Fear of being vulnerable

[Ami]

Dear James,
 I think emptying out the pain is just our way of seeing the lies and distortions.It is the first step to healing(IMO). It is hard and you feel really vulnerable,but there is no way around it,I think,
 We must SEE that the lies we thought were true ,about ourselves, ARE,in fact ,lies, such as we were "bad", flawed,etc.
 When we expose the lies to the light,by sharing them, we see them as lies and can let them go.    Love     Ami

[James]

Ami.......I think you are exactly right. I know thats what i have been trying to do in therapy and when i am successful it makes a big difference in how i feel about myself...........James

[Ami]

Dear James,
 I was thinking about the Bible verse,"Train a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from it." This refers to teaching a child about God. However, I bet that you could apply it to learning anything, as children.'
 What we learn as children just seems "true". It gets hard wired ,to some degree. I think it is not hard wired ,in that you cannot change it,but that it is resistant to change.
 The things we learned as kids just "seem" true, in a deep, almost "cellular" way.
 I know that when I talk to my Aunt, she feels "good" about herself,in a cellular way. She feels she is OK. She accepts "bad" parts of herself as "human",not "bad"(my struggle -bleh.)
 She really feels  she is OK, at a deep level.
 My M feels like she is NOT OK, at a deep level.
 That deep level is the key. We cannot perfume over a swamp.
 I see that. I think that many therapies perfume over the problem.
I can see ,with me, that as I heal the inside, the outside takes care of itself.
 As I heal my core, I don't feel so afraid of the big,bad world. *I* can handle myself ,in the big,bad world, if I connect with my core.
 I have been afraid of traveling. As I heal, I think I will simply just be able to travel, without a lot of fuss or effort. I think I will just do it b/c the root reasons will be healed . The fears are the tops of the plant. The root contains the 'real" problem and real solution.
 I believe we CAN heal . No one is too far away to heal, too damaged to heal. My dear friend showed me that last night.
 I think that we, as "damaged' humans, can heal if we have some basic ingredients such as love , truth and faith. Then, we can go to the cellular level and rewrite the program.
 James, you are so precious to me, like my son Scott. I could not see how much he was in distress. I was in denial. He seemed to function so well.  He did '"tell" me, but I did not "hear".To the very last, he was the sweetest person. I see him kissing me good -bye and going off to school ,on the morning of his death.He saw the lies ,as truth and they were such, big lies. He was worth so much. So many people loved him. I think of all the people at his funeral, high school friends, junior high friends, teachers,  parents of other kids who talked about his smile.What a waste. It was ALL lies and our problem is believing lies, too.
 I am SO glad you are reaching out ,James. Reaching out is health, dear friend.      Love  Ami

((((((((James)))))))

[James]

Ami...it is the lies and illusions that makes us sick as adults but we needed these to survive in childhood. It does seem hardwired but i agree w/you that it can be changed and for me this means going back and finding out what really happened and how i felt. It's amazing when i find feelings that have been suppressed for years and see the effects they had on my life. I seem to change almost automatically when these surface, although i am impatient and the slowness of the process frustrates me to no end. I am curious about something. Your mom and her sister grew up in the same family? have you ever wondered why they are so different. What happened to make your mom N and your aunt "loving"? I have noticed a real difference in my mom and her sister and i am just beginning to understand why.......James

[Ami]

Dear James,
 I have a joke that my Aunt was taken up by aliens, raised and sent back. My M(the oldest) and the Brother(youngest) are screwed up ,but my M is the worst.
 My Aunt views her life totally differently than my M. My Aunt is two years younger. I used to yearn for my Aunt tp be my M. . I used to have recurrent dreams that I was running by her house and it was  warm and cozy,but I was not allowed to come in. I was running(usually ,in the rain--bleh) to my house which was cold, dark and usually locked(lol)
 My M told me that she(my M) was very, very jealous of my Aunt and my M's problems were from that. I don't know,but  I am sure my M was shamed for her feelings by my GM, who did not understand about feelings.
 My M has always had a pathological jeaousy toward her sister, which she told me that she played out on me, even calling me her sisters name.
 I don't think my M had major abuse to become an N. Her M was perfectionistic and I am sure shamed her, but maybe it was hatred of her sister.
 What about your M and her sister, James?                     Love   Ami

[James]

