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Wildflower:

--- Quote ---Guest wrote: when the student is ready the teacher will appear."
--- End quote ---


You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

Everyone here has issues, otherwise we wouldn’t be here, right?  Many, if not all of us, have issues we are unaware of – because our voicelessness has made us unaware of ourselves.  And it’s OKAY to be unaware while in the process of healing.  That’s what we’re here for:  to discover our true selves and the issues that prevent us from becoming our true selves.  To find our voices.

We cannot help anyone else see issues they may have until they are ready.  We may not even be qualified to assess what issues another person has, and it’s certainly easy to see our own issues in others.  And natural.

We can ask guiding questions, we can suggest books that may be helpful, and we can offer our experiences.  That’s it.  If anyone learns from what we have to offer, that’s great, but there are no guarantees – and accusing someone of having issues that they cannot see may only serve to slow the process of healing if that person develops defense mechanisms to protect them from having to face those issues too soon.
 

--- Quote ---Christy wrote: "Every arrow you shoot has to pass through you first".
--- End quote ---



--- Quote ---Paraphrase: I am not responsible for what happened to me as a child, but I am responsible for my own recovery (sorry, couldn’t find the post or remember who said this).
--- End quote ---


A couple of weeks ago, as I was trying to work through my feelings of guilt for having yelled at my mother, my therapist reminded me that my mother is ‘hard of hearing’, which is true in the metaphorical sense.  Her physical hearing is just fine – but that doesn’t stop her from saying ‘huh?’ after everything I say and then interrupt my attempt to repeat myself by responding to what I said (meaning she heard me the first time).  While I was dependent on my mother, I had to scream at the top of my lungs, or find other methods of ‘screaming’, in order to get what I needed from her.  There was no other way.

A few months ago, I was doing an exercise from Children of the Self-Absorbed in an attempt to understand my feelings for my father when it dawned on me – through re-living a particularly painful scene – that what had upset me most about that scene was that I had lost control and screamed at him.  It wasn’t until then that I realized that, quite the opposite of my parent’s labels of me, I hated yelling at them.  In fact, yelling at them hurt me.  And that’s when I began to understand that I had been pushed - I must have been pushed - to do something that hurt me.

Years ago, before I had the knowledge of NPD to help me sort through so many issues, I used the concept of habits to pull myself up out of the darkness.  Whenever I was able to identify a ‘bad habit’, I immediately put all my energy into dropping that habit and replacing it with a good one.  A clean home and a love of cooking are two very positive results of this effort.  A struggle that ended with more mixed results was my struggle to stop being critical of others and to stop using my childhood pain to get special treatment from others (which is different from asking for the help we need).  Mixed because:

A)  I am now more able to appreciate others instead of seeing only their faults.  I feel less isolated and I am more able to identify with others because I’m not special:  the same rules apply to the adult me, regardless of any childhood abuse.  In short, I feel more connection to people in the world, and I’m less likely to alienate or take for granted the very people who may be able to help me.

B) As I looked back with my new less-critical eyes, I saw a wake of destruction behind me, both of myself and others.  How much time have I wasted with all these negative feelings?  How many people have I hurt - people I cared about, people I may never be able to face again – because I was lashing out?

Every person I hurt has added that much more grief and remorse to my process of healing.  So I ask you, please don’t do what I did and hurt those around you by lashing out at people here who want to help.  We need to scream sometimes in order to find our true selves, but try to scream at the right people – the N’s in our lives and maybe even our therapists/healers who are trained to handle it.  And if someone here has offended or hurt you, try to find a voice that won’t end up hurting you by alienating the very people who are here to help.

I realize that I may be out of place in saying these things (I’m no therapist and I’m certainly not trained to deal with helping people resolve their issues), but I felt I couldn’t remain silent on this subject.

All my best,
Wildflower

Anonymous:
Hi Wildflower,

I really appreciated your post and I know from bumping into you around this forum that you practice what you preach.

I've manage to model some bad habits out of my life, but it only ever seemed to work for me at the 'right time'. Seems like the formwork had to be in place first.

I had Maslow's Ladder on my fridge for years till my cat shredded the bottom rungs off. My fridge is like, "The one who dies with the most fridge magnets wins" situations. Everybody keeps giving me these bloody fridge magnets. "Oh, saw this, thought of you."  "Gee Ta"  :)

Sorry, back on track. Yes, if the basics aren't there then what's to build on. Your post gave me the impression of different teachers I've had.

The helpful, recommending, jointly exploring, encouraging ones
versus
the talking at me, telling me what to do, assuming, imposing, lecturing ones who set too high goals and tasks for me at my level.

These were goals they could breeze through, having been there and done it. When people do this to me, my brain locks, I freeze up and all my creative juices and energy dry up. Sometimes I feel physically sick, or fall asleep, I have to go find a place to lie down.

"Excuse miss, I need to have a sleep. Listening to you for the past half hour has brought on a bout of chronic-fatigue-syndrome. Do you mind?"

