An interesting experience

[Nonameanymore]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to come back to this board and share a recent experience hoping it will be of use to any of you, because it helped me a great deal. After a lot of traditional therapy and 12 steps programs (such as CODA), I tried a couple of alternative therapy programs, the last one from what it seems with great success as it managed to uproot a deep core belief that was keeping me stuck.

I have suffered serious sexual and emotional abuse from NM. Nothing new here, and although there were many incidents, one in particular could not be worked. Even when I finished my memoir and had to translate it, it was impossible to work through a sentence of the incident without falling to pieces.
Up until I was 14, NM threatened to send me to my father. I didn't know him so the boogey-man threat worked, until I went to spend a summer holiday with him. Being in his good behaviour, after going back to NM, I wrote him a letter saying I'd rather go live with him, even if I had to wait until I was 18. NM found out about it and shaved my head. Ok, dramatic but as stated, worst things happened throughout my upbringing.

Recently I tried the last type of healing and because I am not quite adept at it yet, I could not 'read' the messages clear. When the healer suggested I worked through my fears, probably I did send a message to my subconscious to 'show' me my fears. So I had a dream that I was looking in the mirror and instead of me, I saw a demon. Still I couldn't translate the message. I asked the healer what should I do and said that I should try to decipher the message and I got an answer: 'I am evil'. Then it started hitting me: NM while I am NC sends emails where she insists that I was passed 'evil dna' from my father. Still I couldn't see the connection. I did the method once more and I was taken to age 14 and I remembered NM saying that she had to cut my hair so all evil will be taken out of me and the new hair will be 'evil-free'. Nevertheless when I visualised this particular incident, at last I felt some relief and I couldn't stop crying for at least an hour.

I am now 41. How on earth could I progress and think that I deserve a good life when I was fed and practiced for 27 years the belief that I am evil?

It's interesting that a therapist or healer before has told me that my difficulty for me was to match my inside with my outside. If you think in terms of law of attraction, you cannot attract anything good if the message in the subconscious is the opposite and stays tall as a powerful block?

Anyway, I will work hard in removing these NM-fed beliefs and I feel that it will eventually get better.

I know what I write is a little out there, but I wanted to share this with you guys.

Thanks

[sKePTiKal]

Thanks for sharing this!

I've gone through something fundamentally similar - though all the details are different. I too, was convinced I couldn't help but be a "bad person"...

your method for calling up the memories from the sub- and unconscious self and seeing the connection is just as valid as anything I did in therapy - it worked, right? 

[Guest]

and with this type of change, often the end justifies the means I think...a bit like dealing with Ns.

If it works, it works!

[Nonameanymore]

Yes guys, it worked although it has stirred up a lot of issues for me like massive anger  
what really is bizarre though is that I went back to read my memoir and in EVERY chapter I mention 'she thinks of me as evil'. I mean, like on auto-pilot I wrote what the subconscious told me to, but it didn't really register... This is really weird, really, really weird

Another issue that came up was when she called me and judged me as unlovable. Strangely enough though this didn't kick in until a few years ago when every single one relationship I have (even friendships) are with people who are emotionally unavailable. To tell you the truth and what scared me was that I left my codependent ways of trying to give sex and take love and instead became one of them. Me? Emotionally unavailable? Yes! I was!
With the same process I worked the heart thing (ha, thing!) and it's like a radar trying to pick at least one person who dares to have a luv exchange with me. I am here baby!

It's never too late, right? I hope everyone here on this board finds their missing keys to unlocking whatever is important to them.

I am happy I am done being an evil robot! mwahahaha!

(sorry for the comedy stuff but it feels a relief writing about it yet again)

[river]

Sounds good that you're 'done with it'.    
Ns almost by definition project thier issues into others.  And the results, if you are vulnerable, which of course you are as a child, is that we absorb their disowned issues.  
I beleive the situation with an N is in fact a moral issue, no matter how unfashionalbe such concepts are.  And the good and evil is 'fought out on the battle ground of our souls'  (Patricia Evans).    So, its all par for the course to me, that an N is talking about evil, projecting it into you, or into your hair etc.  Mad as a hatter!
the damage it leaves is often as a schizoid character defects, in 12 step parlance, or in the quadrants, it would then make sense that the roles switch, we move round those quadrants, until we get well and can meet in real human relationships.... more on www.selfinexile.com  

[Nonameanymore]

