Amber,
How true that is being an adult and a child and it still continues.
I often wondered if I had not used self sabotage to keep myself in the twisted familiar place how different my life would have been. I would have worked at school, made such different choices.......... so many of my choices have been made out of fear. Marrying the man I did, staying with a crazy N all because I was so scared nobody would want me. Abuse had to be better than nothing! I became an expert in making others feel good. I can/used to be very funny and this was my strategy, I could make others laugh so that they felt good, usually at my own expense, or soothed them so they felt ok in the crazy hope they would recipricate. Sounds like we, both, were very good at abandoning ourselves, just as our mothers had abandoned us, to care for the other.
But you know something Amber, I am a fighter. I give up, abandon myself but before I get to the edge I fight back. I don't know where this comes from. We are alive and that to me seems like quite an accomplishment. So often I came so close to giving up on life and I don't know what kept me from doing so. I know after my children were born it was because I felt I could not burden them with such an act but that has changed for me. I am now alive for me. I too am making progress but it is hard, hard work and all because of childhood abuse. I hate that I take my mother's place in my life and misuse me, abuse me but I am getting better. I see great changes but am shocked when this all comes up and hits me again. I so wish to be through all of this and sometimes wonder is it possible ever to really recover from the "training" of childhood.
Fear of success, protecting someone ELSE'S feelings... protecting myself from ego-injury for DARING to be good at something; succeeding... all contributed to a temporary lapse in the middle of this week, this quit for me. I explained - finally - the feeling I had... the feeling that pushes me inexorably toward a smoke:
and I finally nailed it down: that feeling was the almost total boundary violation of a magnitude that was enough for Twiggy to willingly go hide in my unconscious self. Where my SELF was totally violated by my mother's intent to control me, what I thought, what I felt, for her own convenience. That is the tidal wave that washed "me" away... that is the feeling that can only be calmed with smoking...
And it does calm and soothe and takes away the demons for that short period. No wonder it is so addictive, it is so much more than nicotine, I believe. I understand the terror. My goodness what would happen if we were happy, successful........ I can stay with these feelings for short periods but the discomfort and fear that arises if they go on. Well, I learned not to trust those feelings, there was always payment, usually in the form of extreme physical abuse. So better not feel good because it followed that something really bad was going to happen, as sure as night followed day. DO NOT TRUST ANYTHING GOOD it is only a ploy to lull one into a place which will be shattered, best to not feel those feelings then the bad parts don't feel so bad. Stay low and careful, stay away from the pain, disguise it, feed it, smother it in smoke and then there is the quiet of feeling nothing - the relief of being frozen, the ease of non-feeling, the half life place.
One way I'm getting through the first days of quitting is to "not eat"... to "not need" anything for x amount of time... as practice. Feeling comfortable just the way I am - and at the first sign of discomfort, to take a minute or two to ground myself back in my body which relieves panic, stress, fear, anxiety.... it reminds me that I'm SAFE in my own skin. I can't - and apparently don't need NRT. The 3-4 days I managed from last Friday were painless and easy. Yes, I thought about cigarettes - hubby was still smoking then - but it absolutely didn't bother me to not smoke; no meltdowns, I functioned just fine after the 1st day's brain buzzing. Yes, I smoked while working on this trigger... and today I'm "not smoking" again - and this time, it's even easier - no brain buzz.
If I didn't practice not eating - I wouldn't stop eating all day long.... at least the first few days of no nicotiine!
[/quote] Well done, let us practice.
Axa xxx