Anyway, enough frivolity, once again Wildflower, you've set the cogs in my old grey matter a churnin'.

I've been lucky with the brain freeze thing, even though at times it's terribly debilitating, like I have tremendous difficulty sitting formal tests, but it's had some positive spin-offs too. When I am insulted or emotionally injured, I can't react immediately. My brain freezes and so I don't react often for 2 or 3 days. It can take me this long to recognise and process the situation. So by the time I do other things have happened usually, and often I don't feel the need to do anything, so I seldom say things to escalate the situation at the time.

The trade-off here for me is that I haven't been in a lot of situations like you mention of isolating myself from friends or have deep feelings of grief for causing them pain. This handicap I have has a positive side. I've only recognised it recently as a side issue from reading the Imposter Syndrome things. And I've asked different family members if they notice this about me. Unanimous "YES." So I think this handicap is good. Even though I haven't passed all the formal tests I'd have like to, and I've never mastered Corel Draw because the teacher sedated me mentally. Never mind.

How do I try to translate that here. If I feel uncomfortable or negative about a response to me or someone else, or I feel I have been attacked I try not to respond now. I don't suppress my feelings, I try to explore them. But do I try to suppress my actions or should I say my reactions. I try very hard to not reply immediately, I just don't send it. I've typed out some very degrading replies at times but then I don't send them. I disconnect from the net or go out, get back to work, whatever. And many times more often than not I'm glad I didn't press the 'SUBMIT' button.

I now try to wait till I'm calm and settled and have thought it through. Hey, let other people respond, see what they say. If this means I have to wait a day or a week, fine, I can. There are plenty of other threads and topics to go to and learn from and contribute to.

And for me personally, I think it's best if I don't respond immediately if I feel I'm under threat. Brother is that hard to do sometimes, especially when I get that fired-up urge to respond defensively. But not giving in to these impulses is both good developement of self-control in me and also good from the point of view of the quality of the response that's posted, (premature ejeculation of the verbal kind, not very satisfying for either party.) so it's better for everybody else too.

And if I'm real lucky, it'll bring the feeling of restoration or closure. Either way, it often prevents me getting caught up in a negative joust spiralling ever-downwards. I'll try to avoid that here, I've had enough of that in my life.

Anyway I don't want to be someone who easily has their buttons pushed by anybody out there having a bad hair day or going through PMT. I say, "I'll push my own buttons, when I'm ready, thanks very much."

And thankyou for once again Wildflower for sharing these thoughts, and allowing me the opportunity to explore mine as a result.  

Guest.

Wildflower:
Hi Guest,

You are seriously hilarious! :lol:


--- Quote ---I had Maslow's Ladder on my fridge for years till my cat shredded the bottom rungs off. My fridge is like, "The one who dies with the most fridge magnets wins" situations. Everybody keeps giving me these bloody fridge magnets. "Oh, saw this, thought of you." "Gee Ta"
--- End quote ---


You know that deep laugh that gives you hiccups and makes your sides hurt?  Well that’s me right now reading that.   :lol: The rest of your post was great, too (and bot we need a little frivolity here), but that really got me. :D
 

--- Quote ---I've manage to model some bad habits out of my life, but it only ever seemed to work for me at the 'right time'. Seems like the formwork had to be in place first.
--- End quote ---


You’re so right.  I know this, too, but I was just sooo frustrated with what I saw happening on the board and a part of me couldn’t sit silently by on the off chance that one person might hear me and stop feeding this weirdo infinite loop of attacking going on.  I think it’s so important to learn to express ourselves, but there are consequences that come with speaking out (especially to N’s), and sometimes being silent is expression enough.  But maybe that’s just me, or maybe I’m not as far along as those here doing their battles.


--- Quote ---When I am insulted or emotionally injured, I can't react immediately. My brain freezes and so I don't react often for 2 or 3 days.
--- End quote ---


You’re way ahead of me!  It honestly takes me months sometimes.  We’re workin’ on that though.  Be mad now, not when everyone’s like, “what the hell?  Where’d that come from?”  Get more outta the interaction when it’s in the same century. :roll:

But I hear you, and thanks so much for adding your own perspective and experience with responding to sticky situations.  It’s nice hearing how others have found their ways in the world.

Glad you’re here, Guest.

Wildflower

Anonymous:
Hi Wildflower, and then I remembered you did an interior design course. Clean surfaces, and I bet - no fridge magnets. Blaah. :oops:

By the way, I'm glad you're here too. Whatever anxiety you may feel about the recent days here, I can tell you that from where I sit you played a vital part in introducing and maintaining stability at certain key points, with your warm genuine encouragement and soothing words. So thankyou.

Guest

Ishana:
Learned a lot from this thread.  Thank you both, but especially Wildflower's thoughts:

"As I looked back with my new less-critical eyes, I saw a wake of destruction behind me, both of myself and others. How much time have I wasted with all these negative feelings? How many people have I hurt - people I cared about, people I may never be able to face again – because I was lashing out? "  


Ishana

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