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healing
Wildflower:
I’ve really had to put some thought into all of your posts, guys (is it okay to call you guys? :) ). I guess I’ve kind of taken for granted how I use imagination as a tool (or that I even use it as a tool! :oops: :D ) and it took a while for me to start to break it down, but I'm glad I did. There's a lot of interesting stuff here with memories and imagination. Thanks for pointing that out Guest! :D
--- Quote ---People used to listen to me talk (teens, early 20s), smile and say “you’re crazy!” I guess meaning ‘what odd thoughts’ but I can say now, it was both flattering to my mind and I also wanted to punch those people for making me wonder if it was true.
--- End quote ---
I want to start by saying that people use to tell me my ideas were crazy in the same way, Portia. I don’t think I would have had the courage to talk about the imagery I mentioned above if my therapist hadn’t validated my use of it. And I trust her because she’s straight with me and places a heavy emphasis on helping me get to the reality of situations I face – even if it means I’ve got something wrong.
So here's something we're all familiar with: Say there’s someone in our lives who, whenever we’re around them, we feel bad about ourselves (hard to get that perspective when you’re born into it, but I’m just trying to talk this through). We don’t know up from down, and we can’t tell who’s fault it is – or whether it’s even right to ask that question. Then we learn about Narcissism. It’s a framework, or a lens, that helps us to identify abusive behaviors and the characteristic traits of N’s. We take this lens and use it to look at the people in our lives – especially those who make us feel bad. Does the lens fit? Does the picture come into focus? Even if it’s not perfect, if it’s better and eases some of our confusion, it may be worthwhile to stay with this lens for a while. See if there are more patterns we notice. Test it out.
I guess this is what I’ve been doing with my imagery, my stories. I have an uncanny memory for conversations, but it’s true that I don’t have 100% confidence in my other memories. Images and stories give me a way to tie my memories together when all I have is just a loose collection of memories with lots of gaps and question marks. When I first began “reconstructing” my life, I used the image of a bunch of islands of memory. They were tiny and scattered, like Hawaii. The model worked for me and gave me motivation to “connect the dots” so to speak. To set a goal to be able to "walk" from one island to the next someday. I never actually believed that these islands were real, though. :D
So by using bits of facts gathered from talking to people who were around, comparing whatever perspectives are available to me - and making those islands bigger, my story has gone from:
I loved pre-school and kindergarten and I was happy. I did really well in first grade and my teacher really liked me (though I got some grief for being a teacher’s pet). But then all of a sudden I was being pulled out of class in third grade for being disruptive and I started failing in school and people stopped liking me. In fact, since third grade things have been pretty horrible. What happened?
To (and in answer to your question, Guest, about whether the event was internal or external):
When I was between the ages of 2 and 8, my mom was dating a man I adored and who I have no doubt loved me. He took care of me as if I were his daughter. He carried me to bed, picked me up after school every day, tickled me until I got the hiccups and couldn’t breathe…in short, he did everything that responsible, caring, nurturing parents do for their children. And then he left. Since my mom and her boyfriend weren’t married, no one thought to recognize the impact of their break-up on me. Including my mother. And the handful of times I saw him after their split, I was only able to see him for a few minutes before my mom sent me to bed. I wasn’t a child of divorce. He was just a boyfriend. It was terribly painful to lose him. But just recently, by looking at pictures of myself at that age, I understand that I would have been okay if I’d been given a chance and the support I needed to be able to heal. If someone had been there to play with me and hug me until the pain went away, I wouldn’t have suffered so long. Instead, my life became a struggle to survive in a household of emotional neglect and abuse and borderline physical neglect. Oh, and I wasn’t allowed to do most of the activities my friends were doing whether it was because they were too expensive, my mother didn’t feel like driving, or my mother deemed these activities to be below us. I went insane because I was a (shy?) extrovert stuck in a cave with little but imagination banging around in my head.
I don’t remember all of this in the sense that others have had to give me their memories for me to be able to connect the dots, by my memories, as hazy and foggy as they were, gave me a place to start. They were my voice. :)
And Guest, I just saw that you posted, and I completely agree that even when we can’t create timelines, we can still learn so much from what our memories have to tell us about how an experience made us feel. (I'm not sure I understand the T alternative, but maybe that's because I'm an F :D.)
Which is why I might dig a little deeper into this memory, R, unless you’re really comfortable that this memory is resolved.
--- Quote ---my 'feelings' of being a toddler and someone pushing me over but then suddenly years later 'knowing' that never happened. I was a toddler learning to walk - nobody pushed me; I sat down on my bottom with a thump. That's terrible to realise I thought someone pushed me!!!
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How did you find out that you were wrong? And maybe you felt pushed because your mother is always pushing your emotions around. I don’t know, of course. It's just a thought. :)
So back to the idea of being a parent for myself, or even imagining my shell to be a person. I don’t really believe these things, but they do really help me sort out my feelings – and even allow me to take steps that would be too overwhelming otherwise. They help me get beyond emotional paralysis.
