Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Can I ask another question?
teartracks:
Twoappeny,
--- Quote ---I cried and cried and cried but I don't even know why.
--- End quote ---
Psalm 56:8 You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. King David
tt
tt
sKePTiKal:
--- Quote ---I find it hard knowing where the lines are - the line between being patient and taking it as it comes and being a mug, or the line between being assertive or being unreasonable, knowing whether my reactions are reasonable or if they're being pushed by other, much older things that have happened in the past, knowing whether alarm bells are healthy indicators of problems or my messed up 'you must never be happy' system trying to mess things up. I spend soooo much time thinking about things and trying to make the right, healthy choices - and then often end up not being sure if I've done the right thing or not.
--- End quote ---
Hi Penny... you know what? You just nailed down exactly what I've been overwhelmed with, the past week or so. I think going back through this again - perhaps backwards - as a healing or integration process can be just as painful as being ripped apart the first time. It's like having a bone that was broken and healed crooked, re-broken and properly set.
I hope you're feeling better today!
I don't wanna get into a long dissertation on this - but I do think it's one of the fundamental, functional "disabilities" we survivors face. And it confuses the hell out of people who don't have to deal with this. We are so used to being the "one with the problem"... that even when we're engaged in normal, healthy life activities... we carry over that self-doubt BECAUSE....
nothing we did around the FOO was ever good enough, or perfect enough or "right" enough to please them and get us accepted for who we are... nothing. Therefore, we never experienced that equilibrium of doing something "right"... making the right choice. Many times, even when we totally sacrificed ourselves doing exactly what we were told was wanted... well, someone moved the goal line, pulled away the football, or otherwise sabotaged our attempt -- and not even the attempt - trying/effort - was worth anything to the parent who held the power of life/death/fear or protection... over us. We learned we would always be "wrong"...
Does anyone but us know what the right choice is for us?? How will we ever know, unless we experiment, try things, take a few chances? I stopped reading self-help books, because they always made me feel like such a doofus... I can't take my experience, what I know about people and distill it down into a neat little package with a bow and sell it to others... why would I think the authors have any more expertise or authority than what I've been through? Sure there are good ideas and concepts and statements that ring a loud bell - resonate with my own experience. I still keep a few of these books around - ones that have pushed me along the path of healing a little more. But now I read them with my critical thinking brain on... I question the concepts... I quiz my own feelings; my own truth too... I talk back to the words on the page... No one has yet told me where the "line" is between healthy/unhealthy emotion or thinking or behavior... I think, because it's not definable - "healthy" is a range or continuum - because people are all different. My hubs' comfort level with my ability to express anger... and where he thinks the line should be... is way different than mine; however it doesn't upset other people... who's "right"? who's "wrong"? neither of us; we're just different.
Here's one more fact: no one's handing out gold stars for making the "right" choices... and if we do make a wrong one - guess what? We can change our minds! our directon! do something different! We're allowed to make mistakes. We're also allowed to be "wrong" without incurring a secondary penalty... it's just part of the process of learning what is right for us. If I screw up and it involves another person - I can apologize; admit my mistake... and sometimes I think that's all we really want from our FOOs, too. They just can't bring themselves to do that, though... being always right & all.
And for some reason, not being able to admit wrong and apologize makes them seem just that more pathetic to me.
I do hope you're feeling better. Sometimes, letting out all the tears is like opening the windows to a fresh spring day, after that is.
Twoapenny:
Thank you, tt (((((((((((((tt)))))))))))))))))
Thanks, Phoenix. I think it's just hit me that I've just swapped all my 'must get it right' vibes from my mum to my therapist. I am so desperate for her to think well of me, to be 'getting it right', pleasing her, doing well, being, of course, perfect. You know when it hits you like a train? I've picked someone much healthier to aspire to be like (and be liked by) but the same lack of self, the same lack of comfort with being okay, imperfect, 'a bit screwed up but it's okay because I didn't kill anyone' is still missing and I didn't even realise. I just feel so exhausted now. I'm still crying, although I did get to spend the day in bed as my son's at holiday club so I didn't have to get up and do anything. I suddenly feel like I can see all my different personalities/egos/characters whatever you want to call them laid out through my life, like those little russian dolls that fit inside each other? A quiet, shy, bookish child, a not taking life too seriously teenager (the fog starts in my teens), the heavy drinking, drug taking party girl who didn't give a s**t about anything other than having a good time, the born again student at university, the soon to be married lady, the career girl, the new mum, the mum with mental health problems, the carer of a disabled child, and then the therapy ego, striving to be perfect, get rid of all my nonsense and become some sort of sterile, impossibly perfect robotic woman that never gets it wrong and looks down on people who don't drink carrot juice at breakfast. And suddenly inside all of that there's this sort of mass, this collection of molecules and atoms that used to be a little girl but is just mush and has no form or substance, there are no edges or boundaries, it's all just fluid and so broken I don't know if I can reconnect the pieces. And at the minute I don't even know if I want to. My mum's been batty her whole life and it hasn't done her any harm - she doesn't know she's batty and she doesn't care that people don't like her because she thinks they're all scum anyway! She exists in her litte fantasy world where there are no problems, everything works, everything fits and at the minute I can see the appeal of that!!
