Message board wounds

[Portia]

Sela, thanks for your questions.

Why I felt like that is my stuff, my problem.

Where did that come from?  What past event(s) did the recent stuff remind you of?
Where and when did it start?  And will it ever end?

My feeling threatened comes from all those triggers: feeling ignored, feeling patronised, feeling like I don’t exist other than as a bit-player in someone else’s life, feeling like I’m being told I’m wrong when I open my mouth etc. What past events did it remind me of? Oh living with my ‘parents’, all of them! Where and when did it start….is a good question. Probably before I can remember. I’ve been told stories (other people’s memories) of when I was a baby, being handed over to other people all the time because in effect, no-one wanted me (expect my grandparents who apparently wanted to adopt me). It goes right back, being ignored as a crying baby, being left alone and being very frightened, right up to being told what I felt and thought.

Will it end, the feeling threatened? Maybe. I guess it depends on me learning in each new situation where my feelings come from and that such strong reactions aren’t relevant today. But of course I also need to be aware of being too gullible and vulnerable where it isn’t safe or appropriate. It’s a matter of balance I guess and clearer sight and clearer thinking through those emotional reactions.

And yes, curiosity can overcome fear in so many cases for me; however curiosity can cause injury too. I guess we continue to injure ourselves when we keep falling into that hole in the street, instead of choosing a different street to walk down. I know I’m walking down the same street today, I just hope I’m walking with more caution, although I can still see there’s a hole ahead. Maybe another day I'll choose a different street.

[pennyplant]

Hi Bean,

I agree, we grow by facing difficulties.  And this board is a safe way to do that.  If someone has a different take on what I or someone else has posted, I can read it and maybe feel those stirrings of, I don't know, embarrassment or whatever, but I'm sitting here by myself and I can absorb it and think about it and really decide what my response is, if any.  No pressure to come up with a response to something difficult with the person standing right there.

On the other hand, about that hole on Portia's street, if it's the same street every time, and you know the hole is still there, maybe it's not wise to keep going that same way.  It reminds me of that saying about mental illness--doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different outcome each time.  Sometimes it's just smart to go a different way.  You could always check in every so often and see if the road crews have been by with some pothole filler and blacktop.......

PP

[Sela]

Hi Portia:

That makes so much sense!

I guess it depends on me learning in each new situation where my feelings come from and that such strong reactions aren’t relevant today. But of course I also need to be aware of being too gullible and vulnerable where it isn’t safe or appropriate.

Wow!  Did you put that into words like a master!!  Thankyou.  Yes, me too.  Very much so.  I still feel like I'm trying to learn all of that.

Hi Marta:

It was a call for special people Marta.  An attempt to rally a group who would be secret.

No..................................................................................................................

Not secret Marta?  So who's in the group?  (nevermind.......I don't want to know the answer to that.  Really, I don't.  It doesn't matter.  People have a right to pm you and join your group and be secret about it if they wish, after all).

It was a call for people who are at a specific stage in their recovery. I see voicemaking process as having two components. In the beginning, it is necessary to confront others in order to find our voice. In the second stage, it is necessary to confront ourselves and our own shortcomings. In the end, my life changed only when I changed myself. This is not to say that the process is clearly divided as such, but this is how it more or less goes, in my opinion of course.

That's an interesting opinion.  Shall I ask you now.......what stage do you think I'm in???  Better not.  That would be going in circles.  (I can be a real pain in the butt sometimes.    It's a skill I'm honing).  I'm glad you haven't defined my specific stage.

Marta, is everything sort of black and white for you?  I'm serious.  Are people either......a)...or b)?  Is recovery definately stage 1 or 2?   That's basically it?

I notice you did not answer the question I asked you in my previous post about how you felt hit with a rock:

Would you kindly point out exactly what I wrote in this thread that gave you this feeling?

