Hi All (boy is this ever lively!).
GFN:
....more globally, using moderation of language to manage/control/avoid internal stress and negative feelings/self-perception.
I think what I'm ainming at with this statement is moderating the language I use when I talk to MYSELF.
This kind of goes hand in hand with the I Voice (listening to my own sub-text and that of others, consciously changing the language to reflect the subtext - and, importantly SPEAKING the revised language to myself), but I also think it goes beyond that, into the behavioral realm -meaning "to set new behavioral/emotional cues" for yourself.
Luego may or may not have a point about exploring the deep past issues. I say this only because my own experience shows me that in certain ways, I am still exhibiting in some of the same behavioral/emotional habits, that, while as functional as I could manage as a child, promote a certain ineffectiveness/diminishment in dealing with present-day trouble.
Your comment that you "have to tolerate it" and are trapped makes me think of my own situation. I actually got some pretty good advice recently about maintaining a "head-to-head" status in conflict. This is hard for me on numerous levels, but it essentially boils down to the fact that I have become so habituated to "keeping the peace" by reading the signals of others that I unintentionally keep myself in the weakened position - trapped, in essence, by my diligence in maintaining a narrowly defined control (thus the C- in lab). This robs me of my own voice to express my anger and to take action about it, because somewhere in the programming of my childhood I learned to be very still and quiet while I waited for the threat to go away ("until it ends"), in your words.
My arguments and rebuttals and even my reactions are largely logic and reasoning-based, giving me little room for my own REAL, UGLY - but JUSTIFIED -feelings, but I have had a few good (of course, the word good should be taken as "qualified") experiences where I was able to get better results by forcing myself to be direct.
I know what it is to be harmed through your child, to have your reputation and social standing destroyed. I agree that it is true that a certain acceptance is called for, also. You may not be able to change a thing. Even though my husband and I have reconciled, nothing is as it was before and will not be again. However, new stuff has come along and gradually the holes are gettting filled.
What was most helpful for me when we were (I thought permanently) separated was to stop saying to myself "My Life as I Knew It is Gone/Destroyed". That was a true statement, but it did not serve me to keep saying it that way. Instead, I taught myself to say: "I am out of an unfulfilling, hurtful life and am Starting a New Life." I even threw in a thoroughly juvenile but exceedingly satisfying (in my thoughts to myself) "And you don't get to be part of it, Nah-Nah.
It sounds really simplistic, I know, but it worked over a fairly short period of time, once I decided to make myself re-state that every time I thought the destroyed/gone thoughts (and trapped and helpless).
As reagrds my husband's use of my child to harm me , I just stood up and said: "You can choose to play games with me through our daughter, if you wish. You know it's bad parenting, I know it, everybody with half a brain knows it - but you can choose that if you like. However, I don't choose to play those games, I will not respond to them other than to remind you that you are choosing to hurt your child, and I will not repair your damaged relationship with her for you. I will provide her with any comfort she needs, but I'm not making any excuses for you or covering up your game-playing, even to her. Period."
I had to repeat this speech many times, but it did have a certain effectiveness after awhile. Of course, he did not (until much later) come running to me to announce that he was changing his ways, but I could see it. I did not comment (I will not praise people who are actively hurting me).
As for the reputation-smear campaign stuff, that was harder. There was really nothing I could say to HIM to make that stop. I just picked up the pieces, tried to make new friends as I was ready, even tried dating after abiout six months (as an exercise ONLY - I knew very well I was not ready for a new relationship). What I did with language, though, was stop thinking the destructive words he was using or thinking what others thought of me now that he had said those things. Instead of thinking "I am not all those things he's saying", I redirected to say to myself: "I AM x, I AM Y. Because my life has changed, I now have an opportunity to show this more and better than before." That wasn't easy, but over time the reflex thought became more geared toward the latter.
Although I was fairly succesful in dealing with my husband' acting out during that time (crazy as he was and I felt), I am backsliding a bit lately because those childhood habits (still and small) remain. I am beginning to see how this actually encourages any Narcissistic tendencies in my husband. We're both acting out, I think, our childhoods this way. If I go still and small, he sometimes is non-chalantly dismissive (making be shrink a bit more, of course), then later rages at me, saying all the things that as a child he could not say to his mother, who let her small stillness starve him emotionally and physically. I think when he is dismissive of me in my small state, he is unconsciously recreating his experience with mom so he can express himself. He acknowledges this to some degree. He recognizes the fear he feels when I become small. Now we're down to recognizing the start of the recreation.
Conversely, his raging makes me most often go still and smaller (in adult terms this means to refrain from comment, to communicate not with strong powerful words, but through questions, body language - things that aren't affirmative) even more, getting smaller and smaller until I go black hole non-functional (just like dear old mom). Then on the other side of that is the super-nova of my rage that I never could adequately express, either, which also ain't pretty. In a sense, I am setting this up too, replaying my situation by failing to recognize in that emotional state that he is not my mother, he is an equal adult and I can find better ways to behave than still/small. Basically, I don't have to WAIT for him to step up and meet my needs, I can demand that of him frankly.
The big difference is that I actually rage against myself first, at least in covert terms, while he rages aginst others first, in overt terms, when we start ot slip up and go back to those childhood states.
Horrible as all that sounds, that isn't the sum-total uf us. We both work at having a certain awareness, and we go through very sucessful periods. But we do both slide back periodically. Hopefully, we will never slide back to where we visited a few years ago.
The talk of voice and language moderation is dear to me, in the sense that I need as strong reminders as anyone about these things, because I sometimes forget to speak correctly about myself and my feelings.
Many times, the correct terms are counter-intuitive and require me to just suck it up and do it with diligence, even if it feels wrong or scary somehow. The consequence of NOT moderating my language is much worse - for me and my favorite narcisisst both.
