Neglectful Silence

[Anne2]

I hope you won’t mind if I jump into this discussion. I have been pondering these issues for a while and believe that abandonment may be a key for me.

My variation on the theme here is that my parents did ask me about my feelings and how I felt, but very often, after I told them how I felt, they proceeded to tell me why/how my feelings were wrong, as in “you shouldn’t feel that why” and then they would tell me why I shouldn’t feel sad, scared, etc.  

I think that this caused me to always second guess my feelings and not trust my feelings, because my parents taught me that my feelings were “wrong”.  I also think this caused me to not trust or believe in my feelings and that led me to rationalize the behavior of other people.  So if I felt that I did not like someone or something, I always second guessed myself because I was taught that my feelings were wrong.

So, is being taught that you cannot trust your feelings like a form of abandonment?  Second guessing my feelings made me feel isolated, alone and confused.

Now, I try very hard to identify my feelings and trust what I feel.  It’s so much better, like the difference between standing on firm ground instead of quicksand.
Thank you.

[Hopalong]

Anne,
Well said and welcome!

...because my parents taught me that my feelings were “wrong” [....]this caused me to not trust or believe in my feelings and that led me to rationalize the behavior of other people.

boy, does that sum up my trail of tears.

Thanks, Anne. Hope you'll start a thread and share your story,
when you'd like to.

best,
Hopalong

[Certain Hope]

Many of us just didn't know what to say.
We couldn't make sense of peoples' behavior.
We didn't understand or know what was really happening and
we had no language to describe it


WOW Carolyn,

All of your post #44 is absolutely insightful and so very life enhancing.

I have copied the above as that describes how I quite literally did not know how to describe one single jot and tittle.

Thank you for posting all of this, sincerely.


Love, Leah  ~  who is so grateful for new awareness

Thanks, Leah... I am so glad it meant something to you.... because that part, amongst others, describes me, too... absolutely without words or frame of reference, for so many years.
There was so much silence... even the noise was silent, at the root, because it overflowed with false-ness.

Yes, the Rule of Silence and all of that (post #44) is indeed from that one book by Claudia Black, excerpts of which I typed up from the google book preview several days ago.
It's been brewing within me ever since, convincing me that this is a book which I may want to purchase.

Again, I am so pleased and thankful to know that you've valued this bit of information... (((((((Leah))))))

************************************************

Dear Anne,

Welcome and please do continue to join in! The notion that abandonment lay at the root of my own lifelong voicelessness is a very recent awareness for me, so I'm most grateful to hear and learn other folks' views on this.

I can see that our end results have alot in common. You wrote:

 I also think this caused me to not trust or believe in my feelings and that led me to rationalize the behavior of other people.  So if I felt that I did not like someone or something, I always second guessed myself because I was taught that my feelings were wrong.

Yes, in spades. For me, because I had no idea how to even identify my feelings, let alone to discern when they should be spurring me to action (or inaction) within relationships. Living that way is like trying to navigate life in this world without a skin or any protective covering at all... absolutely vulnerable. So I sank into denial and avoidance, for the most part.

Yes, Anne, I definitely believe that being taught that your feelings are wrong/irrelevant is a form of abandonment...
in fact, basically, it's like being taught to abandon your self and take on someone else's reality, to be what? A clone with no personal identity? An empty shell? That's how it felt to me.

(((((((((Anne))))))))) I do hope you'll continue to post.

******************************************

(((((((((Amber))))))))) Gotta finish supper prep here, but I'll be back. I'm so glad you posted again and... YES, this is indeed most useful, imo  

Love to you all, with thanks,
Carolyn

[Certain Hope]

((((((((((((Besee))))))))))  I want to spend more time responding later, definitely, just wanted to say that I also don't seem to have  that deep longing, aching emptiness for my mother. Feels to me like she squelched that longgg ago, maybe at the same time that she taught me how not to feel much of anything at all. Now that all the other emotions are being restored, that one seems to be missing. I pity her...
but I just don't know what else there is in me for her. I want to find out, though... and so we shall see.

More later...

