Denied, Denied and just frustrated....

[Ami]

Dear (((((Lise))))
 If I had one wish it would be to send you an Enlightened Witness. There are  injuries that heal only with attachment. We have a body  that is where the "little girl" lives. It is not logical and often people reject us when this part comes out.
 It is crying to heal. That is why it keeps coming out.
 I have healed enough to see where you are. You are flailing .You are fighting for breath, for life. It is your fight to live, NOT just survive.
  I think many people want to hear your hearts cry on this Board.
  I do.      Love, Ami
 

[Gabben]

In the muck of the wounds and memories, my day is just pain, crying, carrying my heart with me, eating and sleeping - I am reliving the experience of emotional neglect but instead of neglecting my emotions I am allowing to fully come into my reality, no matter how painful and work thier way through. The pain is excruciating, my heart stabs the pain colors my world black -- I just keep telling myself the way out is through and this too shall pass, even though it does not feel that way, but that is just the black and white thinking of a child in me.

[sKePTiKal]

Lise,

you've spent as much or more time than I have on this "path" we're on. You know about triggers... and how to separate feelings about now from then. You've done everything you were supposed to - and the "system" failed to provide.

YOU didn't fail; the system has. You also didn't "fail" to gets your needs met by your mom - she failed to meet your ordinary infant/child needs. You don't own the responsibility for the wound; you didn't make it hurt - you're just responsible for the healing.

So, on to rays of hope... you are ALSO mothering baby Lise... you've heard her and rocked her to sleep even while crying... every time that you hear and respond you are building that bridge of trust between you now - and you then. Healing the wound and meeting the need. It takes a lot of repetition - a LOT - before infants, toddlers, and small children begin to rely on "mom" being there always... for anything, however small or large or unspeakable. Your baby Lise has been "needing" for longer than normal; it will take an equivalent amount of time to soothe her and teach her you can be relied on. Be patient; she'll surprise you!

The other ray of hope, is that I found that all that "old pain" comes up the most intensely just as I'm attempting to let something go... once and for all... finally. It makes letting go frightful and difficult... and I've retreated from the attempt more than once, thinking OK, maybe there's another way... a safer way... one where I don't have to feel this - YET AGAIN...

for me, I had to turn and face it... state clearly: I know you... and allow it to do it's worst - but this time - I defended myself. And it retreated with it's tail between it's legs. All it takes is once and the "monster" of pain will look for an easier target. Remember last week? Yeah... what my tai chi teacher says about "trying things out" is absolutely true:

nothing bad happened. Twiggy didn't get abandoned again; didn't go away - but the pain about "that" did; for me and for Twiggy. Maybe things will still remind her, from time to time... but now she knows that I will stand between her and the pain, protecting her and chasing the monster off... and then soothe and calm her.

Hey - it's worth a shot! But I think the "moment" has to be present, seriously painful and threatening... real... for this approach to work. It doesn't work for me, to try this on past situations. The old stuff has to be awake and hurting... because of a present situation.

[Gabben]

you are ALSO mothering baby Lise... you've heard her and rocked her to sleep even while crying... every time that you hear and respond you are building that bridge of trust between you now - and you then. Healing the wound and meeting the need. It takes a lot of repetition - a LOT - before infants, toddlers, and small children begin to rely on "mom" being there always... for anything, however small or large or unspeakable. Your baby Lise has been "needing" for longer than normal; it will take an equivalent amount of time to soothe her and teach her you can be relied on. Be patient; she'll surprise you!

The other ray of hope, is that I found that all that "old pain" comes up the most intensely just as I'm attempting to let something go... once and for all... finally. It makes letting go frightful and difficult... and I've retreated from the attempt more than once, thinking OK, maybe there's another way... a safer way... one where I don't have to feel this - YET AGAIN...

Amber...those were some very powerful rays of hope, I almost had to put some sunglasses on  Thanks. I just awoke from a dark night nap in the middle of the day...just letting the stabbing pain move through me as if there was nothing else more important than getting it out, or going through.