I asked a lot of questions back there but that one was really relevant to me and I'm sorry I didn't point that out and that you have chosen not to answer it.  I can't change if I don't know what I did wrong.

Here's another similar type statement for which I would sincerely like to see a specific example.  Can you post one for me?  So I can tell exactly what you are talking about by seeing it clearly copied and pasted here... plainly for me to get a better idea of what you mean?

Judging from how few stories or delicate moments of epiphany from those who confronted themselves and their own shortcomings I read on this board.

Which short stories?
Which delicate moments?
Who said what that you felt "unsafe" to have such epiphany after that?
Who and where please?
Or are you saying there aren't any?
In that case, what is it you want to see...more detail please?
I need specifics to understand.  Maybe I'm dense?  I'm willing to admit I have no idea what you are talking about, about which thread or threads, about which individuals, or which epiphanies, or what you would like to see.  Since you said "few", I'm assuming there are at least some and I would appreciate very much being able to look at those.  Please be specific so I can understand.

It was simply an expression of a craving for sharing at a deeper and more personal level, which I think may be facillitated if there were some simple rules of engagement for those who can accept and abide by them.

That's an interesting idea.  What rules would you like to see?
How would the rules facilitate deeper, personal expression?
What would happen when people break the rules?
Who would be in charge of enforcing them?

it does not feel safe to me to talk about these things here on this board.

I understand.  I think you're saying you want to talk about something but you don't feel safe about talking about it here on this board?  So you wanted certain people to form a group with you, so you could do that more comfortably?   I get it.
How can people here help you feel more comfortable?  Is there anything that would help?

My high school was a nice, homogenous environment where people gravitated towards each other and formed groups, yet we all belonged to one big umbrella.

That sounds very nice.  What a lovely lot of memories you must have from that time in your life eh?  Is that something you long for again.....that same environment, where people are of a similar kind of nature and close knit??  Do you find diversity difficult to navigate?

You are right of course. I should have been a lot more sensitive and responsible in the way I went about it.

Marta, I'm not trying to be right.  I'm trying to explain how I felt and understand how you felt.  I think I'm getting the idea now, slow as that process is for me.  I'm glad you are thinking about what you think could have been done differently.  And I'm also glad to see that you aren't defining me or my feelings any more.  Thankyou for that.

Hi Bean:

You can't keep avoiding pain, can you?

Wouldn't that be marvelous?  Not in this world, I think.

by just being with your fear.

I've been thinking about fear a lot lately.  I keep wondering if it isn't the biggest of all effects of abuse?  I mean, why would anyone tolerate abuse if they weren't afraid?  As children, being afraid seems inevitable when big people are abusing the smaller people and there is no way away from it.  As adults, don't we fear something and that's why we stay?   Does fear keep us cemented to the ground?  Fear of being alone?  Fear of not being tolerant enough?  Fear that what our abusers tell us is true (usually some huge derogatory destructive load of compost)?  Sometimes.......fear for our life??

by just being with our fear..........

accepting it.  feeling it.  letting it do it's job.  all of that.......

For me.....I would stay cemented doing that for long.  To me, fear has the job of alerting me to danger and keeping me still until I can decide what might be better (or horrifying me into submission .......ooooo!!  I hate that!!).  There's something else that kicks in and helps me look past the fear.  I'm not sure what it is.  Some people will call it courage but I think we all have courage, we just have to use it.  Maybe, it's that idea/belief that reminds me to look past the fear (when I do that)?  And crack the cement...shake off the dust and take a step?  I don't know.  I keep thinking about it.  I want to perfect the dislodging of fear in myself, I think ( ...does that sound ridiculous?).  I know that's probably impossible, but it's what I think I'd like to aim for.  I absolutely don't like making decisions based on fear.

to face all the chaos

I like the way you put that Bean.  I think it's a big one too.  Very big for me.

Hi PP:

doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different outcome each time.  Sometimes it's just smart to go a different way.

Ya.  When will I ever learn?