You are so, so right about needing to make mistakes - needing to take a chance, get it wrong, apologise if necessary, pick it up and move on. I've never done this, never been able to do this - I've never let myself do this. Am too tired to do it today! But tomorrow.........I expect I'll feel better tomorrow.
I hope you are feeling less overwhelmed today, or that you start to very soon. Thank you ((((((((Phoenix))))))))))))))))
ann3:
--- Quote from: PhoenixRising on June 01, 2011, 07:09:19 AM --- And it confuses the hell out of people who don't have to deal with this. We are so used to being the "one with the problem"... that even when we're engaged in normal, healthy life activities... we carry over that self-doubt BECAUSE....
nothing we did around the FOO was ever good enough, or perfect enough or "right" enough to please them and get us accepted for who we are... nothing. Therefore, we never experienced that equilibrium of doing something "right"... making the right choice. Many times, even when we totally sacrificed ourselves doing exactly what we were told was wanted... well, someone moved the goal line, pulled away the football, or otherwise sabotaged our attempt -- and not even the attempt - trying/effort - was worth anything to the parent who held the power of life/death/fear or protection... over us. We learned we would always be "wrong"...
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Twoapenny on June 01, 2011, 09:30:10 AM ---I suddenly feel like I can see all my different personalities/egos/characters whatever you want to call them laid out through my life, like those little russian dolls that fit inside each other? .... And suddenly inside all of that there's this sort of mass, this collection of molecules and atoms that used to be a little girl but is just mush and has no form or substance, there are no edges or boundaries, it's all just fluid and so broken I don't know if I can reconnect the pieces. And at the minute I don't even know if I want to.
--- End quote ---
Hi Amber & Penny,
I love what each of you wrote.
Amber, you totally nailed the "self doubt" component of our "disability". I think this ever present self doubt is a core element of our voicelessness. For me, it's constant second guessing myself: "did I do right? did I do wrong?" It's like a self imposed walking on eggshells & it's very exhausting. Maybe it's a form of self punishment, like never allowing ourselves the luxury of feeling comfortable in our own skin, never letting ourselves off the hook? When I find myself in the self defeating wasteland of second guessing self doubt, I start doing Louise Hay affirmations (http://www.louisehay.com/affirmations/), otherwise, I could get stuck in self loathing negativity.
Penny,
This is what I have found about reviewing our lives. When we want to understand how we got to this current place in life, I think a life review is essential. We may (or may not) be able to see in retrospect what we did wrong, what went wrong, evaluate our past choices & apply all that knowledge, all that earned wisdom, to our current lives. I think the trick is not to get stuck in berating ourselves for past mistakes & past bad choices. When I find myself beating myself up for past mistakes, I stop & bring myself into the present. More & more, I am coming to believe that it's best to leave the past in the past & to focus on today & the present. So, even if I majorly screwed up in the past, I can learn the lessons the screw up taught me, but, I don't want to allow past screw ups to steal happiness & good feelings which I could have in the present moment. I think healing is sort of like time travel: we travel back to the past, to learn the lessons of the past, but we must also travel forward to the present because the present is our true reality and there is always the potential to feel happy in the present moment.
--- Quote from: Twoapenny on June 01, 2011, 09:30:10 AM --- I don't know if I can reconnect the pieces. And at the minute I don't even know if I want to.
--- End quote ---
Penny, if you don't want to reconnect the pieces, it's fine. Nothing says you must look back. Maybe a good thing would be to try to self sooth & feel good in the present. There's some really good things here that may help you feel better: http://www.hayhouseradio.com/
Hope you feel better (((Penny)))
Twoapenny:
Hi Ann, thankyou for your kind words and the links and other suggestions.
When you describe this as a disability you are so right, it really is a major affliction that has such a debilitating effect on every aspect of your life. All the more difficult to deal with because other people don't tend to see it or, if they do know about it, often don't understand it (or want to hear about it). I just feel so exhausted at the minute - getting through the day is really hard work. The sun is out so I am just going to try and take it easy and not rush around too much. I am leaving all the processing and wading through it for a while - I'm just too frazzled to do any more at the minute. Perhaps focusing on the here and now and the future would be more helpful for a while (after a break!)
Thank you xxx
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