Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Ami on July 13, 2007, 05:25:44 PM
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I have noticed that people with N mothers seem to have stomach problems,
I have stomach problems .. It is hard for me to eat. I get stomach aches easily. In Chinese medicine your stomach is your "core .I don't feel centered. I don't feel a connection to my 'gut". Also, I don't have 'intestinal fortitude or core strength.
Living with an N mother can "snatch " your guts right out.It is replaced with N ideas and perceptions,not your own. Then, you are not a centered person. You are a "fake" person b/c You are not connected to your gut. You gave it up to her( or she took it).
I would be interested in anyone's responses-- not just if you had an N mother.
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Yes, yes, and double yes. Knot in the stomach, a churning angry feeling, sheer panic sometimes.
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Ami,
I can't eat when I'm scared (doesn't happen so often, these days).
I had anorexia for 12 years fro the age of 12. I'm sure now that THAT was the most basic rejection of 'mother love' that you can get. I wanted nothing to do with her 'nurturing'. I wanted to own my own choices, not have them imposed on me. Digestion problems could be that we want to possess more control over how we develop.
Janet
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Hi Ami,
Oh yeah! Mine was constipation. I HATED to go #2. I would just push it back until I trained myself to go only once a week. Not anymore, though, thank goodness. I'm fine now. That is until I get around my NMother. THEN I have the opposite.
Ami, here's why I did that. I have a memory of my NMother slamming me down on the toilet & saying "You sit your ass down & go!" I'm not sure, but I think she had just beat me as well. I do remember my grandmother crying out "---- STOP IT! Don't treat her that way!"
That started a pattern that took me YEARS to get over.
I'm sorry your stomach is so torn up! Nobody but children of abusive NParents would understand.
Love,
Bigalspal
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:cry:
BAP, Ami...
here's a little candied ginger.
My problem is overeating, sometimes just bingeing. I'm on the outer edge of "normal" weight for my height, but I'm not fit and I am fed up.
Funny you brought this up...my stomach's been sore for days and I just spoke to my D, who's on her way home, to tell her the news about her grandmother, and she said her stomach's in knots too.
Then I told her I had brown rice on and was fixing beans and would have her dinner ready and she sounded interested. I am so glad she's coming and I think she is too.
The candied ginger is a lovely indulgence for unhappy stomachs.
Symbolically, Ami, I think it's about now...nourishing yourself. It's something you'll integrate as you go further along in not just walling out her old, finished, toxic mothering, but begin a new stage of loving SELF-MOTHERING:
kind thoughts
gentle care
laughter
music
regular meals
pleasure
more laughter...
You deserve it.
And BAP, I can't say how heartbreaking that image is, of you being slammed onto the toilet. And so many little children are treated that way. It's unfathomable. Good for you for healing yourself, dear.
love,
Hops
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Symbolically, Ami, I think it's about now...nourishing yourself. It's something you'll integrate as you go further along in not just walling out her old, finished, toxic mothering, but begin a new stage of loving SELF-MOTHERINe]
Dear Hops,
THANK YOU-- this (above) is the answer. It makes me sob to see this. This is the answer.
Love Ami
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Ironic that I have spastic colitis. This could be a clue. Yes?
Bones
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Caroline Myss(a medical intuitive) sees illness as losing energy from key body areas. The stomach represents nurturing. It represents your core of who you are. It is so interesting the responses that are being posted Love Ami
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I don't have stomach problems but I do suffer from binging also... Like I have a huge hole inside of me and I try and fill it as fast as I can with as much as I can.. My N mom has stomach problems. She keeps insisting she has an ulcer caused by me. The doctors can find nothing wrong. She goes for test after test after test and still they find nothing. But she is determined and she is determined it is my fault.
Spyralle x
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Ami,
Although I've had no severe or painful gi/stomache symptoms or conditions, I have always had a "rumbly" tummy, and not due to hunger. Just a very active, internally noisy digestive system, I guess :? Especially as a young girl, I remember it acting up alot - the worst was during evening church services or a test at school... and it was embarassing, because in the midst of the quietest moments, there it would go... yikes.
Over the past couple years, I've worked hard toward the goal of achieving more normalcy in my own eating habits, which involved making a concerted effort to train myself to eat more than once a day. Taking a multi-vitamin and spending time outdoors in the fresh air and walking - these are things which seem to have increased my appetite to a certain extent, although I still cannot consume much food at one time.
Alot of this is likely to have emotional roots, but I've had so many such roots to pluck that, with this one, I haven't made the time to dig too deeply.
The main thing seemed to be to put in a bit of food at regular intervals and develop some new habits just to feel better physically. Thinking of my body as a machine which needs fuel helped me to accomplish some of this without looking into emotional arenas that I couldn't handle at the time (if that makes sense). I just tried to make it a practical matter of - hey, I gotta do this. Once I began to feel better physically, the rest began to fall into place a bit better. Thanks for the opportunity to think on this topic... I'll keep reading and see what else comes up.
Hope
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I've been starting the day with a peanut butter sandwich on really good locally-baked multigrain bread.
I get the protein in, and it's the original comfort food, so it seems to send my brain a "welcome" message.