  Sela

[mum]

Hey, Sela. Thought I'd pipe in....regarding FEAR.

I read a book when I decided to change my life called "Fearless Living" by Rhonda Britten. Since then, she has had some TV success (don't watch it) I guess, so who knows if she got hokey.
Anyway, I bought the book because I was tired of being afraid. FEAR ran my life, so I decided to learn about it.
The book is a little too "workbooky" for me (bad student that I am) but the concepts made sense to me... a lot!

In many other places (Buddhist teachings, Ekhart Tolle, gobs of stuff) FEAR is said to be the opposite of LOVE.

And with love, I guess comes faith....and trust, etc.  I do believe when we are aware, we see that we make decisions based on fear or love.  It's that simple....and that hard.

[moonlight52]

hey  i have read this thread thur .alot of good understanding this has brought to me .i thank you most dearly but i am confused
by something said by the lady marta about two groups so interesting of course and maybe      silly at the same time maybe two groups .i do not want to get too cosmic here .
it is a large subject yin yang .two grougs one group needs conflict with others to grow the wee little newbies .the other more mature ones that grow
from within. is this your experiance marta may i ask? my experiance is like a river flows sometimes i am all Buddist Teachings then
thinka d thinka d think then flows into feelings i then i meditate and  think from  any where but the head you know those sentences that flow thur your head. the Zen masters are after those spaces in be ween the sentences         sort of head to think to feelings back to within  with others if you want to know marta some silly Zen masters think you and i are the same person oh well what do i
know not much i am a newbie thank you i have learned alot
to know i can feel love  and the gift of being in the moment the eternal now     moonlight


ps Bean you are so cool
pss fear or what men call evil is the abence of love

[Marta]

Jac, Your post is so beautiful that it almost made me cry. Fake. With just one word you cut through it all and went straight into the heart of the matter.


Sela,

That's an interesting opinion.  Shall I ask you now.......what stage do you think I'm in???  Better not.

Oh, but I did (I am ducking now….) you just didn’t notice. I did that when I told you that you didn’t saddle me with more than what I considered to be my due. Thank you for being nice Sela didn’t mean that I am pigeonholing Sela and think she can’t be nasty  (BTW, so can I ….) It meant: you behaved honorably Sela and I am real proud of you. It meant: I need you Sela and I hope that you need me too.

Instead of dissecting my words line by line, if you can listen with your heart, you will sooner or later hear what I am trying to say. In my attempts to reach out, in spite of imperfection of my communication, I’ve offered you a lot, and it was given with a lot of feeling. I’ve given you my acceptance, warmth, acknowledgment that your viewpoint was more valid than mine (not an easy one, I tell ya), salutes to your character, pointing out what I see as your strengths, and my attempts, albeit imperfect, at empathy and understanding. It appears to me that you either overlooked or been dissatisfied with or even rejected some of my offerings, simply because they did not come gift wrapped in the non-definitive language wrapper that you want, because my feelings were not sung at the right pitch of voice. Or may be not, may be I am wrong, may be it is just a matter of time before it all sinks in.

Perfect communication, when it does happen, is a gift, a grace, not our birthright. Or rather, it was my birthright from my mother who did not hear me, who cannot hear me, but if I expect to be granted that right from the rest of the world, I am simply heading towards that big black hole. With the rest of the world, I can only dance the dance, sometimes leading and sometimes being led, making my feeble, imperfect attempts to reach out, for I crave connection with others who have glimpsed into the dark world that I lived through. For me, when someone speaks or hears me in a way that resonates with me, it is like all the notes striking a perfect chord, which moves me so, so deeply that I cry out aloud in joy. When someone slaps me on the face, I push him away and turn away from him to protect myself. When it seems that someone is not quite hearing me right but just may, I carry on the dialogue, provided it is respectful, provided I can accept her imperfections and she can accept mine. But. There is a big in-between zone when I may be throwing a lot of words (or vice versa) and still not connecting, all parties just going in round and round in circles without understanding each other. That is what happened between you and me in the last post, it seems to me, so I didn’t answer your questions. As I was seeking advice from someone on this issue weeks ago in a PM, I am still confused about the correct etiquette of that zone.