--- Quote ---And the "Can't you detatch" thing. They may as well say, "Could you stop being, please?" Hell, we have been detatched from what's been going on (in some awful ways) all our bloody lives. And it's caused us to be cast adrift, isolated, Robinson Crusoe-ish for most of our frickin' lives. I feel like saying to them, these well-meaning, ignorant, thanks for f*@#*in' nothin' types, "You go detatch. OKAY!!!! And don't you DARE try to tell me what to do, EVER AGAIN, OR I'LL RIP YOUR DAMN HEAD OFF YOUR SHOULDERS AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR ARSE!"
--- End quote ---
Thanks for the vent! :D :D I’m so with you guys on that one! I’ve learned that sometimes I need to cut myself off and go for a run or something because I’m just thinking in circles and getting nowhere. But when I’m on hot on the trail of a new idea, there’s nothing that makes me feel more hostile or even worse about myself than any of the following:
Let it go.
Relax!
I just wish you could be happy!
You’re overreacting.
You’ve gotten all worked up over nothing.
Oooo, but I could go on…… :evil:
Anyway, I feel like there’s probably a lot I’m missing here, but this feels right :wink: :D and I wanted to share it with you guys. :D
Wildflower
P.S.- I’ve been zeroed in on this question of imagination as a tool so I hope you won’t mind if I haven’t commented on some of the other important observations you guys have been making. :D
Anonymous:
--- Quote from: Wildflower ---
When I was between the ages of 2 and 8, my mom was dating a man I adored and who I have no doubt loved me. He took care of me as if I were his daughter. He carried me to bed, picked me up after school every day, tickled me until I got the hiccups and couldn’t breathe…in short, he did everything that responsible, caring, nurturing parents do for their children. And then he left. Since my mom and her boyfriend weren’t married, no one thought to recognize the impact of their break-up on me. Including my mother. And the handful of times I saw him after their split, I was only able to see him for a few minutes before my mom sent me to bed. I wasn’t a child of divorce. He was just a boyfriend. It was terribly painful to lose him. But just recently, by looking at pictures of myself at that age, I understand that I would have been okay if I’d been given a chance and the support I needed to be able to heal. If someone had been there to play with me and hug me until the pain went away, I wouldn’t have suffered so long. Instead, my life became a struggle to survive in a household of emotional neglect and abuse and borderline physical neglect.
But when I’m on hot on the trail of a new idea, there’s nothing that makes me feel more hostile or even worse about myself than any of the following:
Let it go.
Relax!
I just wish you could be happy!
You’re overreacting.
You’ve gotten all worked up over nothing.
Oooo, but I could go on…… :evil:
Anyway, I feel like there’s probably a lot I’m missing here, but this feels right :wink: :D and I wanted to share it with you guys. :D
Wildflower
P.S.- I’ve been zeroed in on this question of imagination as a tool so I hope you won’t mind if I haven’t commented on some of the other important observations you guys have been making. :D
--- End quote ---
Hey, this zeroing in was good stuff, and thanks for clarifying the question about when your world changed. I know what you mean. I had a similar experience. One of my mother's live-in's de-facto's sort of affected me like that. I guess she was with him from when I was 5 or 6 years old to 8 years old.
He was an interstate truck driver named John and he was wonderful. I remember one time she belted into me, or started to, and he intervened and took me for a shoulder ride to the corner shop, bought me an ice-cream, and gave me shoulder ride home. I felt so comforted. And other times too, he'd take me for walks to the corner store and buy me a treat. Or would bring me home little trinkets from his trips. It was so exciting when he'd bring his bag in and say something like, "Now what's in here." When friends came over to booze and play cards. I remember him arguing with my mother to let me stay up, so I was allowed to stay up late, he had me on his lap and I helped him play cards, and then he gave me the credit when he won. :)
He was completely above board and appropriate in his dealings with me too, no funny business.
He was so WONDERFUL. :) She asked me to call him dad, so I did and I really really fell in love with him. :) I have photo's of him and me. Him hugging me. And when he was home he used to read to me. Amazing, he had such warm personality. And he used to not mind if I slept in bed with them. He never yelled or fought with my mother, and often stood up for me to my mother. She had such a hair trigger. Then he just wasn't there one day. Poof, vanished. And I never saw 'dad', John, again. :shock:
She told me he'd been signed up and been sent Vietnam. :cry: A few weeks later she told me he had been killed, driving a truck which was blown up, it had run over a landmine. I was devastated. :cry: I mean, I was 8 and now I'd lost my second father. And within no time she had a new bloke moved. And I wasn't supposed to mention 'dad' at all.
