Still need to work through early trauma

[Gaining Strength]

I found the shut off valve for my tears. My father would punish me for crying. Even as a child, well especially as a child. I vividly remember being spanked at age 5 or 6 and my father telling me that if I didn't stop crying he would spank me harder. I felt insane. I see now that this was a form of torture. And of course my mother never rescued me, she never comforted me when I was hurt, crying. I learned to only cry alone.  Even as a young adult I had some excruciatingly painful experiences crying. One of the most  horrific was in a summer school class. Even to the day, I cannot really talk about it because it has so much pain, and shame. It was a set up by the professor and I paid a devastating price for it.

But I am going deep into the remembered pain through the anger and straight to the tears. It is past time dfor it all to be released. My fingers are crossed.  (As I write this I feel the connection to shut down.) I so long for the release.

[Gaining Strength]

Apparently, it is ubiquitously true of N parents that they are incapable and/or unwilling to apologize. Not that they refuse to use the words, "I'm sorry" but that the meaning behind those words is shamefully betrayed by the tone with which they are issued.

As I delved deeper and deeper into the miasma of repressed pain and the fetid ooze the has seeped from the seal, I discovered a longing, and aching, for real, heartfelt, sorrowful apologies from those who forewent their obligations to  that indefensible baby they brought into this world.  I began searching for examples of parents owning their stuff and expressions of remorse. I found little.

In the midst of my search I felt a stirring to write my own, to create a powerfully moving story of apology and healing. I lack so in most creative, artistic talents. ( if only I could sing or paint or write or access ANY expressive mode.) lacking that I do have an imagination and that will have to do for now.

But as I pressed forward, stirring the fetid refuse emerging from my wounds I did discover my own need  to say I'm sorry to my own child. Not that I haven't offered oral apologies at times but now I will sit down and pen a lasting one. One that he can read at his leisure , absorb on his own time and return to across time, test it's validity against future actions. I owe it to us both.

The anger I feel is so great. The pain underneath is still elusive, popping up for fleeting microseconds and then fleeing again. But I know I am on the right path. I see so much understanding about me own behaviour. It is making so much sense.

I long to release the self-hatred, the denial of resources and deserving, the rejection and isolation.  I long to release the pain stored up into  overflowing clogging the channel of blessing , beauty, joy and creation. Let my mind, ever rational, step aside, let go of the fear of pain and let it flow outward with the rushing tide. Let the flood waters recede and take the destruction with them.  It is time to rebuild. But first the detritus must be cleared away. The destruction must be removed so that the seeds can be planted anew and nurtured  into a full harvest.

I love being connected here and hate letting go, closing this page. My need for belonging is like my need for air. I have been drowning for so long.

[Gaining Strength]

I want to shift my longing for connection to my longing for healing, for removing the detritus, for clearing away. The broken bones must heal before the work can be done but how much healing is enough. Just enough healing so that the work does no more damage. Take my pen and paper with me. The pain resurrects itself when I start to provide for myself.  They denied it to me. That pain  is so huge beneath the surface, allow it to emerge and give it a name. It will only come up a bit at a time. Do not fear. Test it, try it, a bit at a time. Do not tackle it all. Just a bit. You can do a bit. Order it. Celebrate it. Record it.  You can do this.

[Gaining Strength]

I've been cognizant for months now (well maybe years) that I use my mind, (thinking things through, absorbing facts) and activities to avoid the constant pain. Now I have to have the strength, courage and will to throw my churches away. Surely I can rise to this task. My life actually DOES depend on it.

[river]

I've been reading bits more, cant read it all.  The writing here is amazing, straight from soul streams, rivers of truth springing to the surface. 

GS, how do you feel with all this, now?  I feel like where your're at feels so familiar to me, there were times for me that went on and on, like rivers of insight which wouldnt stop, I'd be walking along, stop and write, riding my bike, pull up and write, felt like I had to capture it, I knew it was valuable, immeasurably, and yet could be lost if I didnt grab it, secure it into writing. 

Theres so much I could respond to, but take this one,

I want to shift my longing for connection to my longing for healing   

   I thnk thats got to be right.  When I feel/ felt that turn around, somehow since then more relationship came to me.  I still long and am empty, but things seem better than they were on that regard, I had a f. it moment, when I found a stance finally, I've got to stop hankering after what I think ought to be there, and if I have to do it alone then sobeit.  I cant say I know what we are required to do alone, and what has to have relationship, but I hear that shift in your words.   

