Still need to work through early trauma

[Hopalong]

Hi GS--This flouresced for me:

I had a flashback to being talked to by my father who would drone on and on and on and demand that I maintain eye contact, not blink, not look away, not interrupt, not speak.

Without the eye contact demand, this reminded me a lot of how my D was during the year of her breakdown. She would demand nonstop listening for literally hours. I read somewhere later that this can be characteristic of Asperger's, which suddenly made sense. The way her mind works, should I break her flow the idea or point she was after would vanish. Same time, she was also being emotinally abusive. I wonder if at some times, she didn't know it.

On the other hand, my gentle father I believe was a bit OCD and he would sometimes go into those endless droning narratives (an itinerary was like a poem to him, sigh). But in his case, though it made me squirm with impatience, there was no abuse. I loved him and that was one of his quirks.

Neither instance in my life matches the one in yours, but the behavior did make me wonder about something similar to Aspergers in your father. Plus a cruel nature. Yikes, girl.

love and carry on -- you're doing magnificently (and they are dead and you are YOUNG, you ARE building a new self and life)--
Hops

[Gaining Strength]

Back to that  place of getting worse before it gets better.

[Gaining Strength]

Hops -  do you think your daughter has Asperger's? That would explain so much.

With my father, it was about control and domination. There was no Asperger's.

[Hopalong]

Yuck. Your father was a JERK.
Pumped up petty tyrant JERK.

Yes, my D told me she'd been diagnosed with Aspergers. I asked about degree, and she said "Mild."
It made a lot of things make sense. Poor girl also has bipolar and ADD, so her platter is overfull.

A friend just described some really really nasty bipolar abusive behavior to me, and we
puzzle together over whether that's pure mental illness OR character defect, or some mix.
It's so much more nuanced than I grasp, I think.

I wring my hands more over the meanness than the mental illness, as I sense you do about him.

What a JERK. I'm glad you no longer have to listen to that man. Or even glance at him. Evermore.

love
Hops

[Gaining Strength]

I don't really think of him in any specific ways oddly enough. But I think of the effects of his behaviour on me and , perhaps the even more destructive phenomena that no one ever stood up and pointed out to me that his behaviour was outrageous and cruel.  Because no one did and because it started from my birth, I always processed it as a flaw in my being.  And that has been the great destructive force in my life.

So today, I am reorganizing how I see myself.  I wish it were as easy as it writes.

I want to interject about how your daughters combination of afflictions explains so much about her inability to receive what you have for her.  It is so much easier, though not easy in any way, to cut the ties with a rejecting, shaming parent than with a child who closes a door, no doubt.

*****
Yesterday I began the "safe place" phase of EMDR.  I am back in "shame", dealing with "shame."  I am thankful that I made the progress I did in early summer.  It cleared away a seal that now exposes the shame that has controlled my life while taking the horrific edge off the pain of it.  So now, at long last, I am opening up the shame yet again but in a new level.

So yesterday we talked about a handful of memories in which shame and rejection paralyzed me.  These memories and me reaction to them touch where I am today.  Shut down.  BUT - now there is hope and there is understanding that this shame and rejection came on me not from my own doing and that they can be lifted and life can be renewed.

Years ago I recognized that I lived with GAD, that my anxiety had attached to everything.  And that is true about shame as well.  I hear something that has some level of shame, unrelated to me and I feel shame.  Decades ago I recognized that I tuned into negative feelings around me.  I was certainly trained to do this but I think I also was born probed to do that.  But now, I am learning how to generate distance between myself and the excoriating, disabling pain that shuts me down.  That is where the "desensitization" becomes powerful, allowing me to function in spite of the memories and associations.

[Gaining Strength]

Today, I am going to be present to my shame, name it, acknowledge it, be aware of it, talk to it and most critically do work in its presence.  If I am able to work in its presence I will be on my way to a major healing level.

[Gaining Strength]

I am excited about this.  It is feeling very nice. Fingers crossed.

[Gaining Strength]

So at EMDR yesterday, we focused on a childhood memory which has all the ingredients of my stuck endless.  For the first time I saw something critical.  I had been sent away from the family watching Disney together because I cried at a sad part.  I was supposed to go to my room but instead I went to the hallway where I wasn't seen but could still be attached. 

For the first time in memory I am able to work in spite of the pain.  Fingers crossed for this being a Rubicon.

[Gaining Strength]

After all of these years there is habit, fear and anticipation all built in to the withdrawal.  According to lore, it takes 40 days or 6 weeks to break a habit.  I'm definitely up for it.  The first thing I can finally do is make a list, (a SHORT list) of things I want to accomplish in a day.  That will help keep me focused.  There is so much to do. Otherwise I can get totally lost in what to do next.

[Gaining Strength]

Going to start generating a schedule. Top of the list is time for visualizing my life desired.

[Gaining Strength]

Time to create structure. Have faith in healing. Focus on what is working. Grow focus. Write new life.

[Gaining Strength]

Now that I have a micro separation between shame and me I am beginning to be able to name the shaming trigger and create some distance without being paralyzed by the trigger.

One big trigger is the sense of being incapable of completing something or being successful.
Another big trigger is rejection.  Ironically being invited to something feels like a set up to being rejected.
Resistance is a third trigger. For example when dealing with sales or customer service or service people who push back or people I have hired to do work, like the lawyer, who push, push, push.  I feel hopeless, helpless and want to crawl into a hole.

EMDR has me create a safe place.  I hope it will help.

[Gaining Strength]

I just had a weird lightbulb moment - a friend posted a video about her neighbor's extraordinary Halloween decoration.  Immediately I saw how my parents would both praise other people and prevent me from doing things that they praised in others.  I created a drive for perfectionism, longing to do anything to be good enough to garner the praise, but feeling intense shame because of the sense of utter inadequacy. It also fuelled resentment.

The resentment kept me angry but protected me from the debilitating shame.  When I cut through the resentment in the past years I was experiencing the shame full force.  It has been rough.  Very, very painful.


Learning to be present to the shame.  Very painful.  But I know there is another side to this tunnel. I will get there. Sooner rather than later.

[Hopalong]

Yes, yes. You will get through.

Thank you for mentioning the brilliantly simple thing:
A short list. For A day (not 'every day perfectly forever...').

This what I need too.

All we have is the day we're in.
A short list would help that day.

Thank you!

hugs
Hops

[Gaining Strength]

Today I dealt with several shaming things and was able to hold my focus on an image of receiving love.  It was gently soothing.  Bit by bit I am sensing that progress is being made. It is bit by bit easier to hold myself in a place outside of shame.  If I can build on this I can cut myself free.

I am sitting down now but not for long.  I have work to do.

A whole movie scene played out when I was bopping in and out of bits of shame.  In that scene my mother appeared and then my father.  My father was angry that I was receiving love, the sender of love put him to sleep, and I remembered that my father often fell asleep at odd times beginning when he first began to clearly decompose. 

I'm holding on to the focus on receiving love and how protective it is.