This seemed an impossible ask, but I complied. I wasn't allowed to make any reference at all to one of the nicest people I'd ever known, and I wasn't allowed to ask any questions, or grieve. She just told me he was dead and that was it. End of story. So I never did. Till I was about 35 years old.
Now I pause here, pause.......,from when I was about 8 till 35 I'd thought about him a lot at different times, but in all that time I'd never bought him up, not to her or anyone else. Then, one day, I don't know why, but I confessed to her how much I missed him.
She made some curious comment about how 'they' never leave their wives, "they' just like their little bit on the side." I said, "But isn't he dead?You told me he died." And she laughed and said, "Yeah, well I had to tell you something. He went back to his wife and kids. And anyway, I had a new relationship with Jim, and I told John I didn't want to see him anymore. He wasn't going to ever leave his wife anyway, and I was just his interstate bit on the side."
She told me where he lived, and stories about how she had written to his wife, and how once when he was away, she'd gone interstate and went to his KIDS school, and introduced herself to his KIDS! And told them who she was. Oh my goodness. She'd completely freaked them all out. She told the kids the 'truth' about how he hated their mother, and how their mother didn't 'satisfy' their father, and how he was in love with her. Oh my goodness!
I can't imagine how awful it was for all of them. My mother invents ways to hurt people. He didn't know what he was letting himself for when he hooked up with my mother, but I'm glad he got away from her. And apparently his wife took him back, and he promised his wife he'd have nothing more to do with my mother or me. And my mother hated him by then anyway, and threatened to get one of her detective boyfriends onto him if "He showed his face anywhere near us." Oh my goodness, what a mess. So, my attachment was only a couple of years, but funny how it has a similarity to yours Wildflower, isn't it.
Wow, I'm a bit worked up after writing that. I had some other thoughts to add on the venting thing, but they've disappeared at the moment. I think I need a walk. I've given up the fags for nearly 3 weeks now, and after writing this, I really want one. Pathetic isn't it? No, I won't go and buy a pack, the urge will pass. Going for a stroll. I'll be back.
Guest
Portia:
Dear Guest, I feel worked up having read about your ‘Dad’ John and all the love he gave you and whoosh! You don’t matter, he just disappears and your mom takes no account of you. Did you ever see him again? You poor little girl, having had such a kind man in your life. If only you could have gone and joined his family!! Why do people have no bloody compassion?
Don’t go back to the fags please – 3 weeks is the hardest time isn’t it? I don’t know, I’m still in ‘beat myself up by smoking’ world. Good on you Guest, not doing this slow suicide job on your body! Let me know how you get on….you could well be my inspiration….P
Anonymous:
Yes, the venting thing.
I wonder about the 'real' motives of people who tell me, "Relax, don't get your knickers, etc, just let it go." The peace makers, who try to convince me that I analyse too much, and that it's bad for me, or dangerous.
I just don't get it. I bought a game years ago by Edward De Bono, with all the different coloured hats. And with a problem you had to put on a different coloured hat which represented a different thinking style. It was good stuff, even though it was directed mainly at corporate problem solving.
But the thing is that in corporate problem solving, when facing a corporate crisis or difficulties you don't hear people saying, "Your're over-reacting, let it go. Don't make such a big issue out of it."
No, quite the opposite. You're actually expected to investigate every damn step that led the troubled corporation to it's catastrophic point, so that you can hopefully correct the problems, and prevent repetitions in the future. A big part of this is talking to department managers and staff, and indepth questioning them.
What if a participant or observer said, "Oh, give it a rest" then. Huh? That would be recognised immediately as both ridiculous and suspicious.
I wonder if the anally retentive who tout these guilt trips aren't actually trying to justify their own weak way of dealing with life. Aaahh, another vent. That felt good.
That'll do for now, have a good Easter,
Guest
Anonymous:
Hi Portia, no I never saw him, and he's probably nearly 80 now, if he's still alive. Sigh, I don't know, but after I found out what she did to that family I was just so ashamed. It's hard to explain, but it's sort of connected/associated shame I've often found I have about things she's done. I'm so ashamed of her, and I'm her daughter, so I'm ashamed of me too. Blaaah, I haven't quite worked that out yet either.
And as for the fags, I just figured there'd never be a right time, or an easy time. The final straw was I read a story about a guy (smoker) with inoperable lung cancer. Yuuuk!!!! He was 42, only been smoking for 7 years, married, father of 3 young children, only diagnosed 8 months ago, died last month. His last 8 months were the worst thing I've ever read.
And the slow suicide thing. I know what you mean. It is, isn't it? But there are better and cheaper ways to go! :D :D :D Joke. No, I wish they'd make fags illegal. I wouldn't have bought them then. I'm not the type to buy things on the black market. I'm too paranoid.
Anyway, thanks for the post Portia.
PS, Aaah, mother dear mother, I really didn't want to be thinking about you today. I wonder what little drama you're creating or whose life you're wrecking today! I'm so glad I'm out of it.
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