You hit the target with rocking myself, the pain is so painful, how many times I write that and say that but in me speaking about the pain, writing about the pain I am bringing back to life the baby Lise; she is coming out of her cave because her voice is not dead, stuck in the darkness of my own self-neglect.

After I awoke from nap land today a word came to me - "precious."  I heard a question in myself asking me to reflect on the word and what it means to me in my life. One dynamic of the N mom is that we are objects, unprecious objects. We are not treated, at least our emotional needs, as precious. That is one of the reasons that I smoke still and the habit has gone from light to extreme -- I am in the wound of what it was like as a child to be treated, my needs, as insignificant.

I thought that I had completed this healing process last spring, I was expecting to begin living a life of levitation and love out of the dysfunction of the darkness that I had been in for over two years as well as most of my life, and then WAM....this layer of baby wounds comes up and grabs me back down into the pit of of stabbing darkness.

One of my happy keep going thoughts is that there is just no way that God brought me this far into the layers of healing to drop me off on some street corner with a brown sign that says..."just give me booze."

Lise

[Ami]

Dear Lise
  Alice Miller says to honor your feelings.Her book "Your Body Never Lies" talks about this. You are doing the right thing. I had many,many dark months when another Board member and I would let each other cry on the phone. It seemed like endless sadness and pain for both of us but it was a beautiful outlet that we provided for each other.
 He went in another direction but I had so many of the days you describe, endless sadness, endless tears, some so deep I could not cry them out.
 I needed another person there b/c the pain was too bad to bear alone.
 If you desire ,pray for God to send you a healing partner. You  let each other experience his own pain and you just stay next to them so they are not alone. I got the repressed memory of my M molesting me when he was on the phone with me. I felt safe enough to see s/thing that was completely lost to my conscious mind. It helped to explain why I had such revulsion to my M as well as such deep insecurity.
  Alice says it is too hard to do alone.
  That has been my experience.
   XXXXOOOOOOO and a Big Hug,    Ami
 

[Gabben]

I put this on another thread but it relates to this pain I am working through so I want to keep it here. I don't want another thread out there, it gets confusing.

Precious
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French precios, from Latin pretiosus, from pretium price — more at price
Date: 13th century
1 : of great value or high price <precious jewels>
2 : highly esteemed or cherished <a precious friend>
3 : excessively refined : affected <precious manners>
4 : great, thoroughgoing <a precious scoundrel>

— pre·cious·ness noun

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I've been instructed to reflect on the word "precious" and what it means to me. My first reaction was one of disdain for the word as it may apply to me. I never felt precious to my parents, my FOO. As a child, the painful memories of objectification, buried deep in the core of my being speak a story to me of neglect. When we do not value something we neglect it, give it no attention, treat it with disdain, refuse it, ignore it. I was not treated this way but my emotional needs were.

Uses of the word "it" here reminds me of a book I once read called A Child Called "It" where the child, boy, was called "it" by his mother, left to sleep in the garage, beaten and starved by his own N mom (his story of abuse went on for years until he was finally removed from his home in junior high) - true story. His case of child abuse was the 3 or 4 worst case child abuse in the history of California (something like that).

Talk about the ultimate in objectification.

I think that my mother looked at a baby as a self-sufficient sort of machine, a doll that just needed to be fed, diapers changed, dressed. As for the rest, know you, all that love, comfort and cuddly adoring stuff my mom was just not emotionally available.

Over the years my sister has watched my mom interact with her children when they were babies; she noticed that our mom could not bond with them, that she treated them like dolls with 3 needs: feeding, cleaning and changing diapers. When they cried she changed them or fed them. She did not know how to interact with them in any other way -- bottom line, lack of empathy.

Healing the loss of being precious to my mom and the attachments to her lack of precious views that I have internalized. There is a guilt and a fear that goes with this letting go.

