Still need to work through early trauma

[Hopalong]

I am starting 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.

YOWSERS!

WOWEE!

GOOD GOLLY MISS MOLLY!

KUDOS!!

Damn, you are inspirational.

Thank you, GS.

love
Hops

[Gaining Strength]

I often wake in the middle of the night and hear myself repeating, "I hate you." to myself. I have dine this for as long as I can remember. For many years it would go on during my waking hours. I felt it keenly in college years, alternating the phrase with the desire and image of banging my head against the wall.

I was fusing my self with their condemnation.  I remember stumbling across a pamphlet at St. stephen's in Charleston, that centered on the verse, No man is condemned....

The hope and longing I felt smashed by the fesr and doubt.

[Ales2]

Sad. Just sad. Maybe Mad, mad, mad is a much better word. 

I just looked at my goals for this year and NONE of them have been accomplished.
In my opinion, GOOD therapy, is a catalyst and liberator towards helping me achieve my goals, not get derailed and accomplish nothing.  BAD therapy, interferes with taking the steps forward because I dont feel functional or capable or what has been done in past did not go as planned, i.e had severe conflicts with personalities, and gatekeepers  (critical bosses, bad dates I dont recover from etc.) to my goals.  Bad therapist = Bad results. Yes, my life is my responsibility not the therapist, but any therapist worth his PHD identifies there parts of the process where the patient gets stuck.... and guides them through it or sends them off to someone else.

FUCK. Can I say that on the board? Right now I am just MAD!   

This is not me and I can do much better!

[Gaining Strength]

Yes I think you can say it ALL here Ales2. 

Why not?

You complaint re: the therapist is as legit as a complaint about a doctor.  Complaining about a therapist is not the opposite of taking responsibility.

[Gaining Strength]

Having a hard time this morning.  Really struggling with my sense of failure/inadequacy.

EMDR last night helpful but doesn't seem to have a residual or lasting effect.  Woke up with massive sense of fear/rejection.  I am praying that I will transcend it so life can take place.

[Gaining Strength]

Here is a long term issue that I am now dealing with: disempowerment.  I have so much to write about it but I am starting by just putting it down.  This is important for me and crippling feeling shut down by others unwillingness to do their part.

[Ales2]

GS - thanks for your kind words and encouragement. I will bring it ALL to the board, thank you for supporting that.

Are you sure the problem is being disempowered? I learned along time ago that I over-cooperate and get drained. In other words, Ive often been the diplomat, did everything asked of me and more, showed up and was reliable when no one else would and rarely complained, kept a mostly good attitude and it turned out badly ANYWAY. Why? I learned that the bullies and controllers got everything they wanted out of me, but did not "want" me anyway, and would reject all my hard work eventually. Even my accountant told me to stop cooperating with family, because they are incapable of cooperating in return. 

My NMom is a controller (obviously) and the accountant said to stop cooperating with her over living trust and assisted living matters, since she wont cooperate with keeping me informed or part of the decision making process. She also just plain wont do the work or make the decisions.  I was being disempowered here and the accountant knows many controlling parents playing the same game. She told me to back off completely, make 2-3 attempts at something and then let it go. If she wants her privacy over these matters, let her have them. But once I back off, when she then wants my help, I must decline and tell her to do it herself. Hire a lawyer, call an accountant, discuss it with other family, but leave me out of it.  Offer cooperation on limited time basis and then not again.  Cooperation requires a certain amount of trust which my NMother and I dont have based on a 40 year betrayal, so its not going to be resolved easily.

Anyway, point of my story here- is it possible that you are trying to hard with a controller or other type person who is not capable (for fear, trust or other issues) of working with you? Are you being disempowered by a person, a process or circumstance?

[Gaining Strength]

Ales2 what a wise accountant.  That must be very helpful.

My struggles are now all internalized.  It's no longer what someone else does but how I processed and stored and continue to react the my mist rained brain.  So now my job is to become aware of it and reprogram.

It seems like a curve to me, a very slow curve for quite so period and then it begins to slope upward.  I see little progress but some.  The key is to stay with it until I finally get some momentum.
 
I am holding thoughts of healing and love and using words to carry me through long periods of the day which are difficult. I plan to do this over and over and over again until the relief is more solid.

I believe I am on the right path and keep getting evidence (coincidences) that encourage me.

[Ales2]

Wise accountant for sure. She seems to know the difference between people who can take financial advice and those who are too fearful, un-trusting and stubborn to be dealt with. Good advice for any cooperators out there to avoid controllers!  Anyway---

My gift for the day is this handy-dandy little slide show about the "maladaptive introject"...the little voice inside you that internalizes what you have heard.  You may already know all of this, but it not, this video is insightful and helpful.

http://dnmsinstitute.com/clients/slideshow/

Hang in there, you do sound like you are GAINING STRENGTH, literally. 



 

[Ales2]

OK, its been awhile since Ive seen that video - the video and its content are excellent, but the narrator is a little stiff and awkward in his delivery. If you can sit through that, its worth your time. Maybe skip forward to 12 minutes and see if this is close to helpful, then start at the beginning.

 

[Gaining Strength]

I'm staving off a spate of depression.  This has been going on for several weeks.  It is quite a battle.  I am taken back to 13 years ago when I could barely get out of the bed.  I would wake at dawn and take an inventory of my body to check and see how gripping the depression was.  I kept a calendar checking to see if the 21 days until the anti-depressant s set in were coming to an end. 

This is a difficult journey but I have been amazed that I have staved the cloud for weeks now, not dipping too low. MIT getting better but not dipping down.  With the coming darkness, I am a bit concerned. But I am persevering.

[Hopalong]

The dark (and here, oncoming cold) hit me hard every year too GS...
I'm also girding myself to deal well with winter.

I usually find that the anticiipation's worse than the reality. Though I always
hate coming home from work in the dark--nothing eases that, there are still
bright sunny days, even with snow on the ground, that are amazingly beautiful.
And indoors becomes cozy, and if I'm open to it, a kind of domestic joy can
kick in.

Making soup.

Usually I find once winter is well underway that I have cheerful times too.

I hope you will as well. Your growth and work isn't seasonal, you're in this
for LIFE.

love
Hops

[Gaining Strength]

Thanks Hops. Really appreciate yr encouragement.

[Gaining Strength]

Time to develop "picture" of how I want my life to be and time to schedule time to focus on these images.

[Gaining Strength]

Today I will begin focusing on anti-anticipatory reaction.  That anticipatory fear has been a plague but I think I can get around it and avoidance will be a problem no more.