Ingredients For Healing

[Gabben]

Ami and Hops,

Thank you both for your feedback, it was helpful.

Hops I agree with Ami in that my reality was that I really know in my soul that the NT's goal was to have be shunned and rejected by others, it is a bit crazy making to dismiss that reality and that pain, it is invalidating. Hops, I do appreciate your support for my desire to extend forgiveness. It may seem that I am being obsessive about her but for the last year I put the NT out of my thoughts and heart, I had moved on to other things, healed some and let go, but, recently, some more of this pain came up, that is partially why I came back to the board to heal this last bit of woundedness from her so that I can move on, again. I am now ready for it to be finished but rarely have I had anyone in the process, except those here and my SD, validate her abuse and the trauma of what it is like to have been abused by an NM and then abused by an NT. The wounds take time to heal, I have tried to keep them private as much as possible, to just forgive and heal.

Ami -

I think you are hurting yourself MORE by your high standards for the NT, for example. I don't think God wants you, right now, to be the vehicle to heal someone who has hurt you SO badly.

This is a thought that I struggle with, I have been trying to discern, carefully how to handle this. I've been praying my heart out but little has come to me except to just be patient and to keep taking the time to heal my own wounds.

The bright side, like I said before, is that I wish her in my heart, automatically without having to work for it, no harm. It feels good to have come this far.

Thank you for reminding me and validating for me just how messed up we get growing up with and NM when so few people can understand. I awoke this morning realizing that I still need a lot of time to heal, the little voice in me that is my child, so wounded and hurting got happy in hearing me acknowledge her pain and my commitment to her to not force her to do anything that will re-injure me when I am already so fragile.

Thank you both!

Lise

[Ami]

 Lise, Thank you for letting me share my heart with you . It is an honor!         Ami

[Gabben]

Hops and Ami - thank you for allowing me to share my heart with you, it is an honor for me as well.

Our little hearts were so messed up, having others to share in those wounds has made such a big difference for me.

[sKePTiKal]

This is exactly how I gave Ns such great power in my life. When I had self-narratives riddled with assumptions about another's goals or motives, I never said to myself, I don't actually know that. Never took them at face value or set boundaries based on behavior only (which I now think is healthier) -- I always added to my own thinking a fantasy narrative of what they were thinking, what is deep in their hearts, what their "real goal" is. And I've come to believe that I really do not know. I cannot know. It's not even my place to know.

Thank you for saying this Hops. I still do this, too. Bad habit, really... and no matter how deeply we've been hurt by someone's horrible behavior... the fact is, we can never really deduce the "why". Our explanations of "why" are based on normal people... but the people who hurt us are NOT NORMAL - and there's no way possible we can bend ourselves into understanding their insane reality. Better for me, to say, that they are permitted to believe the reality they see... and I will subscribe to my own.

Thank you.

[Ami]

I think the MAIN point is I have to trust myself.  It doesn't matter what anyone else says, if I percieve it, I trust it.This goes for N's as well as everything else.      Ami

[Gabben]

I think the MAIN point is I have to trust myself.  It doesn't matter what anyone else says, if I perceive it, I trust it.This goes for N's as well as everything else.      Ami

Me too, my perception of reality were so distorted by my NM, it took years for me to see what a dysfunctional mess my upbringing was. If my heart and gut are consistently telling me something then I need to listen to that voice, I need to honor that voice. It does not mean that I have to fill in the blanks of what information I do not have with my own perceptions but to just trust what is in my gut is there, as Hops said, "heed the red flags."

[Gabben]

Ami - do you remember the story of how my mom had me arrested and put in jail when I was fifteen because she thought that I had tried to physically assult her?

My mom used to physically assult me, I never ever have been physically violent towards her, but she used to pull my hair and slap me even as a teenager. So when I was the one put in juvy for hitting her is was traumatic. The counselors at juvy would not listen to me when I tried to tell them the truth, they just dismissed me as the "one with the issues" because my mom could be so acting of a good mom in front of others. It was crazy making for me. Healing those painful memories happened two years ago, they were some of the ones triggered.

Over the years my mom has recovered some and eventually she acknowledge what she did and how much that hurt me. She has wept over it.

But that is just one example of the crazy making that N's do calling me the abuser when in fact it was HER that was abusing me. I was so trained out of fear by my mom to stay silent and voiceless that I rarely ever spoke back to her, I just took her assaults. Learning to trust my perceptions is still a challenge simply because I had a mom that told me that what I was feeling and thinking was not what I was feeling and thinking as well as she continually projected her own disordered self into me. She was very suspicious of everything I did and nothing I could do in school was ever enough for her. She used to harp on me about my weight even though I was always tiny, she was overweight and unhappy with herself. She used to tell me that she had spies at my high school who were watching me and what I ate. I knew that she was lying- it was still crazy making stuff though, you go to school not thinking about trying to do well but rather wondering who is watching you. We are already so self conscious at that age.

[Ami]

I remember ,Lise. You have inherent strength.  You survived a war. It was more than most people could endure. Those who don't understand have no right to judge. Have they walked in our shoes?
                        Ami

 

[Ami]

Have so much to say but can't form words.            XXXOOO  Ami

[Hopalong]

Got it, Lise...glad parts of it were helpful, and I understand what you meant about needing not to be invalidated. Thanks for teasing apart the helpful and unhelpful. You did that generously.

Ami, I don't know whether I have a pattern of sanitizing reality and invalidating people or not, but perhaps you're right. To me, it's not my MO, but I hear that it felt that way to you. For now, I'm going to leave old conflicts be.

Amber, thanks for your openness.

Lise, this has been a thread I was really able to float far in. Thank you.

Hops

[Ami]

 Hops,I think this thread turned out healthily, no worries.          Ami

[Gabben]

Ami, I don't know whether I have a pattern of sanitizing reality and invalidating people or not, but perhaps you're right. To me, it's not my MO, but I hear that it felt that way to you. For now, I'm going to leave old conflicts be.

Hops -- I love your star quality of humility and openness.

[Gabben]

I remember ,Lise. You have inherent strength.  You survived a war. It was more than most people could endure. Those who don't understand have no right to judge. Have they walked in our shoes?
                        Ami

Ami, thank you for being even if it was just to write out these memories. The teenager in me that was so squished by my mom's N behavior was able to tell me more of her pain about what is was like for her and just how much she hurt in those years when my mom was acting in her worst Nish states.

A couple of years ago these memories surfaced; I recall at that time that I was already in so much pain and in between counselors because of the NT and the slander. This board was one of the only sources for me to go to write out the story and see it, own the pain and allow myself the tears. My heart was burning, the tears that seemed endless were hot tears that felt so releasing.

Yesterday I had another one of those hot tears release around these memories; I feel better today. It feels as if I was able to scrape the residual layers of pain in my heart around that traumatic period in my life, there was so much grief, such as losing my family, watching all fall to pieces, losing my childhood dreams, losing so much that I never got to fully embrace that grief. All happend so quickly as trauma usually does.

Today will be a better day; rest, enjoying the sunshine and just staying with my wounded heart.

Peace,
Lise