[river]

What I said earlier about the wording of things is because I think the whole issue of projection / introjection is so important, and has to do with responsibility.  I know there is stuff that landed up inside me that essentially belongs to somone else.  I have had to still take responsibility for its healing, but for me part of that process invoved re-allocating the stuff to its origins, just knowing that.  Its gone on for generations.  I read old letters between mother and my grandmother, and you can see how the thing started in her.  But it has become my task to heal, I dont resent that, I just thank God I understand.  Nobody else in my foo does, but I think I'd be dead if I hadnt discovered the exact understanding that I did, - the family dynamic and why I was inconsolable.   

[Gaining Strength]

Oh my heavens, can I hug you River?  The process of putting "things" into words shifts it and shapes it and gives it a form that helps me move. Sort of trike that sweet story of the donkey in the well which climbs out by stepping on the sh@t piled down on it.

How do I feel? Excited, hopeful! Small shifts which may grow and may not but there will be more and I am going to feed them. Thanks for your words. Getting this stuff down makes it solid so I can continue to climb out, it makes it real and I lived so long thinking what was false was real. As a child I needed my mother and father to affirm what was real and right (that I was good, worthy, deserving) but I got the opposite. Now I must find that and make it real for myself. And I will. I am.

 That whole issue about what can do alone and what requires relationship is such a huge one for me, especially having felt so much rejection and isolation.  But what you say in your second post just lights up all of my circuits.  It helps me see that I am toggling back and forth between the values of both ways of phrasing it.  When I own it, then I can do something to change it. It gives me power over it. But you are so right that it is critical to give it to whim it belongs.  In this moment, I am dealing with deep anger, self-hatred . It sits like a manhole cover on pain that has been stuffed down for decades, roiling fever that is about to blow. That she hatred has been the structure of my prison and it is clear to me that it does not belong to me but it is from my mother and my father. I see that I had to take it because to be hated by parents would have been a form of psychic death. So now I am giving it back and you show me that my language choice can make a difference here. 

Thank you.

[Gaining Strength]

Worked in my house today. The stuff came out bits and pieces.  This is clearly the way forward but oh so difficult and painful.. Just a bit at a time and with time it will pour out.

Never had help. When I worked on a task they looked for flaws and mistakes. Everything I did was a set up. Doing nothing was never risky as making an effort.  [some of the stuff that came up.]

I was a servant and belonged in the kitchen rather  than at the table. The tasks I struggle with are servant tasks. The work itself is not ignoble but the way it was esteemed in FOO was. It's starting to rise.  I certainly see what the pain and struggle has been. Boy is this hard and it brings such self loathing and gut wrenching bellly aches of rejection, not-worthy.

Had I ever seen how fruitless my longing and tireless attempts to belong were I could have walked away and I would have survived much better. 

In Cinderella, she, a legitimate daughter, is made to be the servant. Wasn't it bad enough that she had lost first her mother and then her father. They had no mercy on her. The more hardships she suffered the more despicably she was treated.

Long to be good enough, liked enough, loved enough, valued enough to be worthy of help. Refuse to be illegitimate. To be a slave, to gather up crumbs underneath the table.

[river]

Oh my heavens, can I hug you River?     

  hug recieved.    (((( ))))
river

[river]

Worked in my house today. The stuff came out bits and pieces.  This is clearly the way forward but oh so difficult and painful.. Just a bit at a time and with time it will pour out.

Never had help. When I worked on a task they looked for flaws and mistakes. Everything I did was a set up. Doing nothing was never risky as making an effort.  [some of the stuff that came up.]

I was a servant and belonged in the kitchen rather  than at the table. The tasks I struggle with are servant tasks. The work itself is not ignoble but the way it was esteemed in FOO was. It's starting to rise.  I certainly see what the pain and struggle has been. Boy is this hard and it brings such self loathing and gut wrenching bellly aches of rejection, not-worthy.

Had I ever seen how fruitless my longing and tireless attempts to belong were I could have walked away and I would have survived much better. 

In Cinderella, she, a legitimate daughter, is made to be the servant. Wasn't it bad enough that she had lost first her mother and then her father. They had no mercy on her. The more hardships she suffered the more despicably she was treated.