 
 
 
 

[Ami]

Dear Lise
 There are some words which mean so much. Precious is one.  Tenderness is another. My M was very harsh. These are Mothering words.
 I am feeling mothered now.
 It can happen later in life .
 I never thought it could happen once you missed it the first time.
 The mothering I have gotten is inside me now like a good M's would be.I still need more, of course, but now I know it can happen and that hope is wonderful. I was a hopeless person before.
  I feel precious to a few people, now.Precious is a word of value and esteem. We were not precious to our NM's but we ARE precious ,still.
  I don't want to talk about me excessively.I hope I am giving hope. If not, just tell me. I know it can get annoying when a person goes on about s/thing as I have been.       XXXOOO  Ami
 
 
 
 

[Gabben]

Dear Lise
 There are some words which mean so much. Precious is one.  Tenderness is another. My M was very harsh.

My M was very harsh too. She used to tell me that I was ugly. Sometimes she would call me fatso, sometimes retarded...I could go on. Know one has ever really gave me compassion for these wounds that I am trying to work out. The pain comes and goes in intensity but it is consistant and there, currently. It feels incapacitating and I feel stuck, I need a good cry but I can't get the tears out because of fear and lack of compassion. I am stuck in another tunnel of toxic waste. Praying to God to give me push.

I was able to get up today, cook something, and sleep and write here, that is about it. I  can handle days like this I am just not sure, as you said in another post, that the weak others in my life could handle me in this pain and way of coping or going through.

I want to treat myself as precious. I want to treat myself with gentleness, I want to treat myself in self-repect but I am stuck in something that I am trying to work out, fear or guilt or both...I dunno, I am in grief as well the terror memories of neglect. Ugh....this too shall pass. It is about letting go of the attachment to my mom and the internalization of being harsh to myself in order to survive.

[Ami]

I read that e mail from your M, Lise. I was aghast. I really , really hated her so much. I am sorry but that is how I felt. I never forgot it!
 



PS You just FEEL you are so icky you will drive people away. That is a distortion! It is part of the whole body of distortions the NM throws on us .

[Hopalong]

WAM....this layer of baby wounds comes up and grabs me back down into the pit of of stabbing darkness.

That word..."Precious"...such a loving endearment loving mothers whisper to their babies. Maybe you could hold her, little Lise, going so deeply into the visualization that you feel her tender weight and warmth in your arms, and you and she can float through darkness cocooned in complete safety, together, you bending over her just giving her this word, straight from the light in your heart, "Precious"...and you will be somewhere new together.

Hops

[Meh]

Wow, Hops- what a great image you just wrote, it practically transported me there.

Seeing the words precious and tenderness up here on this post gives me another piece of reality and perspective.
I know that my mother was emotionally-comatose, but all of the details of the sweetness that are missing, well I didn't think about that until now. I didn't realize the ways sweetness is acted out, how a mother holds the baby, how a mother does things for the baby with tenderness. That's really important. Duh! (smack my forhead)

Thanks for starting the posting about precious. It was helpful.

[Gaining Strength]

Gabben - too tired to write what I really feel but I want to send you support, concern and encouragement to pour out your hurt and pain here.  I identify so clearly with much that you write but I encourage you to write it out here.  Keep spilling it out.  It does help and one day there comes a shift in perspective and finally you see one small piece of it differently - it is like a foothold on a sheer rock face and that foothold gives you a boost and then you work on getting the next foothold and so on.

This is definitely a place to do that work.  Find a way to ignore those who send callous PMs.  They are cowards.  This is a place to do that work.  Keep it up.

[Ami]

Dear GS
 You are right about ignore those who are not on our side. This is life. I am just realizing that it is NOT the outside I have to control but the inside--so simple but you get so distorted with an NM.
   XXOO   Ami

[sKePTiKal]

(((((Lise)))))

it matters not if the tears come in a torrent, or if your eyes "leak" a little all the time as mine seem too. It's still working the poison out.

for me, there is a connection between my version of what you are experiencing, and that smoking addiction. and yes, it seemed to take on a life of it's own and increase in intensity - even against my will - while going through it. Resistance, I call it... but technically, that might not be right. Struggle is the other word I use interchangeably with it. A struggle in me - to be seen, acknowledged, heard, accepted and my needs met - appropriately - my real needs, not just what someone else thinks they are. A struggle to so contort and adapt myself - and find the "magic words" that will resolve that struggle, get my needs met from someone...

