A sign of healing today.

[Gaining Strength]

Many thanks Hops and Moon. Many thanks - GS

[Gaining Strength]

I often come here when I am struggling as I am today.  In the months I have been here I have found this place one that gives me the very things I need for healing: someone to listen so that I have a voice, someone to truly understand, someone who cares and lets me know that.

I am making clear progress that I can actually see but I still have a long way to go and I have much more to dig out.  For many, many years I had nightmares of being with my FOO in car or hotel room when I tried to warn them of imminent danger but my warnings were dismissed out of hand.  Those nightmares were clear indications of the voicelessness I experienced as a child but I did not leave the experience there, I have carried it forward.  Today I am identifying the residuals of that experience so that I can let it go and move on. 

Part of what I have carried forward is an entrenched feeling of being left out, rejected.  For the first time, this fall, I have come to understand how this feeling has been an expectation that became self-fulfilling.  All of this happened on a subconcious level.  I was unaware of all of it.  For years I heard remedies suggested that essentially amounted to, "Get over it.  You are an adult, so you need to function like an adult."  That is right to the point but I was blind to what was binding me and though I am the only one who can unbind myself I could not see what had me nor how to get free.  I find that compassion and caring are far more helpful to healing than demands curt suggestions.  But my life has been short on compassion and encouragement.

One of the reasons I get so much from coming here is that there is compassion here.  I am so thankful.  I soak it up.  The more compassion I get here the more I heal and become functional.

As a child criticism filled the cracks that compassion should have.  As an adult my radar scans the airwaves in search of criticsm to fill the cracks made by wounds in my soul.  My healing is about changing out that radar so that it searches out compassion to seal those cracks.  But because my parents were oozing criticism rather than compassion and because my survival as a child was dependant on them I made the wrong connection between survival and criticism, survival and demands that were impossible and conflicting.  These were projections from my own parents wounding.  Now I see how they were wounded and at long last I have compassion for their pain.  The more compassion I pour out onto them and to the people they were so long ago, the more compassion will pour into my own wounds.  And it is compassion that will seal those cracks. 

I need help and I was left to fend on my own in very complicated ways.  To be included in my family was sort of like survival depending on standing before a firing squad and praying for misfires.  I survived that firing squad but not without substantial wounds.  Wounds that I am just now strong enough to begin digging the bullets out of and start the healing.

I am definitely stronger now, strong enough to look at my part in my pain.  Strong enough to forgive and absolve my parents and brothers for parts that came to them the same way my pain came to me - not consciously.  The more compassion I heap onto them the more seeps into my own neediness.

I have always had a sense of compassion but until recently that compassion was intertwined with a sense of obligation and those two do not mix.  Thanks for listening.  I simply needed to talk.  My pain is raw today But I must remind myself that at long last I have the tools to feel this pain and move forward.

[Gaining Strength]

Thank you Moonlight.  Your words are like a sweet salve on a gaping wound.  So glad to share this healing with others.  Your kindness strengthes me so.  - GS

[seasons]

Oh sweet Gaining Strength, I think of you all too! What a miracle to have a place of love and compassion no one can take away. We are all so different yet so much alike, it reminds of a quilt made by each of us, each fiber so important, so helpful, sewn together with strength, strength and comfort for us all to embrace.

I love our quilt, I need it, I appreciate it, I respect each and every square. 

I pass you OUR quilt to keep you warm, safe and most importantly loved.

Cheering you on always.................(seasons)

[Gaining Strength]

Thank you Seasons -

Your words help so much.  How well I know you understand.  I love the quilt and will wrap myself in it when I am afraid and lonely. - yours - Gaining Strength

[Gaining Strength]

Last night my son and I were invited to a party.  I have no decent party clothes and my mother promised me a couple of outfits for Christmas so I went and got some yesterday afternoon before the party.  The party was at 7pm and as it approached I began to get uncomfortable and want to go to bed rather than get dresses and go.  I realized that the feeling is what is known as "social anxiety".  I have been experiencing that for several years - since my husband died. 

I used to love to go to parties and socialize but in recent years, though I have loved the invitations, the actual going had become difficult and then gotten to the point that I physically was paralyzed from getting dressed and going.  So even though I felt that longing to hide come over me an hour or so before the party the new part is that I overcame it and went and had a wonderful time.

This year, as Christmas season approached I hoped to go to some parties and to my great surprise I have been invited to five or six.  In the past couple of years I have been invited to 2 or 3 and always planned to go but backed out at the last minute.  I see some healing in this and hope as well.  I have been so lonely and yet unable to reach out or to accept what was offered.  Noone has been able to understand why, if I am lonely, I don't accept what is offered.  I haven't been able to understand - except to know that my wounds have been to great and have swallowed my whole.  So finally, I am beginning to crawl out of the deep abyss.  My understanding of where I have been and how I came to be there is very good.  My understanding of what changes need to take place is also good and I am developing faith that the changes are coming.  But I don't understand why the pain is still so great!!