Love to you,
Carolyn

[Certain Hope]

when I'm invalidated sometimes my being will be like an energy ball and then it just diffuses into air - the only way I can find myself again is to get alone and journal and color pictures and listen and validate myself, breath deeply, exercise - it's better, years ago once that happened  I couldn't connect again until someone outside of myself validated me

for me there is a tension within me when I don't feel seen, heard or understood and then when I am it's like the ball relaxes and grows bigger - I've worked hard not to be codependent that way, but still that's my energetic reality

This resonates with me, too, Besee... thank you for your expression of what's been a reality in my life, as well.
I just felt that sensation again recently, in living color, and I was shocked to sense that depth of deflation when something which was big news to me got such a bland, "cut and dried"  reception from someone close to me. It was as nothing to them, just a matter of fact, and I instantly felt myself disappearing. Recovery from that sensation comes much more quickly now, and yet the disappointment and sense of disappearing, however briefly, is still disconcerting.

Carolyn - I've wondered about voicelessness and different personality types - is my not feeling understood cause my M was different (cognitive) and actually just didn't "get" the feeler me, (I didn't see her as trying though) because some folks on the board I will try to understand and use my imagination to my best, but I never really have a felt sense for who they are and perhaps its because I haven't experienced what they are going through or maybe it's just personality differences

or it's partial - I might relate to someone basically, but not get what they are going through on any real level - does that make me an N or just someone who hasn't had that experienced

I don't have the hole in my stomach that some people talk about, I try to imagine, but I don't really know - I have plenty of other stuff, but not that one,  I don't have the longing for my M (she's dead) perhaps I never experience any real connection in the beginning so then there isn't the loss cause their wasn't anything there at first - well now I'm going to contradict myself, I felt like an orphan when she died, (my dad died first I didn't feel like a orphan when he died)

oh well, blessings, besee

I recently said to my husband, "I don't have a mother."  He replied, "Yes, you do..."  And at that moment, I knew for certain that in my heart, I've felt motherless for as close to forever as I can express. And she's not "that bad"... so I wonder how N'ish that is of me, Besee, to not have that hole in my heart for her.

As to the rest... I know what you mean. I often question why I don't seem to relate to certain folks with the same depth of understanding/feeling as others... and I'm pretty sure it is just due to personality differences. And also... (and I think it's a prideful thing)...
the more convinced I may be that my particular reaction to an experience is the - ahem - *normal* one, the less I am apt to relate.
That's the N'ish aspect of it all, I'd say... but it can be nipped in the bud, with diligence and effort!!

(((((((Besee))))))) thank you for bringing me to look more deeply into these areas and think.

Love,
Carolyn

[Certain Hope]

Carolyn,

this may be on the wrong thread, but I have the urge to put it here somehow it seems like it relates even if indirectly

other reasons for voicelessness besides NPD

I was drilled if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all  and

not to judge which resulted in me not developing basic discernment

and not judging meant not forming opinions and part of voice is having opinions

and being taught you can't change others which resulted in me not even speaking up when I felt wronged because I was taught the other wouldn't listen and it would be a waste of time

being so empathetic to others and so understanding of others that I didn't develop let alone tune into my voice

having emotions squashed so that the voice that comes from emotions didn't develop

having strict rules of how one communicates so there is no outlet for one's individual truth

I really like what Dr. G says about his purpose is not to "fix" others but to help them "find" who they are

besee

Besee,

Every bit of the above, yes... exactly!! Special emphasis for me on "being taught you can't change others which resulted in me not even speaking up when I felt wronged because I was taught the other wouldn't listen and it would be a waste of time"...

My mother lives by this in a twisted way, which I see has effectively strangled any chance for intimacy within her relationships. The twist is - when people fail to measure up to her standard (and they always do!) she X's them off her list. I could not live by that standard, and so I gave it my own twist -  not talking about problems because it wouldn't make any difference (the lie), but accepting all manner of substandard behavior because I knew that I couldn't be perfect, so (unlike her) I wouldn't X people out of my life just because they weren't ideal.
Oh boy, were they ever so very far from ideal 

All of that rolls right into this part which you wrote:  "being so empathetic to others and so understanding of others that I didn't develop let alone tune into my voice"


And this:  I really like what Dr. G says about his purpose is not to "fix" others but to help them "find" who they are

Me, too!!

The most my mother has ever communicated with me has always been from the theme of "fixing" me... drilling me with questions, setting my dad up to repair stuff around my house which she has deemed substandard, etc, etc, etc, in every realm of my life.

Thank you so much Besee for pulling some more of this together for me.

