Hi GS...
Thanks for the kudos on finding words. Those words come out of exactly the process you're in right now. I too, lived a daily reality of pain and invisible, unconscious things that were "in my way"... and one day, things changed about that. I'm still trying to describe and put my finger on what changed... what that "invisible obstacle" might've been for me. What I find is more a collection of things, than just any one thing in particular (at least right now!). Anything that threatens to send me back to that - gives me panic attacks!! And ya know, daily life does this... so my focus these days is more on how I perceive things differently because of those childhood experiences... my whole "reality" is built on basic premises that "aren't necessarily so" when they're thoroughly examined...
fer instance:
even my understanding of my role in the FOO - that I was the scapegoat, always targeted to be the "adult in the room" and parenting both my mom and brother... is just one way of looking at things. There is, for sure, truth in that way of looking at things... but it's not the "whole picture". I keep trying to get at the "whole picture"... which is difficult because I can only see the close-up details of that picture, because emotionally I'm too close to it and I get sucked into only paying attention to the emotional part of what I see. And moving around looking at another bit of picture... I'm gaining more information... more details... but I don't see how they relate. I NEED to be further away from the picture... to see where these two sets of information are in the "whole picture"... in relation to each other. I can do that some, all by myself... but my brain is limited... human... in how much information it can hold at one time.
Information, all by itself, is important - those memories, for instance. Information = data. Computers can process tons & tons of data very quickly... as can our brains. Emotions can sometimes bias or even disrupt by excluding tiny bits of data or obsessing on others, how we interpret that information... assign it a meaning, that may/may not be the significance or meaning of the "whole picture". I'm finding that it's the various values or meaning or interpretation that we assign to these "snapshots" of data detail that are the functional processes that determine a good bit of our emotional "realities"... our comfort zones... our threat level threshholds... which in turn, become our total daily "realities" and how we describe our well-being.
Since I accept that my emotions can bias that data-stream and the conclusions I draw from that information.... I come here seeking someone else's understanding and input about that data. Hops, CB, TT, Guest... mud... and YOU & a whole bunch of people here have been willing to look at my "data" and give me back what they see in it. It's sort of a "collective consciousness" approach, I guess, to understanding what the hell made me - "me" - and how to fix what needs fixing... and even what DOES need fixing.
It's like a circle of different mirrors that reflects me back to me. That helps me start to understand and really SEE that "whole picture" I started talking about here. That collection of "mirrors" is absolutely positively a critical, fundamental, necessary piece of BEING that I didn't have growing up... thanks to my FOO. Since they were warped... all that got reflected back to me... were their own judgements, criticisms, unfairness, etc. They also couldn't see the "whole picture" - and how they saw me, was in my opinion - screwed up. I used to dream a lot about funhouses... you know the mirrors that distort reflections? Too bad, I didn't know then, what those dreams meant.... but that's life. I get it now.
I have pondered, asked, sought out answers ever since the time of those dreams - what makes people have two completely, diametrically opposite and opposed "realities"? What is it, that some people have, that I don't? I've got some close-up detail information now, about that... and maybe someday, I'll get to see the whole picture! But, one of those is significant when the topic is emotional abuse.... and it may be helpful to you now.
That's the relationship one has to one's own Self-Interest... and the morality surrounding the ideal of Fairness.
Mine was all upside-down, backwards and inside out. And, perhaps more importantly, I let other people decide what my "self-interest" was allowed to be. I let them decide what was "fair". I let them tell me what I was supposed to want. Eventually, this ground me down until I couldn't even create a list or tell anyone, what I might "want" - not even to know myself, what I wanted - because the consequences of that were, at one time, horribly PAINFUL - that kind of abandonment didn't make sense to me and made me feel like I was the one who was "crazy" - "selfish" - "unfair" - and yes, even "N" and "evil". I just accepted whatever crumbs I was allowed to have. I learned to simply take what was in front of me and be grateful for whatever that was... without even realizing that I was - in that act - giving up my own god-given right to decide for myself how much self-interest is FAIR... and how much was "greedy" or "selfish". I gave up all my rights... for the sake of a false "peace" and even false "freedom".
Because to say, stand up for, and decide for myself what was "fair"... what I wanted... and how much self-interest was healthy (and how much was N)... got me smacked down, repeatedly. Mom and bro still go for the jugular... even though I'm more comfortable than I used to be within my own BOUNDARIES of my own definitions of what is FAIR and balancing that with my SELF-INTEREST.
Maybe I'm wrong that there might be a few parallels in that for you. But I see enough of them to reflect this back to you and hope you can make use of it, with your own picture.
This does beg the question of how Ns balance self-interest and fairness, too. I'm coming to be convinced that in their realities - the only self-interest that matters is theirs... and that they define "fairness" in terms of that. They do not even see that someone else might have their own definitions of fairness... and they clearly do not accept that anyone except themselves is even ALLOWED to have self-interests......... hence the hugeness of working with boundaries for those us who've had contact with these kinds of people. Boundaries are kind of an "early warning system"... for when we're giving away our rights to our own self-interests, in hope there will be mutuality from the other person... which there never is, with an N.
((((((((((((((((((GS)))))))))))))))))))))