Yeah, Survivor - but this is where I get
REALLY confused - cos if she's projecting onto me, then surely I must also be projecting onto
her.
So if I said in return that 'SHE'S the one who is crazy and needs help because she's mentally ill", I'd be saying it about myself.
This is where I got really lost in 'therapy'. I could see all the stuff this psychiatrist was doing but...wasn't I just tranferring onto him what I saw in my mother? And if so then it didn't really exist in reality. He can't have been 'doing' to me what she 'did' to me...and maybe that meant
she wasn't either!!!
Except, she said, really limping now - HE WAAAAAAS!!!!!
Neither my mother nor that psychiatrist were able to 'tell the truth', neither of them saw 'me' as I was and neither of them was prepared to hear they might have got something wrong without punishing me for THEIR shame.
Except once...one day the psychiatrist said something that suggested he'd had some insight and there was hope...but by the end of the session he'd slipped back into his old 'self' and I despaired.
Why did I keep it all secret? Why didn't I tell anybody?
- Because the idea of being crushed by denial and obfuscation by the psychiatrist/my mother was too much to bear. My sanity is only safe if I keep it all a secret and don't let anybody mess with it.
- Because of the shame of letting it be known
- Because I was afraid of my father's 'disapproval' - for 'telling tales' on my mother - represented there by the psychiatrist's senior colleague who I'd met briefly. He was the only other person to 'tell' and I couldn't face his disapproval and disbelief. And yet I knew all this, I could write it down then as now - if someone could have just released me, shown me where the door was hidden, I knew the truth. But nobody ever did...
Round and round and round, instead, with no way out. Just terror, fear and being alone. Not that anybody else knew - I was brought up to provide an outer 'face' for the family, I think - a happy, successful persona with a wide social circle.
This is also what I experienced someone 'doing' to me via pm. It might be
her problem (projecting) but it created problems for me (confusion, fear and shame).
So I get my 'helicopter view' (looking in on all sides from 'above' rather than from 'inside') and I know the truth, I know reality, I know what's rational. I know what it 'feels' like, even if I can't always find words. Even if the truth is not 'allowed'. But my foundations were crushed by 'therapy'. The whole edifice crumbled and nothing was built in its place. I am easily undermined, the rug pulled out from under. I'm either up in the air or down underground - there's no ground floor!!!
But my 'no more secrets' rule (created when my father died) has meant I've risked talking about what's happened/ing.
It's still not 100% 'safe' as it depends on whether other people are strong enough for the truth, open to the existence of the 'N' thing, really understanding what makes people tick - or whether they are in denial (etc) - and who is the arbiter of which is which???
So I keep a large question mark beside me for humility's sake, but I choose to believe in what my 'soul' tells me. And bit by bit, person by person, validation by validation, I'm getting stronger.
And no-one - but no-one - gets to mess with MY sanity and boundaries again!!!!!
Be warned

Except - doesn't that take me back to 'lonely' again??? With me being 'strong' for everyone else and nobody being 'strong' for me??? (Not that anybody else 'should' be strong for me but I seem not to know how to be 'strong' for myself!!!) Oh God - I'm stuck going round and round again with NO WAY OUT!
R