Still need to work through early trauma

[Ales2]

I very much liked what your T said about the emotional override very true and very helpful. Its all about the override to stay consistent.

[Gaining Strength]

I love this conversation.

I'm with you two - emotional override is THE KEY!!!

[Gaining Strength]

Today I am getting some relief from the omnipresent sense of shame and foreboding.  It comes when I am most present to the physical sensations and name them and acknowledge their source.  This is welcomed.  The first two weeks of tuning in exacerbated the physical and psychic pain. 

Now, I can se great progress will be made when I shift from the fear and/or expectation of that wretched feeling coming on.  That may take days or weeks or longer but I think it will come sooner rather than later.

When this stage of healing started this summer I was wracked with memories of my childhood, college and early adult friends, people in my wedding etc who are now lost to me.  The deluge of memories invaded my dreams every night for weeks.  It was a lengthy period of grieving and opening. 

But it did not destroy me.  I am expecting something similar through this process.  The pain is there and it is great but it is more tolerable than previously.

[Gaining Strength]

I'm dealing with a big one and I am going to win.  Facing the demons now. I know they are not me. They did not come from me and must leave. I am not only going to survive, I am going to flourish.

[Ales2]

Whoa....this emotional override is a very powerful tool. I took a shower and could not stop thinking about it and it really empowered me to make much better choices...

I was thinking the following:

1. Im feeling:
    jealous of Kristi because she got a promotion
    angry at Mom for interfering, offering bad advice yet again
    overeating dinner w/ wine, again...
    distracting myself by watching TV (again)

2. I choose to emotionally override these feelings

3. Successful people consistently override these feelings:
    jealousy by congratulating Kristi, working harder on my own projects
    anger by asserting boundaries, not sharing Kristi promotion w/ her
    overeating by picking a low cal meal with water (instead of wine)
    avoid the distraction by not sitting on the couch after dinner, and going direct to my reading, housework or other chores

4. I am a successful person....(because I consistently override BLANK)


well, hello, this is what I did many years back when I was DOING VERY WELL. I did it automatically. I was always positive, I was kind, I rarely let anything get me down, or get me stuck in negativity, procrastination or overeating.  Im going to try to use this tool more this week and see how it works for me... Ive been stuck in some bad habits for a very long time...and I honestly believe that habits shape our ability to hope. If you have good habits, it makes hope to meeting a goal a shorter distance...

Thanks Hops for sharing this. Its one of the best discoveries on this board for me...

[Ales2]

GS  - Check out the book The Tools by Barry Michels and Phil Stutz. One of their chapters (I dont have access to the book right now, but check it on Amazon for Table of Contents and YouTube has video explanations of the Tools) has one about the Shadow, its called the Inner Authority tool and it talks about making friends with your shadow (sounds to me like what you are calling your demons in your post). Its a very helpful little tool to help with what you are describing.

Sending you best wishes for what you are dealing with/ GROWING through.

[Ales2]

I lived in denial before and have recently lived in a state of self pity of emotional self indulgence, I guess overriding emotions will sound like denial to some people, its not, its an active choice to NOT to indulge bad feelings and make them worse.

[Gaining Strength]

Ales2 - I LOVE The Tools. Think I'll retread it. Great suggestion.

Self pity was difficult to move out of. I realized that toddler me needed, deprived of mother's sympathy became caught in sel-pity. But in that state I was disempowered to help myself. It felt like a catch 22 and was released only when I began to see I could change things.

Will you say more about overriding emotions sounding like denial?

[Ales2]

But in that state I was disempowered to help myself. It felt like a catch 22 and was released only when I began to see I could change things.

This is very true. I feel like this is why my "adventures" (or mis-adventures) in therapy did not work out. The T did not seem to realize self pity and needing someone to help with my problems was disempowering for me. I think I have a significant problem with trust, mostly because needing someone was always bad for me. Vulnerability helps some people, it makes me worse (regardless of what PHDs like Brene Brown say about vulnerablity being a strength) I trusted the T and made myself vulnerable but I think he thought I would snap out of it on my own. Once I went down that hole I never got out.  I got much worse in therapy with insomnia, weight gain, apathy, depression, confusion, loss of hope, demoralized, stuck and unable to move on. Despite those signs thought the T kept seeing me, when he should have referred me out to another therapist or terminated me. I terminated him because I felt so much worse and felt I was wasting my time with him. And I was.

I will say more about emotional override when I get through a week doing it. I just lost a sorority sister to breast/liver cancer yesterday and have another friend having surgery for a brian tumor today. She is stage 4 glioblastoma. I have a feeling I will need to do lots of emotional overriding to get through the next two weeks.

