Still need to work through early trauma

[Gaining Strength]

I am having such a bad morning. I am so disappointed. None of my tricks are working.  I know it won't kart but I had to tell someone.  So much on my shoulders and so many struggles.

[Ales2]

Hang in there GS - we must be on the same parallel plane. 

My NM calls me on wednesday tells me she is 10 minutes away from my place and can she stop in....such a mistake for me to say yes. She came she visited, it was superficial we only talk cats, weather and obesity TV show. I cant talk real issues with her (never could) and I dont open myself up to her at all anymore.

Anyway, she brought of bunch of stuff, first I thought they were gifts, they were not, they were hand me downs of bath, makeup and other beauty type stuff. All extra junk I dont need.

Next day (yesterday) I realized this was a game, she would have dropped them here as an excuse for coming down and checking on whether I am at home or not.

I called her yesterday and told her that I dont need or want useless hand me downs and not to do that again.

These boundaries become a game for these people, the only way for me is to get a new job and end this I'm unemployed, I need my inheritance mess. Then I can say NO permanently.

[Ales2]

AN EPIPHANY HERE:

I have to add something else.  As I was walking home from getting coffee this morning, I was thinking that children of Narcissists become passive aggressives not because of weakness of their own character or personality but as a direct result of the Narcissistic rage that being assertive yields.

I was thinking of writing my NMom a confrontation letter to explain why there are no holidays, no calls, no visits and why we have no relationship but realize she won't listen, understand, nor will it resolve anything, it will only cause more problems. What I realized was that before I knew that Ns cannot be confronted because they dont have the emotional intelligence/empathy to deal with my feelings, I realized that as a kid, I just passively had to be abused as there was no other way. Any passiveness I had a kid and now as an adult was a conditioned response, not a conscious choice.

I hope all therapists get this so they can adequately support passive/aggressive patients. Its not as simple as just saying "Assert yourself" its a scary experience for people (who also lack these skills) who have had boundaries violated in the past and have little expectation their NO will be respected in the present/future.   Im not scared of asserting boundaries but do find it comes with a backlash that is sometimes unpleasant or I am unprepared to deal with.

[Gaining Strength]

Whew Ales, that was  quite an insight.  It felt like a bombshell.

I have figured out that mornings are the worst for me.  Nights I get a reprieve.  Holiday depression is setting in big time.  No invitations for holiday gatherings from any relatives.  My mother and I included family for YEARS.  NOT THAT MY CHILD AND i are completely alone we are totally left out.  VERY painful!!,

The child of an N is trained to not respond normally.  In a normal family when a child expresses hurt or pain over treatment they usually receive comforting.  In an N family they are lambasted and often retreat within  not  free to express hurt and pain which then turns into repressed anger, roiling, broiling over the years.

Passiveness is trained in.

For me it became a learned helplessness which I am now working to undo.  But, even though I hate it, I am angry that I have no one to help or be helpful, to make tasks and pkanning and celebrating short shrift with.

I feel it taking a toll but with that wave of feeling I am reminded not to allow THAT feeling to take over. I want to lapse into that feeling if hurt which evokes a passive result.  But I cannot allow it.  Rest in the pain or fight for a spirit of hope and  gratitude for what I have.  It is like the choice of one lost in the frigid cold who wants to give into the fatigue but whose life demands the battle.  

My life demands the battle - in spite of the extreme fatigue.

[Gaining Strength]

Thankfully my little gadget is helping.

The wellspring of my depression and anxiety are the fruits of my reaction to abandonment, rejection, belittlement, and condemnation (all forms of rejection) deposited on the agar created at birth and triggered by connective memory over and over and over again throughout each day.

My mind on autopilot retrenches the wiring that feeds them. My willed thoughts and food and exercise and supplements soften them.  I cannot give up this battle.  Ops - re figure it to non-conflict terms.

[Gaining Strength]

Hopelessness over time hacked away at my persistence but now I only have persistence and time, time to retrain my brain. That requires desensitizing as well. The depression and anxiety triggers are attached to countless memories and everything that reminds me of them.   So That's why desensitization is key - to stop the endless triggering.

I have been caught in depression before and come out of it. But that's one of the things about depression is that it is so difficult to remember what it is like to be out of it. Still it is important to use imagination and hope and determination.

[Gaining Strength]

Today I am toggling back and forth between feeling the rejection and feeling what it is like to be free.  I take this as a sign of progress and impending healing.  The rejection is looming large and the experience of it - seeing how the pain of rejection led to intense agony,  accompanied by fear and expectation of rejection until those three threads became intertwined to make up the very fabric of my existence.

Of course now I must replace those fibers.  But I must also let this insight seep from the unconscious into my consciousness and flow on out, replaced with profound love and acceptance. 

The greatest agony of rejection logically must connect to the fear of death and the primordial struggle for survival.  It is that very basic.

I continue to get relief and perhaps healing (uncertain about this) from the EMDR..  I can feel something drain through the lymphatic system at the base of my neck and then a relief and calming each time I do it. And along with it a slight lessening of the heavy, ponderous psychic pain plaguing me lifelong.

