Inordinate need to connect

[Gaining Strength]

I have an inordinate need to connect with others.  Today I have actually wasted by sitting at my computer trying to connect.  Each and every moment I shut it down I could not leave. As I look back at my life I see how powerful this need is.  Of course it goes back to my early childhood need and impossibility of connecting within my family.  The pain is indescribable but I have locked myself into repeating the same pattern over and over rather than reformulating.  I am locked into a vision or out of a vision. 

I know what I am doing and I know the way out.  But I am resistant.  I see parallels with PRs smoking.  It is bad for me (supreme  understatement).  It is self-sabotage.  I am at a dead-end in a maze and angry about it.  But rather than turn around and try another route I am going to keep bumping into this wall. 

If I turn around "they" will laugh at me and make fun of me for not getting through this wall. They were able too. 

No they weren't.  It is all smoke and mirrors.  I am not yet willing to give up the need, desire to be included among them.  I thought I was but I am not.  I must walk that lonely path and BELIEVE.  I thought I believed but I haven't yet.  I thought I had courage to face the darkness.  I haven't yet.  But insanely the darkness to be faced is so brief and leads to such bright light. 

I am angry still - thought tired indeed of my anger.  Help my through.  I don't want to go alone.  But until I do, I will always be alone.  This is the hardest pain I have pushed through.  Please don't abandon me.  I hate to be left alone.  It is up to me but I don't want it to be.  And so I bump up against the same dead-end.

It's time to chose.

[sKePTiKal]

(damn; some tech blip lost my post)

GS:

it's a basic human need to desire this connection - caring and being cared for. We learn this is what parents are supposed to be like.

Mine weren't; yours weren't either. That fact - that our parents were "less than" - doesn't make the desire go away, because the desire is almost hard-wired into our genetics. Even when we continue to suffer from contact with these people.

So what do we do? One thing is simply ACCEPT the desire - it's rational, normal, a basic human need. Even though the fact of who the parents ARE would seem to contradict that.

Another is simply find a substitute - other close, strong connections with people. (This is easier said than done, sometimes...) Strengthening/deepening other relationships can shift the focus of desire... weakens the "hold" the desire to be included in your parent's world has over you.

And I'm here to tell ya, this is one path you ain't walking alone, kiddo.... I think everyone here had to face to this one at one point or another.

[Gaining Strength]

Thank you PR.  I am seeing a contentiousness within me.  A need to fight those same folks, to continue to react to them.  There are times when I actually feel free from this repetitive struggle and then before I know it, it has sneakily returned with a vengeance.

Susbtitution is very important.  I do believe I can create it in my mind.  We will see.

[Gaining Strength]

I found that posting here was extremely helpful.  I was able to lift myself out of the dregs.

I am working to retrain my brain.  One of the hurdles to this is identifying when I have slipped into that mindset that I developed as a child of my parents.  Once I get it I am able to use the Schwartz 4 Steps to move out. I refer to my "resistance" as my "OCD" for the purposes of Schwartz' 4 Steps.  It is a kind of OCD bt rather than cumpulsive behavior it is compulsive non-behavior.  Kind of odd. 

[Gaining Strength]

I made another important although obvious connection with this yesterday evening.  All of this goes to the self-hatred that developed directly from the projection in childhood.  There is an expectation of condemnation that is wholly separate from the condemnation.  The expectation has its own set of emotions and reactions.

When this stuff comes up in a way that is separate from the intellectual understanding then it becomes ready for process and, I pray, for release.

The stuff is definitely coming up.  The profound loneliness from earliest days is pushing up now.  Loneliness is swirling with self-hatred.  Bad combination.  Damped by suppressed anger/rage turned inward.  Lightening rod for anger and controversy and hostility.

[sKePTiKal]

I don't know if this will be helpful or not; it made a big difference for me.

I realized somewhere along the way on the self-sabotage thread that a projection is just a projection... a light-show of images that AREN'T REAL (or in this case, beliefs - attitudes - emotions) and that, since it wasn't ME.... I didn't even have to deal with it.

All I needed to do was separate what was me - my emotions, beliefs, habits and attitudes about myself - from what was projected into/onto me. Create a mental/emotional boundary between me and the projection, in other words. I have to own what's mine (like the smoking)... but the other stuff? that's not really me/mine? Nope; I don't even have to pay any attention to it. And the LESS attention I pay it, the LESS significance I attach to it... the less it affects me and that gives me more time, energy, and clear thinking to address the stuff I do own.