I need to journal and gather my thoughts on autonomy, vulnerability, and emotional override.

[Gaining Strength]

I have to talk to myself a bit.

I see (flashback) that I was punished for taking care of myself, for feeling good, for smiling and being happy.  So all of these things trigger self-condemnation.  The most pernicious thing that triggers is HOPE.  

So now I know this and I will hold it and mother it and sympathize and comfort each and every time I feel shut down by the pain triggered by these positive things.  

No wonder I have struggled.  But I am grown now and I can overcome it all.  The thoughts are what is real.  Healing thoughts will bring healing.

Having written this I feel immediate relief.  I will be giving life to these words and thoughts over these next healing weeks.  I thank so many here for your encouragement and support.

Long ago I found the analogy of having been hit by a truck helpful.  It takes some time to recuperate from such trauma and people have such great sympathy.  I never had the sympathy, empathy I needed as a young child and so lived longing for it feeling undeserving of it  and resentful that others received it so freely.  Now I can use my thoughts and imagination to provide what I needed/need and more along on my healing path.

This is why this path has been so up and down. One day up and the next, crashed low. Zero consistency.  Now I know why, cam predict it and prepare for it and lift myself out of it.  When good things happen the condemnation intensified. Now I know and can soothe and comfort before the unconscious process repeats and I can bring the unconscious process into the light where rational thought can address it.

That is how I see this process going forward.

[Gaining Strength]

Oh Ales 2, I so connect on vulnerability being dangerous.  So many times I was asked to be and I was sabotaged.  I have very clear memories of that.

I cannot imagine the pain you experienced with that therapist.  It hurts just to read what you posted.  

I totally get your point on Brown on vulnerability.  There are levels of shame and levels of vulnerability and those who have been hit hard by toxic shame are not good at selecting people with whom to be vulnerable.  I don't even know if it is within me.  It is a boundary issue but on steroids.

Your comment about Brown has helped me prepare for my EMDR appointment tomorrow.

I am so sorry to hear about the loss and sickness around you.  I am glad you have emotional override to help you through.  

I look forward to reading more from you about it.

[Gaining Strength]

More information: I feel inadequate about all tasks.  So it is hard to do them.  They feel like a set up for shame.

The information and understanding are streaming in now.  First step before the healing.

[Gaining Strength]

This is a painful process, allowing the stuff that I have so long repressed to rise, to feel it all again and to process it all these decades later.

I have an image of being asked to stand in a classroom, be called put, humiliated and forced to remain in class while laughed at. On returning home the torment is repeated and then a lovely mother enters. She gives me solace and when my father rises in anger to eject her, she stands her ground, telling him his behavior is wrong and damaging. He argues and she says that it is damaging not only to me but to him, the perpetrator, as well.

I feel myself sink into the comfort she offers. I know I am safe in her embrace but cannot find the courage to be released. Like a baby who is longing for connection I am not able to let go yet, needing to be safe, sevure& loved. 

This image takes the edge off of the searing pain.

[Gaining Strength]

So today is what I have thought of an an off day, a bad day, a day of warding off depression.  And then as I was busy this afternoon it struck me that this is actually what the healing feels like. So now I am staring to associate this blah, yuck with intentional healing.  That really transforms it.  It helps me apply The Tools tool of feeling bad and doing it anyway. This yuck is going to be part of getting better, getting stronger, like muscle pain when working out.  I can handle it.

Now I know why I find such resistance when it is time to go to an event or someone's home or a meeting.  It flares the REJECTION, INADEQUATE warnings.  Now I know. Now it is conscious.  Now I can heal it.

[Gaining Strength]

Trying to separate things out - the is a layer of sorts that is becoming clear.  It is like a thin atmospheric layer encircling the earth, my earth. It pervades and it must be released.

I had a glimmer this morning of my child being sacrificing my welfare and my longings to conform with my parents unspoken, implicit, perhaps unconscious demands which were utterly self-destructive.  This is where the stuff of rational knowledge gives life to the illumination of psychic threads interwoven, enmesh net.  As this image becomes clearer it will become my choice to let it go and free myself.

Yesterday I took my child to watch Tibetan monks begin work on a sand Mandela. I am reminded of the impermanence and the danger of attachment.  My child being living through me is attached to what could have been, all that could have been achieved had my family functioned. Time to let it go and be free to receive what is available.

That is the conundrum - holding on keeps me from receiving.  And though I do not want what I have I have not let go.