Still need to work through early trauma

[Hopalong]

Bravo.

So bravo.

Hops

[Gaining Strength]

Thanks for you encouragement Hops.

[Gaining Strength]

I am making progress. Bit by bit. I have almost broken through that layer of expecting the shame. I have certainly broken through a layer of consciously feeling that I deserve it (though there is an icebergs worth of the unconscious part to heal.)

I have a long way to go but feel thankful that I am on the path. I have tuned into or discovered an ability to resonate with certain images or feelings and in contrast I am learning to notice discordant feelings and to heal them or separate from them.in time I will no longer have to avoid such disconsonance but will be able to correct them.

For now, my dreams are bringing up so much for me to process.

I am beginning to understand that as a child I was trained to tune into the dark, low vibrations that my father demanded of me, shame, fear, anxiety. Neither he nor my mother were able to love. Their own inadequacies came from their FOOs. My father's family has such dark, dark auras. For several generations. For now, I must simply maintain a wall to shut that dark energy out. Perhaps when I am stronger I can help heal that as we'll.

My mothers family on the other hand was capable of love but here had been traumas and disruptions, the biggest of which was my grandmother's reaction to her second born that continued for 43 years until my grandmothers death. But it had roots that lasted long past. But my mothers family can be more easily restored.

When I get to the place where I no longer fear triggering the dark stuff then I will be free. I think I am close. For now, if I bring that fear into consciousness and name it then I am already proficient enough in connecting to the love of that group I have assembled to counteract and heal those feelings of shame and anxiety. So I just need to name that fear and heal it. The more I do this the easier it will be.and the sooner that whole layer of fearing the shame paralysis will disappear.

[Gaining Strength]

Today is the first day in a very long time that I don't have to react to stuff coming at me. I have an opportunity to see how much progress I have made in stepping forward to tackle things that need to be done. As I make my plans I see that I have a long way to go in getting past just fending off disaster. It comes from decades of trying to break through the gridlock only to be beaten down again.

So now I must call on my rational mind or more accurately the new consciousness to be willing to have faith that I am healing and that these long years of failing are on their way out. It is still quite scary but that suggests that I can work on that layer of fear and as that dissipates I will be able to move forward again.

[Gaining Strength]

My dreams are getting better. Such a relief.mi am so thankful to have so much time to heal . The sign I am looking for is when the cleaning begins and is sustained and the shame, if triggered is released  through my thought techniques. Still very hopeful.

[Gaining Strength]

As I process this iceberg of pain and trauma interesting things come up to me. I wrote briefly about the discoveries of  the pain and blockages in some lines of my ancestry. Last night it was a discovery about my mother. For sometime I struggled to understand why I felt such anger and frustration towards her. In some ways I could list some actions or events but it  still wasn't so clear. But last night a portion of it flooded back. It is a kind of neglect that would only be understood by those who have experienced it because while most people have a list of moments when there mother wasn't there for them, my stories are examples of the norm rather than the exception. And most important is my reaction to what happened rather than the events. That is why I think I am able to heal now, because even years later I can shift my reaction.

As I have written before, the nail in the coffin for me was the rage evoked by my father when I expressed my needs, desires, or hurt.  That reaction still makes it difficult for me to express my memories or feelings. That denial of my being still pains me and locks me up. I was not allowed to grieve, to complain, to be joyful, to need.  Why would not one adult in my life rescue me or even acknowledge what I endured.

My needs and my struggles were oblivious to my mother. It was a struggle I never overcame during her life. It was a struggle that pained me to the depths of my soul.

[Gaining Strength]

I am feeling so much lighter. Still paralyzed but the darkness is starting to lift and although I was hopefull even the slightest improvement increases hope which of course generates a wonderful momentum. I'm off to the waste terai to prepare for my child's homecoming. I want to have clean sheet for him and a clean room too. That would be a great accomplishment.

[Gaining Strength]

I was making progress cleaning this morning but when it comes to the big issues I took my eye off of the mindfulness and slipped a bit. We'll see if I can get back in the groove.

[Gaining Strength]

I did it! You have no idea how exciting this is.

[Izzy_*now*]

Dear GS,
You appear to be doing so well. I use 'appear' as you sound content, although much of what you have accomplished is still beyond me.

It appears we had the same beginnings, but also seems our lives took different paths of trauma experience because of the principals involved.

I read your posts, btw, and thought it was time to chip in, as well, with Bravos on your accomplishments.