... in the attachment process, a "good enough" mother tends physical needs - and also is able to help "baby" resolve those primal emotional needs: fear, terror, need, discomfort, upset. Just like you've zoomed in on the definition of "precious"... perhaps you can also zoom in on finding just right way to address baby Lise's emotional needs for calm, reconstitution of "okness". She'll give you hints and clues on just the right thing.... clues your mom didn't have enough outward empathy/awareness to notice.

when it wasn't possible to find the "magic words"... when there was no "help" coming from any outside sources to put my feelings back together again (humpty-dumpty) I turned to another addiction - smoking - which, in the beginning really did help me bring coherent, reasonable/rational processes "up front" and gave me the illusion of control over my feelings - that overwhelmed feeling. In kid-logic terms... I'd found a magic process that helped me "survive" without troubling my mother for assistance and helped me manage that torrent of emotion... and it also helped me deny that I had any right at all, to having my needs met... and price to be paid was just fine with me: because it was either accept that addiction or suffer abandonment/death. Kid logic tends to be pretty B&W... dealing in absolutes...

but those inner children do grow and mature - the sunshine & water of our attention to them makes them blossom.
And I find I can meet those needs my self - more and more; I don't have to have someone outside of me "fix" me.

One more... because the attachment issues go so far back: pre-verbal... it seems to the cognitive part of us that these wounds have been with us for so long... they are the canvas of the painting of our identity. Even the mere suggestion of letting those wounds/pain go is threatening in the extreme to our unconscious inner child - it suggests death - because of loss of "me-ness". I found an awful fear of that behind almost everything else I felt. I had to work for some time to convince Twiggy this wouldn't happen, if we let the emotions surrounding the trauma/attachment issues go... and she's still not totally trusting me on this one. I have to "prove" it to her, over & over...

I gotta run - so much going on right now -
but I'll be sending YOU and baby Lise a lot of mommy energy... a warm glow to soothe and protect you. What you're going through is totally exhausting...

[Gabben]

Hi All,

Hops, Helen, GS, Ami and Amber...Thanks I am reading and will respond later.

I'm unclear these days, my thoughts are random, all of me that is most of me (just how it feels) is my heart, it is overtaking my thoughts.

Last night I had pain through the entire night, darkness, just as I wanted to get up, finding a way to run and get out of it, I'd push myself through, sinking into the pain as if it was my best friend. I've done this in the past, when I was overcoming other wounds, especially the wounds abandonment, curled up pushing myself to just take one more minute and then another before I attempt to master it by coping or running.

Then, after pushing myself through the stabbing pain, came the deep insights, the story that "little lise" wants to share.

This morning her story was a story of autonomy and belittlement. She is in rage, her fists are clenched in her desire for a sense of power over what in her being she cannot have power over, her mother - powerless in her struggle to master her pain and powerless in her struggle to be seen, heard and comforted. She feels intense humiliation at the belittlement. She feels anxiety for having rage towards Nmom.

There is a friend of mine who has been in my thoughts, so I asked myself why I keep thinking about her. It finally came to me that this woman friend has belittled me for a very long time, I feel under her in spirituality/ profession/education and if I dare to grow or be someone it threatens her. That sounds exactly like the N mother child dynamic. Although this friend of mine is not an N, just a very strong woman with some deep fears and insecurities, like all of us. Her belittlement has pushed some buttons recently. Instead of seeing her as someone that wants me to be out of my prison of self I think that deep in this woman, in her unconscious, she wants me to stay oppressed, but she is just unaware of her fears, yet. I have always felt anxious around this woman, she frightens me more than I feel a sense of love and warmth. But I do like her too, I like her strengths.


So back to belittlement, I feel oppressed, I feel angry and my chest feels like it is going to burst in rage. So I have to push myself back down into the pain rather than trying to force the oppressive force (Nmom) out of my life with rage. This going to be a dark tunnel, I feel oppressed financially, I feel oppressed in judgement and coldness.  I feel unable to live in the freedom of even my own pain , the pain of belittlement stabs, it burns, it feel excruciating, it is a crucifixion of my ego, the death of the aggressive spirit in me that wants, needs and grabs.

Detachment...letting go of something that I could never have.