Long to be good enough, liked enough, loved enough, valued enough to be worthy of help. Refuse to be illegitimate. To be a slave, to gather up crumbs underneath the table.

I think you're working right at the quintessential  heart of things, and it connects for me in a place where when I was captured in the heart of it.  I so longed to be met there, to have an ally, just at that heart of darkness where I faced it.  I was under siege alright, the enemy within acted like an internal saboteur, when I tried to do things, to move my life forward, really small things, to find a document, or to read a legal letter that was difficult, I'd be overwhelmed by paralysing toxic mist, but it was live, there was a life-force within that, and it was an alluring, destructive intent, that was not me but that was in me.  I knew it, and I could feel it so clearly, and also I knew that what I needed was a steadfast ally, but all whom I seeked help with didnt get it, couldn’t meet me there, so, like you I never had help, not in the heart of darkness where I needed it.  Altho I knew, and could see that to have just one other person present with me and on my side and who understood would be enough

. 

Doing nothing was never risky as making an effort.  [some of the stuff that came up.]           

heres the implicit projection, the implicit is more powerful than the expressed – spoken  ~ that translates into 'do nothing' which means 'be nothing' which is a form of iether total passivity, which is a form of annihilation.   And there it is, for me that central projection, at the heart of it all, as I came to see, and  It got lodged inside me in this psychic place, and trying to get to it and get it out, lead me over a lifetimes journey.  And I know it, because - the very  message, was finally put to me in words, - my mum, after she had a stroke, when all pretense was washed away, in her 'ramblings' she came out with the heart of things, I was actually cleaning her poo at that time, and she said to me "you never would co-operate, so you'd better go and sit down and do nothing'. ( ~= the N agenda, if you're not compliant with me, you're nothing, because not narcissistic supply.)     

I learnt things along the way, which I’m wanting to share here, and its that was that everything you describe here, and what I expereinced has been named, and understood and recognised, but that this more accurate understanding has not been out there as common knowledge.  I wondered why after a lifetime of therapy and of recovery, of joining things which promise healing, had no-one picked this up and explained to me. 


Take this for example:

  a legitimate daughter 

     this would be called the Real Self, but its feared/ punished/ trapped/ by those acting from a false self.  And this......   

The more hardships she suffered the more despicably she was treated.
   

       ...... so, if all suffering or pain is rejected by people with these disorders, because they associate it with punishment or shame, and they cannot/ will not own any of suffering/ sadness/ sensitivity/ vulnerabilty as their own, they project it onto the designated child, and there you go, the more they suffer, the more they 'fit' the projection, and its self-compounding exponential slide, in fact into annihilation.  Thas called 'splitting and projection' ( the scientific language is so dry huh? and the live description so live!         [/color]    Anyway, this was the internalised dynamic for me, it kept me entranced, I had an unusual hook, I could tell, there was a sort of allure it had for me, like the monster in the cupboard, something inside me was compelled to open the door and get to the monster, exacly as  you said, to 'make it concrete' so that I could ( or attempt to) get this thing outside of me in an attempt to address it.   Of course I was driven to this over a lifetime, but only in recent years found the understanding.  Then I had the undersanding, but no people to help me heal, tho I searched desperately, but once again was thrown into isolation. 

[river]

........cont...........
And this:   

Boy is this hard and it brings such self loathing and gut wrenching bellly aches of rejection, not-worthy   

]  this has a name - its called 'the triad', its a system and a dynamic, it means that everytime you 'self activate', that is take action from your real self, it brings up that old paradigm, all those feelings of shame and accusation etc, and for me, the internal saboteur.  So the temptation is to for example, act out on the feelings, to give up, or to drug, or allow them to overwhelm to feel like the reaction is stronger than us.         
And, in my experience the strength of reaction was always a surprise, that was the cunning, baffling and powerful of it.  But, its only that we can get lost/ submerged in the feelings, whereas in actual fact, it could be they've come up to be healed, as we walk forward, they let us know the size and shape of what it is we are healing from and that needs attention. 