Love,
Carolyn

P.S.  to Amber... I am thinking that you will likely not be back on till tomorrow and so I've not addressed your post yet... plus I know there's been so much added here and you were still processing alot of it...
anyhow, I think you're like me in that way... take it as it comes and there's no need to rush.
Yesterday I got a long email from one daughter along with a snail-mail letter (10 pages!!) from same daughter...
well, I replied to the email first and saved even reading her hand written letter till the end of the night and began my own hand written reply today. Savoring it, you know?  Hugs!

[Certain Hope]

Ah bless (((((( Carolyn ))))))

enjoy that lovely long letter from your dear daughter.

love, leah

Thank you, dear (((((((Leah)))))))))      She will be 21 soon... and a momma herself shortly thereafter... to a little girl of her own! And.... she loves me!!   

Bless you, too, dear Sister,

Carolyn

[Hopalong]

I wonder how N'ish that is of me, Besee, to not have that hole in my heart for her.

Carolyn,
I don't think it's Nish at all. I don't think having a punctured heart, chronic pain, makes one good...

You loved your mother, you probably still do.

I don't know if it's the same...but I feel absolutely NO longing any longer for mother-love. From my mother, or from anyone.

I do long for love at times. But it's more, just sometimes I need a "dose of love."

And I'm surrounded with love sources. Even here.
For me the change has been not having a specific target for that need. (I do miss having a man sometimes.)

Husbands didn't work. Neither mother. Definitely not big brother. Sometimes not child.

I'm left to look at the world more generally. And I see a lot of love around me.

love,
Hops

[Certain Hope]

Thank you, dear Leah... I wish they weren't so many miles distant, but we know how mysterious and wonderful are the ways of our Lord!     There is talk of them moving southward, so we shall see...

Dear Besee, my youngest and only son just turned 12 years... and he is still my sweetheart, full of hugs and special talks at home (and a slightly gruffer "hey, Mom" while at school... lol). This boy is... a most special lesson to me, from conception.
I did not want another child then. I was 35 and it was a most awful, inopportune time in my family... with me separating from my husband almost immediately after his birth. In all honesty, I have faced within myself and confessed only to my Lord and one other, that there was a time early on, while carrying this baby, that I wished he would not be born. God protected him... this I know... from my own selfishness... and although I have received His forgiveness, I can and will never forget that of which I am capable, apart from His grace.

Love,
Carolyn 

[Certain Hope]

Amber,

I'll be watching for your next pop...
me, I'm doing more of a slow crawl over here, but I can feel the processing, even in low gear.
I know that this is helping, just sometimes it doesn't feel so great.

I need to ponder on what you've said here about anger and resentment, expressed in a way I've never before heard.

And this:

"I'm not sure what the experts say about identity at that age, but from what I remember my feelings WERE me.
Effectively: I was not permitted."

Exactly. My circumstances were tame - no major traumatic incidents - yet that was the bottom line as I recall. I was not permitted... to be.


I don't know what must transpire in order to allow for an interruption of that closed system you describe, but I definitely can relate to having felt that way... as though there were this continuous loop of emotional activity within me, totally outside of my own control and not subject to my conscious will. Very strange. Makes me think of having the hiccups and needing... what, a scare? to snap out of it.

What your T said about not forcing your quit makes good sense to me. If your ornery as I am, you absolutely must be ready to stop and thoroughly committed to it.

I'm hung up on so many aspects of this thread that I think going back to the beginning and re-reading sounds great.

Thanks for keeping the ball rolling here, Amber. I think there's so very much potential here, for learning and growth... I'm just really struggling to maintain focus. Lots of loose threads... don't want to tug on the wrong one and unravel the bit of work that's already shaping up.

Love,
Carolyn

 

[Hopalong]

Hi Carolyn,
I just reread this thread and am worried that I said something hurtful.

Then I realized I wouldn't know w/o asking, so let me say, I hope not, dear woman.

THEN I had a shocking thought about myself.

It's not just that I don't long for a mother's love any more, I think the truth is that except in a very detached universal way, I don't love my mother any more. At least not in the way that you love someone you actually interact with.

I interact compassionately. But it's like my shell takes care of her shell.

I am a little shocked to realize how much I have removed myself, internally. And maybe a little worried.

love,
Hops

[Certain Hope]

(((((((Hops)))))))  I almost typed to you a few minutes ago here, but didn't know how to express...

but I'll try...