Ami......my mom was the oldest and was expected by her working parents to run the house from a very early age and she was abused in essence by the nature of this unfair demand. She was robbed of her true self and doesn't know it. She had to raise her little sister too as it was expected by her parents. My aunt was a "nut". She was spoiled rotten by my grandparents . Given everything, while my mom got very little. Of course this spoiling is very abusive in itself and once again her true self was denied. My aunt died fairly young a few yrs ago from ovarian cancer. It was sad to watch her the last 10 yrs of her life. Her mental illness consumed her and everyone else around. My aunt was very jealous of my mom and wanted everything she envied her for. It tore the families apart. She definetly had a major personality disorder of some sort. A lot of drama and theatrics. They were so dysfunctional i never wished i could live with them just visiting was more than enough exposure for me. I would actually be sick to my stomach almost the whole time i was around both families.....James

[Ami]

Dear James,
 Do you have stomach problems related to emotions?  I do . Our "gut" instinct had to be shut down in our families. I have to try to handle emotions ,without having physical problems, connected with them.     Love    Ami

[gjazz]

I relate to fear of being vulnerable and fear of emotions, but I think James said something worth repeating earlier in this thread, which is (I paraphrase) it's good to feel bad, in that it's better than feeling nothing.  Lately I have been very unhappy--I have a project I can't seem to make right, and like all my projects it's mine alone, there's no team, so it's mine to succeed of fail, and I feel like a total abject failure.  I'm exhausted by it, and I've tried it every which way but loose, and I feel like I cannot do it, and thus my whole life is a waste and over and yadda yadda.  So today I just couldn't help it, I sat at my computer and sobbed.  My keyboard was a total mess, sopped.  But actually, in the end, it felt OK.  I mean, it balanced me a little to let some of it out.  I've been trying not to cry for days and immediately felt better--not good, but better--when I just said, Fine, Let it go.

[James]

Ami....i have and still do have a lot of feelings registering in my gut at times with a feeling of nausea .    Gjazz....Sorry your project has been so trying for you. Do you think it was triggering old childhood memories?.............James

[gjazz]

I don't know about childhood memories, it has more to do with lifelong patterns in the way I think, undermine myself, fail to follow through.  I get a great start then cannot finish.  I think, Ah, this is IT, perfect, then a few days later I hate it all and toss it out and start over.  It's thinking it's never good enough, nothing I do is ever good enough.  That's what gets to me.  I always think what I do is total crap.

[Ami]

Dear Gjazz,
 The first step to healing is identifying the problem  and you are doing that. You are expressing it, which is the second step(in my way of healing, anyway).
 I am really happy that you are sharing some of your deep ,troublesome  patterns. I think you will find the way out, I am so glad you are here, Gjazz. You are  outspoken and honest and I really appreciate your posts.     Love   Ami

((((((((Gjazz)))))))

[gjazz]

Thanks Ami.  I think the boards are good--a helpful thing.  I'm new and just feeling my way but it's nice to feel wanted.  Hope you're doing OK too.  Hanging in there.  Take care.

[Ami]

Yes, Gjazz
 The board is like life--in both good and bad(lol) ways.
  I have made wonderful friends, been given tremendous love and learned how to stand up. You can't beat it!     Love    Ami

[ann3]

James & Ami,

I think you guys are on the right track by looking at our parent's upbringing, our aunts, uncles, grandparents.  We are effected, today, by our relative's upbringing and childhood experiences.  The older generation passes along it's emotional baggage to the younger generation.  So, we carry their baggage and we may not even be aware of it.  Also, the older generation may not be aware that they burdened us with their emotional baggage. 

I think that when we have feelings and we can't figure out what caused those feelings, then we're in the realm of the prior generation's emotional baggage or we feel a feeling that we felt as a child (like the shame and anger we felt when our parents yelled at or criticized us) and we have forgotten the exact incident but we remember the feeling. 

So, we remeber the feeling and we feel the feeling now and today, but we don't know what caused us to feel that feelingnow :was it emotional baggage from prior generation or an incident that occured when we were very young?  So, there's a disconnect between cause & effect of the feeling, but we definately feel the feeling now & today. 

So, I suppose the best thing to do is to trace the cause of this feeling through memory, but that can be painful and may best to do so with a therpist.

(((((((((((((gjazz)))))))))))))  Your parents probably trained you to be a perfectionist (as a way to please them and fulfill their needs), but now, that perfectionism is hurting you.  I been there too.  Please read about Perfectionism.  I don't have a specific source in mind, but search the board or google Perfectionism.

love to you all,
ann

[gjazz]

Ann3: you're right, I've done quite a bit of reading on perfectionism.  It's crippling but my mom actually still speaks of being a perfectionist with pride.  She cannot ever follow through with anything, and hasn't, because no effort is ever good enough--and she thinks that's a good thing!  Oh dear.