Its good for me too, talking to you, to be able to deal and address this stuff at this level, the place where its hard to find other donkeys willing to go!  : ) 

Theres more, but this is already so long a post. 

river

[Twoapenny]

I found the shut off valve for my tears. My father would punish me for crying. Even as a child, well especially as a child. I vividly remember being spanked at age 5 or 6 and my father telling me that if I didn't stop crying he would spank me harder. I felt insane. I see now that this was a form of torture. And of course my mother never rescued me, she never comforted me when I was hurt, crying. I learned to only cry alone.  Even as a young adult I had some excruciatingly painful experiences crying. One of the most  horrific was in a summer school class. Even to the day, I cannot really talk about it because it has so much pain, and shame. It was a set up by the professor and I paid a devastating price for it.

But I am going deep into the remembered pain through the anger and straight to the tears. It is past time dfor it all to be released. My fingers are crossed.  (As I write this I feel the connection to shut down.) I so long for the release.

Aw, GS, I cried reading that.  I'm the same, we were so shamed for any kind of emotion when we were kids that I just switched everything off.  I think in all the years of therapy I only cried once in front of a T, but for years I cried every day at home on my own.

I have found over time that I can feel more and more, but I still find that old defence mode leaps into play when things are really tough.  It's been hard to teach myself that crying is alright, I still find it very difficult to cry in front of someone, or accept comfort from them - even though every bit of me craves it.  It's odd how these things can make us pull in opposite directions at the same time.  Keep writing it all down, I think that helps, whether the tears come or not I think writing helps to release a bit of it xx

[Gaining Strength]

My whole life I have run from the hatred and rejection from my parents and FOO unconsciously looking for someone, somewhere to take me in.  Everything has bee about that, u navel to break through.  Bringing it all to consciousness is creating shifts at long , long last.

I awoke with a shift but it is tender and I fear that waking will dispel it.  I hope to nurture it and grow it. Love to all.

[sKePTiKal]

Hi G.S.

First of all, welcome back!  It always gives me great pleasure to see the “old timers” return for whatever reason.  You have written such a courageous, painful thread for all to experience and connect with.

If you came to my office and described your history, this is what I would tell you—for this is what I have done with others in your situation.  There is something crucial missing in your life, and that is an attachment to a loving, caring, empathic person.  Without that attachment and the brain wiring that goes with it, all of your shame, pain, humiliation, “unlovability”, etc. will be lived over and over and over again in your life because it is the only wiring that exists.   Many would disagree with me about this, but I think producing new attachment “wiring” is more important than forcing yourself, via whatever means, to come to terms/accept/desensitize oneself to the horrible pain that you have experienced.  The reason is, speaking metaphorically, if the train travels along the healthy attachment tracks for long enough, the other set will become less and less “relevant” over time, and pain-wise, will begin to rust away.  In my practice, I have seen this happen often.  I don’t ask people to purposely relive any of their past trauma, instead I develop a relationship with her/him different than anything they’ve experienced before.  That means, of course, that my attachment to them (even when they’ve stopped seeing me) is life-long, and they become an important part of my life—just as I am in theirs.  This doesn’t mean that I prohibit them from speaking about their torturous past—it just means that they know they are doing it with another person who cares deeply about them (as some of the people here care about you).  It also means the two of us find things to laugh about together, as well as cry about together—because life often provides plenty of opportunity for both. Importantly, the people I work with know that the “therapy attachment” is two-ways.

What is critical, given that my means of healing is not technique based but human-to-human based, is that you need to find a therapist who is a wonderful human being (like sea storm!).  And someone who is willing and able to “open” their humanness to you.  Sometimes this can be very difficult to find (I never found one)—although perhaps it is easier now than in the horrifying Freudian years of my distant past.

I hope this does not come across as discouraging to you—and certainly there are other methods of “healing”, but I wanted to share what has worked in my experience.

Again, welcome back and thanks so much for opening your life again to us.

Richard

To quote the eloquent and ever-compassionate Hops: BINGO!  And THANK YOU, Dr. G.

As I work my way through GS's thread - I got to this and the light bulb went on.


Dear GS: you ready to hit the swings yet?    We did seem to work together pretty well, partnered up. I need to finish what you've written so far. Make sure I hear you -- and not my own echos -- in other words.

[Gaining Strength]

oMG - I'm so excited to see YOU!!,

(When did you change your name!)

I'm totally ready!!!

I love reading about how your children are doing.  I would like to spend 12 hours in the pool.  When can I come over? Ha, ha, ha.