But now I agree with you that we are both moving again to a place where we can actually have a dialogue. How about both of us giving this matter some thought and coming back to it in a few days? May be you can look for some answers yourself, I've posted them on this thread. Anyway, I want some time to think before I open my mouth and to recoup my energies. I don’t know about you, but feel real exhausted right now.

I asked a lot of questions back there but that one was really relevant to me and I'm sorry I didn't point that out and that you have chosen not to answer it.  I can't change if I don't know what I did wrong.

Yes, I had guessed that this question was important to you and it probably (throwing in an anti-definition disclaimer you see) stemmed from your desire to be fair and just to others. I would have PMed you already had you not said “no thanks” to my PMs, my friend. I want to PM not because I have any big bad secret to tell, but because I prefer it that way, it feels more right somehow, and you most certainly and definitively didn’t "abuse" me." Let me know if you are opening your mailbox for me again....

Not secret Marta?  So who's in the group?  (nevermind.......I don't want to know the answer to that.  Really, I don't.  It doesn't matter.  People have a right to pm you and join your group and be secret about it if they wish, after all).

You were so busy defining my group and typing up your questions that you didn't hear the answers I gave you.... May be that is what fear does to you? As I said in my last post, I am not starting a group. I canned the idea.

[Portia]

Marta, hello, how are you?

Portia

[Sela]

Dear Marta:

Good idea.  Let's just give it a rest.

  Sela

[Portia]

Marta. Hello again. You said:

Jac, Your post is so beautiful that it almost made me cry. Fake. With just one word you cut through it all and went straight into the heart of the matter.

I’ve just re-read Jacmac’s post above. She uses the word ‘fake’ in her reply to me, thus:

Crazy, repetitive behavior is engaged in over and over again for a REASON.  I think to truly heal we must all discover first that part of us wants to engage in the behavior - that there is something in it for us, whether real or fake.

I don’t know exactly what Jacmac means by ‘fake’ here. But I get the idea that when I repeat crazy behaviour over and over, I must acknowledge that part of me wants to do it, and that I am getting something out of it, whatever that something is (and whether that something is healthy, unhealthy, slightly virus-ridden or whatever).

Marta, I don’t know how you are interpreting Jacmac’s word ‘fake’ above.

What does fake mean to you – who or what is fake?

Are you saying that I am fake?

Are you saying that you are fake?

[Marta]

Shhhhhh. Nobody is fake.

I don't know what Jac meant, but I felt that she was reaching out to me and speaking to me, telling me the story of my life in one word. I ran after so many things in my life that I thought would fill up the hole in my heart but didn't fill me up in the end, when I actually got them. Degrees, approval, money. Fake. Left me insecure and wondering what I needed to do to get my next fix. Next exam to take. Next friend to please. Next. Next. Same old same old. Next. Fix. I need it again. Next. Fix. Love came to me unexpectedly and I almost didn't open up my heart to it, because I thought he was being too "needy" if he called me everyday and wanted to know where I had been, I thought he was cruel and not intentionally making reservations for our holiday if he forgot. I almost gave him up. It was my best friend, the one I recently fought (because she spooked that I had pulled away from my family) and now made up with (we agreed to let each other be), who kept egging me on, urging me to keep going and told me that this was how one loves, these were signs of love, trials and tribs of love. I didn't know. I had never been loved.

