Thanks for posting those links - there's much useful stuff throughout the site, I think.
Believe it or not, I've had the exact same dream of teeth falling out. In my case, I think the dream comes as an acknowledgement and a warning that I do not care for myself well enough physically (or otherwise, necessairly) - but that, too, is tied up in problems of identity.
I've felt fragmented to some degree or another all my life, and after a period of being better, became worse again after some of my traumatic experiences with my husband a few years ago (he was traumatized, too, by his own actions and also suffers from identity issues, so this is not about him).
I am struggling more now than ever with this - not because my husband's acting out was somehow worse than anything my parents did, but because it came at a time when I felt I had finally found a true identity (handily disputed by the link), which when torn down, left me more fragmented than ever - and now that I'm here, I have a better-than-ever-reason to tackle it not from the self-palliative perspective, but because my daughter needs me to be as whole as possible to help her avoid the same pitfalls.
All the same, I feel spread out, disparate in my parts, disconnected from my own needs much of the time. I am acutely aware of what I need, but accessing the will to acquire those things is difficult. I have a deep-seated resistance to being healthy, not just physically, but psychically, too. Seems like no matter how hard I try, the formative identy assigned to me in my household remains the strongest one: "You're not worth it, you don't deserve anything, I'm not listening to you."
I've been working very hard at developing an "I" voice strategy (see Narcissicm II thread, if interested), some so others will hear, but more so that I will hear.
I guess I often feel so fragmented that I can scream at myself 'til I'm raw and still not hear well enough to respond.
I like the part down the page about the pride of victimhood. Unpleasnt to hear, but it reiforces an idea I've been working on for some time too. Although I've moved well past the pride (I'm ashamed of the blindness of it, in fact), my attachment to that role reamins in many, stealthy ways. Now that I've eschewed being anyone else's victim, I have to look hard at how I continue the pattern of abuse toward myself, in absentia of someone else, and how I stubbornly continue to do so even when it causes me great pain.
Internal locus of control....
Is this similar to your experience in any way?
