Hi Anna,
I hear you and understand what you are saying. I've felt everything you've written about in your post.
I have to say that understanding shame and how it works is more than an intellectual exercise. What I mean is, because we lost our voice in childhoood and have been made to feel ashamed as a result of this robbery we have to check our perceptions. In N families it is my impression that these perceptions were toyed with constantly and unashamedly by our parents. We have doubted ourselves, been trained if you will to not recognize and distinguish between a thought and a feeling.
In my family, my feelings didn't matter. They were inferior to my parents' feelings..they could have them( feelings, needs, sensations) and I had to give them value. The more I look at it, it seems to me that they hi-jacked my voice. They used my voice, what little I had, for themselves.
When I first went to therapy, as a result of disagreable "feelings" , generalized "malaise", feeling like I was stuck in a rut, unable to go forward, being controlled, not counting , in the service of others, neglecting myself, a faux brother Theresa...I felt shame at not amounting to much. This was a carry-over into adulthood of my training by N parents, who forever expected me to be at their service, at their beck and call..they mattered and I didn't. When I found this website, i was astonished and very happy that Dr.Grossman had found a word, ONE WORD, that summed up everything i was feeling and everything I had become as a result of being brought up in an Nenvironment ( with alcohol abuse, depression etc. added to the lot).
VOICELESSNESS: it summed up everything. For me it was the missing link. I understand it, I acknowledge and own my experience with it. I'm also living with the consequences of getting it back.
One thing I learned, and I think is what I originally wanted to share in this post, ( sorry for getting carried away) with you. Remember, as children of voicelessness, many of us have become articulate, smart, performance oriented in an attempt to get some kind of recognition, some kind of voice. If I don't have a healthy life, i used to think, at least I have a superb intellect..I have learned in therapy that my intellect and my abilities to " understand and comprehend" were very much defense mechanisms as well. If I can regurgitate a concept with the right language, reassemble a "model" and demonstrate my comprehension of it then I can use it. And therein lies the trap. When I got hung up on the lingo, I would slip into not feeling again..I would unconsciously avoid something major by intellectualizing.
I think it is important to feel. Really feel, stop and think, absorb my reality, and share it with others. This has been made difficult at times because whenever I felt I was rambling on, I would accuse myself of being Narcissistic..until I permitted myself to exist on the healthy side of narcissism. I must constantly remind myself that dysfunction is a question of degree.
Having been brought up in a crazy N family, i lived a life of extremes. Extreme disappointment, extreme pain, extreme fun, extreme deception, an all or nothing existence. That is very tiring.
When I read an article by Dr. Grossman, I get all calm, it feels so strange to me to imagine someone calmly exposing and explaining something. I'm so used to raging accusations, and blame and shame, and loathing myself. I don't get all enthralled with the vocabulary anymore..don't need to.
And, coming to this board and sharing and reading everyone is more than validating and it provides comfort. Knowing that we're not alone in this is precious.
This is why I want to thank you Anna for sharing with me/us; and I want to welcome you and encourage you to write and talk and express yourself. I like to think of this place as a haven, where our souls can rest. As CC ( i think) put it ,a pit stop, where we can catch our breath before going back to fighting our battles with the Ns in our lives..or the alcoholics, or the histrionics or the depressed and and and..
I understand that "voice" can be lost as a result of many things..not necessarily Ns..although they are very skilled at this, as my parents were.
I guess there is understanding and then changing and then integrating these new discoveries into our lives in order to go on. We're here to live darn it!
Kind regards,
Nic