I didn't believe that you have no longing for a mother's love... and of course I know that speaks more of where my head and heart are, than yours.

And also... you said that I loved my mother and probably still do...
and I'm not so sure.
I needed her, I tried to get her to love me, at least for awhile, I feared her, but love? Not as I know it now.

I had all of the above typed up in lengthier form when I posted to Amber, but the extra words didn't help it to make any more sense, so I deleted it.

Umm... I think we're on the same wavelength... and there's alot more to it.

Thank you, dear Hops.

Love to you,
Carolyn

P.S. on edit...

Hops, I believe that you give to others that which you long to receive for yourself. I believe that's what I do, too.
That's why I doubted what you said about not desiring a mother's love, because what I feel from you is just exactly that sort of love, as I imagine it should be and as I offer to my own children.

I've read enough stuff on this board tonight to see that you are being put through a wringer and now I'm sorry I didn't just say,
"oh no, of course you didn't hurt me, Hops" and leave it at that... it woulda been the truth.
Please remember though... you don't have to jump through any hoops for me, so if you'd rather let this lie for now, or for good, that's fine.
If I'd been receiving just a portion of what I see you getting here, I'd be exhausted.

I love you, Hops.

Carolyn

[Hopalong]

Amber,
Is there any way you can report the rape?
Without dragging yourself through someone you don't want to go through?
Just get it on record somewhere?

Damn him.

love to you,
Hops

[Hopalong]

You are very clear, Amber.
You know exactly where your healing lies.

Bravo,
Hops

[Certain Hope]

Certain Hope
 

yet the disappointment and sense of disappearing, however briefly, is still disconcerting.

((((((Carolyn)  I relate, just recently over something so minor I did that - and it is so quick, I was wondering if there is a space and what I can tune into between someone saying something I perceive as invalidating and my disappearing

there was a comment somewhere on the board about "navel gazing" - well since my "navel" disappears, I'm going to gaze and figure out why and if it something I can change and perhaps improve my life I'll sincerely try, before I just doormatingly accept

with love, besee

(((((((((((((Besee))))))))))))) That's it... yes!!!... me, too.  There's nothing self-centered or self-involved about it, really... more like trying to pin the tail on the donkey, blindfolded, while trying to stand still on a slippery slope after being spun around 20 or so times...

Exactly how I feel at times... and so, I'll be right alongside you gazing away!!

Thank you so much, dear Besee for your posts here. For me, there's no space or time in that disconnect... it's just *poof* and I'm gone. Sometimes I don't realize it till I see the questioning look on the other person's face (if that person is aware enough to notice)... which makes me wonder - what do you suppose our facial expression is when that happens? Blank? Sure feels like being instantly transported to another place and time.
I experienced it again today and wanted to run, but couldn't at the time. Within 5 minutes, I'd recovered... and not just enough recovery to smile and go on, but more than that, I was able to speak up and ask for what it was I'd feared was going to be denied me (some extra work coming up next week). It's unusual for me to be so direct in the face of what I'd sensed was some pretty heavy invalidation, but at least this time - after a few minutes - I was able to recognize that part of what I'd sensed may be more of a flashback than reality.
Maybe those times will become fewer and farther between... for both of us! I sure hope so. But for a bit there, I was a little child again, hanging my head and feeling very much all alone.

Love to you,
Carolyn



Dear Amber,


About this...
"And the words actually came out her mouth that she needs to teach them that being mad doesn't pay."

I wonder whether she really means, "letting someone else know that you're mad doesn't pay."

She probably doesn't recognize that resentment is a fruit of anger, not just an alternative to it.

This just struck me as strange, too... It's like she's not saying anger is wrong or immoral or unpleasant even... just that it doesn't achieve the desired results... doesn't pay.

This rang my bell, because my mother would rather shun you than to discuss her anger or attempt to resolve a conflict.
It's all about control! Resentment prolongs control as long as it causes suffering to the person against whom the grudge is held... now there's a bitter payoff

As always, I'm following along with you here, Amber and appreciating your sharing. Some things connect at a level where I have no words, but please know that you are making an enormous difference here... and I'll be rejoicing with you when (not if, but when) you resolve all of these things.

Love to you and hugs,
Carolyn