Thanks River, will look it up.
After the initial buzz from the realisation has worn out, I actually am overwhelmed with emotions that were hiding behind this message. Anger, self-pity, and a love for myself I never knew I had (well, probably I didn't). All these years she had try to pull the rug under my feet and direct me towards other 'interesting' practices so that I didn't come to today's realisation. I mean, I share here again and again about this memoir but it really feels as if the issues and emotions were just written without being processed, like a third person narrative. Only this time, I identify with what this person in the book has written. It does sound quite mad, but what's the word for it, it;s like's a part of me was split, the part that was hurt, and I pretended like everything is a-ok. I was in denial most because I gave up trying to convince other people about what really happened with me. The interesting thing is that I was scared to publish the book as if I was lying about these things. Even now, I often doubt myself as if I made up these experiences and incidents and even if they are true, it's not a big deal. Because she tried to gaslight me that things didn't happen and if they did, it's not a big deal. Everything considering, I did ok, well until 3-4 years ago when the load was too heavy for me to carry around. Anyway, denial time is over....

[river]

denial time is over....

   Good! 

[river]

Hi again.  Would you be willing to explain exactly what was the essence of what made the difference?   Read a bit of your other post, it was specifically something which took you from mental understanding to emotionally living the understanding  ? 
r.

[Nonameanymore]

Hi river,
I have to be very careful because it involves a certain belief in God and I want to respect everyone's views and takes on the subject. It was a sort of spiritual process, let's call it a prayer that 'took me back' to the incident, in my head and my heart if you will, that I was able to revisit and release it. I sort of cleared a few surface beliefs of the kind I am not good enough and then I had to ask 'who told me that?', 'when', etc. The particular method has brought a lot of controversy in America as far as I have read and this is why I don't want to press my personal views. Really, the thing I wanted to convey is 'dig deeper'. The process actually has an essential part called 'deeper digging'. Interestingly enough it's like the game where you have to say the first answer that comes to mind. I actually found out a few interesting things this way. I sort of arrived at this emotional realisation by asking questions actually. In all honesty river and fellow nds here, I have been reading/studying a bunch of different approches to deal with these NM traumas that I think it's not just one thing that worked, it's a combination of things that have worked so that this issue comes to the surface.

Or maybe I was ready, I said 'bring it on, let's clear the old dirt, I m done living a half life'...

[river]

Thats powerully expressed.  
I'd still challenge you on a few things, hoping you wll take this in the spirit intended:  

a certain belief in God and I want to respect everyone's views and takes on the subject.  

 it seems these days like talking about God is somesort of offence, do you feel that talking about your own experience/ views will mean you're encroaching on others' feelings / views?  

 Or maybe I was ready, I said 'bring it on, let's clear the old dirt, I m done living a half life'...  

 that sounds so good, bit like a step 1 in 12 step terms.  

  The particular method has brought a lot of controversy in America as far as I have read and this is why I don't want to press my personal views. Really, the thing I wanted to convey is 'dig deeper'. The process actually has an essential part called 'deeper digging'.  

...... here also, is it that you feel that stating your experience/ views is in danger of causing 'controversy', or you're liable to get attacked for it?  

I'd be fascinated to know what this method is called, if you'd be alright to share.  I've always believed in the going deeper element is necassary, at least for most of us.   I'snt that what the originally Freud indicated?  

[Nonameanymore]

Hey river,

First, the belief in God thing is an issue for me after I came back to Greece. I lived for 6 years in London where people seem to go back to religion to deal with life's challenges (as correctly stated about the 12 step programs, a belief in a power greater than ourselves) whereas in Greece religion is thought of as 80-year-old grannies who go to church and kneel for hours as they sense it's their time to meet their creator so they better be good even the last minute. I have been judged for believing in God lately from friends and talking about it is sort of like throwing holy water to a possessed person. Ok, exaggerated but true. So I keep my views to myself because I am starting to do what I learned in CODA (keep myself to myself and my views to myself instead of going around preaching).
Just so you have an idea I am often told 'you don't look like the sort of person who goes to church', as in I have to look a certain way, dress a certain etc. So I live and I let live!
As for why I don't mention the method is because I respect that this is a 'traditional' therapeutic environment and I find it inappropriate to start talking about something I am just learning. It's not about being attacked. At least I wouldn't mind if someone questioned it because it has worked for me (so far) and hopefully it will keep working.