Last night I had horrendous dreams that left me sleepless and disturbed.  As I tried to work through the second one I realized they both were dreams of "voicelessness".  That word in itself holds healing properties for me.  It identifies the source of so much hurt, so much pain and so much rage. 

In the first dream my father's second wife had been murdered and I realized that he had done it.  I had connected the dots and identified evidence to implicate him.  A group of us were having dinner at a fine local restaurant and discussing the murder.  When a couple of us revealed our evidence others just dismissed it out of hand.  The whole thing was more of a social gossip rather than a criminal investigation.  But my evidence was just dismissed.  Oddly enough this whole dream had very little emotion attached to it where as the next dream was powerfully emotional.

In the second dream a large group of friends were competing in a contest sort of like "The Amazing Race".  We had to find some specific herbs and spices and each person get different assignments.  I was really looking forward to this but when I was assigned a spice that I had never heard of I flew into an unconsolable rage.  My partner was an attractive man with a winsome personality and an unflagging smile.  My anger did not disturb him at all.  His assignment required a large cart be pushed through a crowded market.  He took me with him, and I railed the whole way.  He was undetered and seemed to be waiting out my tantrum as he worked on his assignment.  He treated me as though I were being helpful instead of a pain.  But he wasn't being solicitous nor patronizing.

When I woke up I really struggled with this dream and the anxiety about the approaching holiday.  I have worked through so much of my rage but now I know there is more there to deal with.  My experience throughout my life of voicelessness in my FOO and my marriages has wounds still needing healing.  My unconscious gave this up to me through my dream.

My partner in the dream did not abandon me inspite of my rage, nor did he try to resolve it, nor did he let it deter him from his work.  I would not have to feel guilty about my rage interfering with him nor was I going to feel shame about my rage.  It was justified but i was going to have to get past it in order to function.  My rage added to the voicelessness.  It was caused by it and it added to it.

In my FOO, I was voiceless, my parents projected their shame and incompetence on me, and they put me in double binds.  I have worked through much of the first two but I have a long way to go with the double binds.  They took the form of criticizing me if I did not do something well while abandoning me or criticizing me if I did do well; of demanding me to do something without giving me the necessary resources to accomplishing the task and then criticizing me for failing.  This last one really sums up where I am stuck now.  I have know this for several years but had to work through much of the other stuff to get here. 

Now that I have begun to function I must deal with this last and biggest one.  It is so enormous.  but then so were the others.  The healing process is painful but I am thankful that I can come here and share it with others.  I am willing to face this pain because I DO want to heal, I DO want to be free and I DO want to function. 

Thanks for listening.  Thanks for letting me have a voice here. - Gaining Strength

[Hopalong]

GS,
You are so competent.
Your thinking is competent.
Your birthday-party giving is competent.
Your honesty is competent.
Your awareness is competent.

Your progress is competent.

And your dream analysis is competent!

(I think Dr. G. is an amazing cart-pusher.)

love,
Hops

[Gaining Strength]

Thanks Hops - How dear of you.  To be able to write hear and be HEARD is so marvelous.  It undoes  all that damage from childhood.

[Gaining Strength]

More nightmares of dread and impending doom.  A series of dreams in which death was narrowly avoided.  For a long time I hated going to sleep because the dreams were so wretched. 

I wake in fits trying to resolve these dreams but I can't.  I realize that I have to switch from fear to faith but the dread is just so great.  I am in so much pain.  I wake and can't wait to come here.  This is the only place of solace until I can go deep inside and change these dreadful thoughts. 

These thougths from my unconscious are so painful.  How do I change them? 

[Gaining Strength]

This topic has turned from a statement about healing to a plea for a sign of healing. 

I am  thinking about something that has been haunting me.  Most of my life the one person I felt love from was my maternal grandmother.  For a long tiime I also thought I felt it from my maternal grandfather but for the last couple of years of his life you was not kind and was often dismissive of me.

After my aunt died this September, through conversations with my other aunt, I finally understood something about these two people whom I loved and whom I felt love from - they did not want to deal with "problems" in their children's lives and that can be include their grandchildren.  My grandfather was a prominent lawyer and he was glad to handle any small legal problems.  (I could really use him now to straighten out my mess with my husband's debt ridden estate.)  But in the past coule of months I have felt the sorrow and alienation from realizing that they were dismissive of problems at home. 

Isn't that a parents duty - to help a child negotiate difficulties? Isn't that what friends do or try to do or failing that offer comfort? The pain of being left to fend for myself left me enraged and fearful.  The rage has passed but the fear is full blown.  I am angry about all this and longing for healing.  I'll take suggestions as to how to find the path.