Admittedly, this is an intellectual construct (and probably self-deception - but what the hell, if it works, ya know). And for sure, it's still a work in progress... separating me from the projection... but I've had amazing relief from the torment, the overwhelming emotions, I feel in control of me - and yes, even the habits - than I've been able to achieve even as recently as last month.

It does mean that I have to listen closely to my thoughts - and even my feelings - for what is really me and what is just the familiar projection that - for so long - I thought was me. A lot of the discomfort and anger/rage I experienced was generated, I believe, as unconscious resistance against the projected self-iimage/emotions. The inner self saying - hey wait just one minute!! THAT'S not me! How DARE YOU?! Can't you SEE who I am?????

Well, no. The person projecting doesn't even KNOW they are doing this; they can't see anyone else because their reality is filled up with the thing that has to be "gotten rid of"... something that can't be accepted as themselves. As if this "something" is a tarantula that they're plucking off and they don't really care (or are aware of) where it lands - just as long as it's NOT on them. They'll never take it back - they're just so relieved that someone else "owns" the tarantula.

Something I'm just starting to see, is that it's not really a tarantula. It's just a fuzzy pom-pom. Harmless, but still fear-inducing. But, I'm not all the way there yet.

In my case, I'd been raised without the basic boundary of [ME: not you]. I've been working on boundaries for a year or two now. It was STILL a freeing, surprising revelation to know that I could create a boundary between the "real me" and what I was told I was and what was projected onto me. And that the territory I claimed as "me" - or could claim - was a lot more extensive, verdant, and valuable than I originally thought.

[Gaining Strength]

Finding earliest life need to respond to father's projected contempt and alienation by living into that so that I could connect with him.  Self-contempt, self-sabotage part of survival need to reach father who wanted nothing to do with me out of his own self-hatred and need to hate his own mother so that he could connect with his vile, hatefilled woman-hating father. 

had to post that stuff to get it OUT before I read your post PR.  I do get what you write about recognizing that projection is just that and does not belong to you.  You are definitely a step ahead of me.  I must get the emotional connection out there.  I've got the intellectual part and now the emotional part is emerging and THEN I expect I can call it by name and separate myself.

Thank you as always your work and your thoughts are very helpful.

REcognize that I have been living into the rejection.  Rejection means: isolation, poverty, loss, junked house, cheap clothes, depression

[sKePTiKal]

Finding earliest life need to respond to father's projected contempt and alienation by living into that so that I could connect with him.  Self-contempt, self-sabotage part of survival need to reach father who wanted nothing to do with me out of his own self-hatred and need to hate his own mother so that he could connect with his vile, hatefilled woman-hating father. 

OY! This sounds so painful... just trying to find a way to help.

[gjazz]

GS: I do understand this.  Hope you are better today (haven't been on for a couple).  I'm in the middle of writing my first novel and this is a theme of sorts, so I'm going back through it daily.  I find that helpful, if only to delve deeply into what I can remember now, as an adult, and be amazed at how I could ever have thought I was the worthless one.  I still do, of course. All the time.  But at least my head, if not my heart, as embraced the truth.  Now it just needs to filter down.  Hang in there.  You can do it.  You're facing it head on and taking responsibility and that's the surest path, I believe, to a healthier self-image.

[Gaining Strength]

OY! This sounds so painful... just trying to find a way to help.

LOL - It certainly is!!! but it is not nearly so bad is living in the constant yuck of life resulting from the dark stuff.  Actually you do help - all of the time - by reading - responding - posting about your journey.  Today I had to put this stuff down here.  It helps so much. 

It completely takes away the loneliness and powerlessness by sharing with people who will be supportive.  The value of that is IMMEASURABLE!!!

Gjazz - I am so glad to hear that you are writing a novel.  There is a profound need for a novel and a movie that accurately depicts life growing up with N parents.  I imagine it would help scores of people who haven't reallized what hit them.  I salute you.

[gjazz]

GS:  Well, yes, I write it when I can.  I do have a couple agents who have asked for the first 100 pages so that's good news.  There is an N element--not sure I could write an entire narrative and have none, because it has been so much a part of my life experience--but the plot goes a bit beyond that too, I hope.  We shall see!  In the two years it'll probably take me to finish it, that is.