who didn't know how to really connect with his clients. You are absolutely the best judge of who is good for you.
Therapists used to think that the key to feeling joy in life again was to unleash the dogs of rage and depression. Some of that helps for sure but only with the guidance of masterful therapists. I think that you need validation from yourself first. You are the expert in you. Be kind to yourself and reparent your hurting inner child. Stop pushing yourself to meet unreasonable goals, do things you hate, be nice to people who are nasty, eat food that is good for you and that you don't like. Be kind to yourself before you head for the bad experiences mind shredding . Listen to tapes that say you are a gift from the gods and that love is radiating from you and is a blessing. The loudest voice is you own and you can drown out the stupid mean inner critic. Who wants to hear more from the blood sucking zombies of the past? Not me. I KNOW they were mean and nearly destroyed my spirit. I get it.
This is what I think. You might not agree at all. I just don't thing you deserve to suffer anymore. The war is over.
Gaining Strength:
I had dream after dream last night in which I was shamed. I was in a room that was disgustingly dirty and I was paralyzed, unable to clean or I was in a group of people who were all going somewhere together - all except me. I was so deeply shamed as a child and I have found that shame turns in on itself - being shamed is shaming in itself, it stacks up and is so difficult to cut through, to heal, to alleviate.
I was shamed in order to be controlled. I was given chores and not given the necessary resources so that I would fail and then was shamed. When I was teased or belittled and I reacted I was humiliated and further shamed, and on and on. Now I can take these images and enter in them and be present with that child. I hope that in time being present will give way to something more proactive. I am still participating in the first step - naming it. In time, when naming it becomes natural and happens without thought the next step will come into place.
It would be nice to be able to explain to people what I am going through. Adults who have not lived the kind of shaming neglect cannot understand why another adult cannot act. It makes no sense. And that inability to understand has its own level of rejection, isolation and shaming. Shame begets shame, it turns in on itself and grows. Naming it and holding that shamed child may not yet not it down but it does stop the progression. In time, I will be able to move this thought process into real time.
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