I don't have the vocabulary to describe mine, but just know that I am far better without any family contact. I do email my brother in return but no problem exists with our short notes, and he says he feels better when he hears from me....so why not drop a line and answer about my health when he asks, and comment on his life when he tells me, whether it is bad knees or trapping a skunk!

Keep on keeping on
xx
Izzy

[Gaining Strength]

Izzy, thanks so much.  I wrote and rewrote a post to your thread and never liked the way my post sounded so I finally erased it all. But I wanted to say something along the lines of acknowledging your fortitude in enduring the physical and emotional difficulties that continue to come your way. It is humbling for sure.

As my mother laying dying my two older brothers who had been estranged from one another for almost 10 years banded together and went after me with a vengeance. It has abated but not stopped and it took a toll on me in many ways. One of the many things they did was to go to extended family and destroy my name and my relationships. They used vicious lies, things like saying I had stolen my mother's drugs and narcotics, stolen other things, that I was mentally ill and more. They filed false reports to have my 12 year old child taken within days of my mother's death. It was non-stop.  Aunts and cousins whom they never even bothered to communicate with we're brought in on their side. 

One of the many disadvantages, was complete alienation from extended family. As rejection is one of my greatest wounds this was indescribably painful.  When it came to Christmas my child and I were not included in a single holiday event. Mind you, my mother and I had hosted Christmas dinner for many, many years.  And, of note is that neither of my brothers attended any family holiday celebrations for decades and yet my child and I were totally rejected.

But the up side is that it allowed me to let go of all connection, and that freedom ultimately let me get deeper into the primordial wounding that is now allowing me to be on this healing path. I am so new to it yet I am able to claim it because it has a quality of freedom quite different from every previous venture down the healing road. Finally I am able to release my fear of the shame.  That very fear kept me bound to it. It is all so crazy. But my indescribable need to belong, to be included, to be seen by family kept me bound to the shame because my role was to carry the shame for my family.  I had been given that role on birth.  And now I am free.

So even the the daily progress is incremental, so very hard to see and could be so easy to lose by backsliding, I call it real and keep plodding on, knowing that over time the incremental progress will add up and in time there will be a critical mass of success that I will stand on. For the first time I am able to acknowledge the shame that is attached to everything, give it a name, be aware of it and move on anyway.  Finally I am able to see it and not fight it. Fighting it and fearing it counter-intuitively gave it power.

Step by step, bit by bit.

Thanks so much for your post.

[Hopalong]

I call THIS real...(and not crazy).

my fear of the shame.  That very fear kept me bound to it. It is all so crazy. But my indescribable need to belong, to be included, to be seen by family kept me bound to the shame because my role was to carry the shame for my family.  I had been given that role on birth.  And now I am free.

Hoo-ah!

Hops
PS--and boy does the attack-by-brothers as Nmother dies sound familiar. Shudder.

[Gaining Strength]

I've been very touched by twoapenny's post on Making New Friends. Especially the part about realizing the other people don't react the same way as her mother.

That shines a light on something that I have seen in myself that has been a huge problem for me.unconsciously I have expected other people to be demeaning, difficult and putting up obstacles. Becoming more conscious about my triggers is really helping.

In the past few days the level of anxiety from shame has definitely toned down a few notches.  It is such a relief.  Now I have to address the passive shut down part which is slightly different fron the shutdown due to being overwhelmed by current circumstances.  For years now, every phone call, email, piece of mail has felt like a weight around my neck, an obligation, something more than I can deal with.  I have worked hard to avoid them.  But  more debilitating Han that has been the upkeep of my house. Know I have to face it and start pushing a little bit.  It is definitely a psychological issue. When we were renting a condo in another city during the week, I kept it up very well. But this house started going down several years ago when I had an enormous amount of damage. Trauma after trauma piling up. And financial burdens and fears on top of it all.

Because I have a way to face my fears at long last I believe I have what I need to start digging out.  Out of habit I want to say this is scary but I have decided to not give into that. Step by step. We will see.

[Gaining Strength]

One clear barrier is my habituated fear of failing and my own internal self-criticism and self-condemnation. For all of these years the criticism has felt like it came from others, it was a fear. I didn't see it all came from me.

[Gaining Strength]

I think I'm going to shift my focus from the outcome to the first step.  I get so paralyzed fearing failure and criticism that I can't even move.  In the past year when I didn't feel like facing a chore like the dishes or the bathroom I used a rule of ten, where I just took 10 actions.  It was such a great help. So once I completed,ten actions I could quit and consider myself successful or I could keep going.  I'm going to try that more broadly.  The big key is to just keep moving.