Even though it was an unfamiliar territory, even though I was so scared of it for a long time, even though I jumped on my lover like a wounded cat when he tried to tell me that he loved me, love, that was the thing that filled me up. Real. Most real thing I ever experienced in my entire life. That was when I stopped needing a fix. I feel free to be myself, to come and go as I please. When I stopped scratching and biting, as some wise old man said, I realized that the joke had been ultimately on me all along. I am glad that I woke up from that and I wish that my sister would too. I don't know if it would happen, I don't know who or what makes these things happen. I wish I could make this happen for her. I tried for a long time. I am the middle child. Somehow my younger sister learnt how to love and open up to the world, but my elder sister can't love, not even herself. I don't know if it was me or her or the Fates. If there was a magic potion, I would go on a quest and find it for her. But alas, there is none. Each of us must make our own journey and find our sign posts along the way. Or not.

Richard has some nice essays that discuss all this too, in different contexts. Like he said, I kept running after the fake not because I wished to hurt myself or others, but because I didn't know any better.

[reallyME]

Hi

All I can say is, be GLAD you can't relate to most of the attitudes and feelings of people on this board.  Apparently you've been allowed to live a rather sheltered life of bliss, acceptance and love.  The point is, if you had ever been the target of an N, you'd fully be able to relate to what these people including that Dr was saying about emotional turmoil and wounds, etc.  I sure can 100%, from being both a victim and a counselor of victims.

So bless you for being spared the grief of it all.

ReallyME

[Sela]

Hi reallyME:

I liked what you wrote too.  Welcome.

Sorry for the experiences that have given you that 100% relating to the emotional turmoil and wounds.
Bless you too.

Sela

[reallyME]

Hi again

I had been doing a browse for NPD and came across this lovely message board, and I'm so very glad I did!  The topic of personality disorders has been a sort of "hobby" of mine for a while now, since having my own experiences with people.  My first experience was as a child of age 7.  My step-father was OCD, OCPD and Paranoid-Schizophrenic/Borderline possibly.  It was a very distorted, dysfunctional existence, but I ended up coming out as more of an Activist than someone who stayed debilitated by it.  However, I dealt with Codependency issues and still often have things crop up that I have to deal with.

Currently I'm mentoring a lady who has codep issues as well, through the Melody Beattie book "The Language of Letting Go"

It's been a rewarding journey, watching a 50 yr old lady find freedom as she learns that she doesn't have to be controlled and manipulated by others.  I can't think of anything better to live my life for, than to see people set FREE of these things!

ReallyME

[Marta]

Mum and Pup:

To me, you are both like two guiding lights, Yin and Yang, who bring here possibilities of how things could be. How things are out there. You love yourselves , love your lives, and even have loving husband and wife.  You love all of us too. That is why you both are so very necessary here. Rare lab specimens, if you will....

Don't feel too left out if you can't always understand our pain, although I could swear that you often do. I love you both for being wholesome human beings. Mum, you've fed me chicken soup when my own mum wouldn't, good naturedly nudged me to wipe my tears and pull up my socks, and always been your sweet self. Mud, I think that you are a super duper human being who believes in values and works hard to stand by them. That is really heart warming.

Mum and Mud, Together you make a pack of M&M. Yummmmm.

Marta

[Portia]

Marta, thanks for your reply.

Maybe nobody is fake. I struggle with that sometimes. I trust what’s inside my head more than I trust the stuff I see, hear, smell….okay, that’s inside my head too and I know my eyes really see the world upside down. I can let paranoia run a mile or two occasionally but I do come to my reality with: what’s the objective? If it were true, what would be the point? I’m not that important to anyone, except myself. I like being ordinary and just another person.

I believe you when you say you’d never been loved. Can you love yourself now? I find it difficult. I say this because you said about your elder sister – can’t even love herself. Loving ourselves seems the most difficult thing to me, happening after allowing someone else to love us, allowing ourselves to believe, to trust that someone else does have our interests at heart, isn’t going to use and abuse us. Maybe your elder sister will one day let someone see her, allow herself to feel someone else’s positive intentions. Maybe not. Like you say, each of us on our own journey. I agree.