I believe I am healing and moving toward freedom for a life to be lived.

[Gaining Strength]

I discovered a guy named Ross Rosenberg who writes about n people. 

As I watched one of his videos on how controlling N people are I was thinking about how I was trained to give my power away.  I have been aware for years that on some level I was waiting, waiting, waiting for my parents to give me permission to take back my power.  In this process I became a disempowered victim waiting to be rescued, saved.  And though I know better intellectually I sadly recognize that I am still waiting for rescue.  My power comes from taking the reins myself.  That very thought provokes fear. 

THAT is one of the psychological conditioning that I will be overcoming now.  Along with that condition and the lack of help comes anger and bitterness a sense of unfairness, all of which is the antithesis of empowerment.

I am tired, very, very tired.  Part of me sees taking charge, being in charge as exhausting. But it is NOT being in charge that is exhausting.

Bringing it all to the light, all that ugly, dark repressed shaming past and disempowering sense of failure and rejection. Exposing it to the light. Cleaning house, airing out.  Other humans cannot destroy me, cannot take my strength away just because I have failed in the past.  Only my owning shame can cause me to fail.

Step by step. Bit by bit.  I am healing and strengthening. Growing and being accepted.

It has been a hard road but I have never given up and never will.  I am getting stronger.

[Gaining Strength]

My father's OCPD taught me that values were governed by "should" & "ought".  It took me far into adulthood to realize life doesn't work this way.  Those values fueled my bitterness but also led me to expect things to be done because they should be done.  That included being included in things like the broad family celebrations.  But "should" takes away personal responsibility and sets up for pain.  

Opening the doors and windows to see the shoulds and expectations and skewed values and beliefs that have imprisoned me in the past.  Cutting those binds, leaving those values and expectations and resentments and excruciating pain behind.

[Ales2]

I discovered a guy named Ross Rosenberg who writes about n people.

As I watched one of his videos on how controlling N people are I was thinking about how I was trained to give my power away.  I have been aware for years that on some level I was waiting, waiting, waiting for my parents to give me permission to take back my power.  In this process I became a disempowered victim waiting to be rescued, saved.  And though I know better intellectually I sadly recognize that I am still waiting for rescue.  My power comes from taking the reins myself.  That very thought provokes fear.

LOL. I discovered him about a week ago also. I watched two or three of his videos. Very interesting stuff.

Oddly my response to needing to be rescued and saved was that I planned to do it through my career, thinking if I worked hard enough, cooperated and was kind to all, I would be rescued by my own success. HA! What a crock that turned out to be - all I got was people to tell me it was never enough, who controlled me to take advantage of my cooperative nature and exploited my kindness as a weakness. 

[Gaining Strength]

Processing a lifetime of rejection and hatred directed towards me.  The anticipation of both.  That's the paralysis.  I'm at the root of it all.  Working he process.  I don't know if I can speed it up. Of course I would like yo but I am working it, working it. Moving out of victim hood.

Need to address sense of obligation and shutdown bitterness tied to that. The juvenile paint, "Why do I have to?"  Focus on tapping into universal motherly love.  Replace the dark with the light. Focus on the light coming in, not the dark going out.  That's the pkanning.  Return to it when distracted, over and over and over again.

I'm on the right path. 

If I get off I will be notified.

[Gaining Strength]

Oh Ales - what synchronicity.

That "work hard" leading to rescue is so painful isn't it.  I have seen it in me.  But then it didn't and I was list, angry and bitter.

Something in an N childhood, the controlling nature juxtaposed by their abandonment somehow leads to deep seated belief that performing well enough will bring acceptance?

Such pain in ripping these scabs wide open.  Such pain, hope and doubt all a jumble.

[Gaining Strength]

I learned something.  I knew abandonment was an issue for me but I have thought rejection and the incessant criticism/not good enough was the whole root.  Clearing stuff away today I see abandonment by my mother was more foundational.  Had she stood with me, taught me anything, participated with me, worked with me, helped me ever, I would have had more strength to tolerate the rejection until I could get free.

Abandonment is a type of rejection but. It is also a set up for failure and that is a trap that I have stepped into over and over until it became ingrained.  So now I must spring it, without fear.. No victim..

[Gaining Strength]

Oh TT, such a beautiful metaphor. So touching to read that you found the "grandpappy" of all the keys. I will keep trying them. Each one ingetmbrings me closer.. Cheers. Thank you for sharing.

[Gaining Strength]

How many roots can there be???

I have never dealt with my mother wounds.  They are erupting in spades.  Underneath the abandonment stuff is shame, deep, deep shame, the profound sense of not being good enough and anger at being shamed and rejected.  I dug around a bit, just a small bit.  I found a lacuna of self-hatred.  It has been there always and is quite deep.  I have covered it up my entire life but now I scape away the collected detritus hiding it.  The pain is crippling so I apply a salve of mindfulness and EMDR  to ease the hurt.  Cup by cup I am emptying the pool.  How deep is it all? I have no idea but I will keep clearing and emptying with the faith that in time the cumulative of the work will reduce the pain enough to function and perhaps flourish..