[mountainspring]

Hi Gaining Strength… 

I struggle with fear too, then after the fear I feel angry, then I feel fear again.  It’s like a vicious circle for me.  I’ve been working with my T on this issue and have found a method that works for me sometimes.  I thought it may be helpful for you too.  I talk myself through my fear and become my own soothing parent.  I’ll use your fear of going to the party as an example.  This would be me talking to myself.  When I started feeling fear while dressing for the party, my self talk would sound like this.

I know I would like to attend this party, and I acknowledge that I’m feeling fearful right now.  Maybe I’ll just lay out the clothes I would wear if I were going.  Here’s an outfit.  This would look nice.  Now, I’m feeling fearful, but if I weren’t feeling fearful, I would probably be excited about dressing for the party.  Maybe I’ll just get dressed for the party.  Dressing for the party doesn’t mean I have to go to the party.  In fact, if I don’t go to the party, that would be just fine.  Right now I’m working on fear issue.  So I’m going to practice going getting dressed for the party even though I may not go.

Okay, I’m dressed now and I look nice.  I’ve practiced getting dressed for the party.  If I were going to the party, I would get the directions to the house.  I’ll do that.  Even though I know I don’t have to go to the party, I’ll practice just as though I’m not feeling the fear.  I’m feeling a little thirsty.  An ice cold coke would taste nice now.  My mouth always gets dry when I’m feeling fearful, and that’s okay.  I think I’ll relax and drink my coke while thinking about the directions to the house.

Still practicing overcoming my fear.  I’m going to the car now.  I’m going to drive to the party.  I know I don’t have to go in once I get there, I can change my mind, but I’ll drive there just in case I decide I would like to go in..  etc. etc. etc

This method has been helpful to me because it always gives me the choice.  When the time for the party comes, I may or may not attend, but the rule I give myself is that even if I don’t feel strong enough to go in, I have practiced healthy self talk that may make me strong enough to go in once I’m there.  If I don’t feel strong enough, I would  tell myself that I did a good job working on my fear issue, then go out and celebrate by buying an ice cream or something that would feel safer for me.  The good thing about this method is that as long as you are concentrating on being your own soothing parent, your making progress because you can’t tell yourself 2 things at once, and while you are thinking positive, the negative fear self talk doesn’t have a chance to take over.  Sometimes when I am doing this I will still think a fearful thought, but I give myself permission to think that while still being soothing.  Okay, you heard that old tape again, but it’s just a tape, and write now I’m rerecording etc. etc.

((((((GS)))))) 

[reallyME]

mountainspring,

Thank you so much for sharing this.  It seems like you are doing cognitive therapy here and I'm proud of you for it!  This is very much how I counsel people whom I mentor...it's the "one step at a time" approach.

After I realized that I had lost Jodi probably forever (in spite of all her promises of "God tells me when you need me and I will always be there for you when you do...I will never be too far"), I had to get to a place where I wasn't waiting for those phone calls from her everytime my phone rang...where I wasn't upset every time I looked at a picture of her...you get my drift I think...

the way I did this was through self-talk and journalling.  I would write WHAT IS THE FEELING, WHEN DID I FEEL IT, WHAT DID I WANT TO DO ABOUT IT, WHAT DID I END UP DOING ABOUT IT.  I began through doing this, to notice certain patterns in me.  After a while, I was able to not ACT on what I WANTED to do, but rather, I'd make other choices based on something I'd divert myself with.  It works really well, similar to what you describe.

I still find myself missing talking to Jodi, but I know that it would just be more of the same...convo centered around her and disregarding my own SELF.

Just thought I'd share.

~RM

[mountainspring]

RM…  I’ve done journaling too and still do sometimes.  Journaling helped me to sort out my thoughts.  The neat thing about it is that if you keep a journal, as the months go by you can reread earlier parts and see the progress you’ve made and the things that still need to be worked on.  At least it’s been that way for me.

Have you tried journaling GS?

[Gaining Strength]

Mountainspring - I thinik I can do this process.  In fact I'm going to try it right now with exercise.  I hope I can make some progress with this.  I know I must find a way to rewrite these deep seeded tapes of fear and criticism.

I have not been journaling lately though it has been suggested quite often.  I am finding that writing here has been easier for me.  perhaps that is because it responds to that terrible pain of voicelessness.  I did journal for many years but I found what I wrote to be too painful so now sometimes I think of myself as "journaling" here.  Here I feel surrounded by others, journalling I feel so lonely, so alone in my pain.

CB123 - thanks for your post.  It is so helpful to not be alone.  Though my pain is not new and I am dealing with residual pain it feels as strong as it did when fresh.

I am amazed by your courage of being at the same party with your husband.  How remarkable that you could be present at the party and not be leveled by his glowering.  That is very positive.

How comforting to come back and finding your responses.  It really helps me feel connected to the world.  It is a precious, healing blessing. - GS

[mountainspring]

((((((Moonlight))))))  I didn't see anything that you wrote that would upset anyone.  I hope you're doing okay and that Mr. Moon and your Moonlets are doing well too.