I'm going to get some natural health food store peanut butter today. Mmmm.
And more good bread.
And club soda so I can make my cranberry spritzer.
I noticed you said "put in" some food at regular intervals, CH...that was striking. Made me feel how you might feel disconnected from your body, not having joy or pleasure in it.
I wish you self-love, nourishment, the permission to delight in flavor and in nurturing your precious flesh.
hugs
Hops
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I noticed you said "put in" some food at regular intervals, CH...that was striking. Made me feel how you might feel disconnected from your body, not having joy or pleasure in it.
WOW Hops
There is something really profound in this (above ) THANK YOU Love Ami
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Ami,
Your question just prompted at first a quick reply, which is... I was either constipated or I had diarrhea, Mostly constipated ,( had to hold everything in, I wasn't allowed to have feelings, opinions etc. ) which would be one extreme or the other ...sounds like my mother. ....But the more I just thought about this, that is basically my struggle with my own feelings and trying to find a balance. Either being deeply hurt, or standing up for myself wanting to be herd. I definitely believe your body "holds" your pain and memories whether you are aware of them or not, could be stomach, muscle pain back, whatever. But as soon as i started to identify and "HONOR" my feelings my intestines started to be in balance. So i agree with you as your stomach being your core. Be good to yourself and love and honor who you are and your feelings.
Blessings, Tweety
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No stomach problems, just anxiety off the charts and PTSD. Neck aches now and again from the whiplash/disc problems from being shaken - but I don't think that is psychological manifestation, just remnants of the physical abuse.
Did have a long bout with recurrent (frequently recurrent – ouch) kidney stones for a while. According to my father, it wasn’t biological, I was creating them because I was punishing myself for something. Not sure what I was punishing myself for – think it was more his interpretations that I should be punishing myself for not being the perfect daughter (Also – put them out a number of times to have to drive me to the hospital).
Turns out I was living in an area where the water content had a lot of minerals that promoted kidney stones. I moved to a place where the water was really hard, and didn’t have another for about 5 years!
Maybe it was the moving out that stopped them??? Those times in the hospital were a nice break. :shock: :roll:
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I've been starting the day with a peanut butter sandwich on really good locally-baked multigrain bread.
I get the protein in, and it's the original comfort food, so it seems to send my brain a "welcome" message.
I'm going to get some natural health food store peanut butter today. Mmmm.
And more good bread.
And club soda so I can make my cranberry spritzer.
I noticed you said "put in" some food at regular intervals, CH...that was striking. Made me feel how you might feel disconnected from your body, not having joy or pleasure in it.
I wish you self-love, nourishment, the permission to delight in flavor and in nurturing your precious flesh.
hugs
Hops
Hi Hops,
Oh my, no... thank you for your concern, but it's not that I feel disconnected from my body.
This is a deliberate choice, on my part, to disconnect - to a point - for a specific purpose.
I'll try to explain...
First off, I am most definitely able to experience joy and pleasure in my body, with regard to all things... taste, touch, scent, beholding the beauty around me, listening to music - and the birdsong - and the sounds of laughter when my children play...
In fact, over the past 3 years, each of those senses has re-awakened and become heightened to a greater degree.
I attribute all of that to the sense of security, love, gentleness, and safety with which God and my husband both have surrounded me since the days of ex-N.
Until these senses began to spring to new life, I had no idea how very much they'd shut down during my years with him.
Anyhow, still - on a daily basis - I'm struck with the amount of pleasure and enjoyment there is in just the simplest experiences!
But specifically regarding food - while with N and for some time afterward, I had lost alot of ground in this area particularly, due to a # of factors, I think.
One big factor was my drinking, which I quit 2 years ago now, thank God.
So it's not even so much that I didn't enjoy eating, but that eating had been squeezed out of my daily routine for so long that it seemed irrelevant.
Took me awhile to recognize just how harmful that was to me, but my body was so tuned to consuming liquids that I had to teach it to accept normal foods again. I had to make food relevant, but my body could still drink coffee all day long and go without sustenance.
So - this business of "putting some food in" at regular intervals was a matter of choice - to recognize that my body is fundamentally a machine which requires food. I didn't need to pamper my flesh, I needed to discipline it.
You see, I couldn't count on my body to know when it needed to eat... and because of my enjoyment of the "wrong" foods, I couldn't count on my body or mind to tell me what I should eat.
I mean, I could live on cheese, chocolate, and ice cream, and that would hardly be conducive to good health - lol. Yet, that's what I enjoy.
It was necessary for me to disconnect from being led by my desires so that I could be master over my body and not vice versa.
By the way, I enjoy Jif peanut butter on toasted whole grain bread... and soda water with cranberry juice is one I'll have to try.
Many thanks again for caring, Hops :)
With love,
Hope
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Yes I had serious tummy problems for many years. I always knew they were related to anxiety and fear because the connection was so clear. Every year when I went back to school I could barely eat for about 6-8 weeks. My stomach was too cramped up. Especially in the morning, which I've read is when the stress hormone cortisol is at its highest levels as well. I'd spend long periods in the bathroom with debilitating cramps as if my entire insides were spasming. I'd break out into shaking and cold sweats and it would just spasm again and again until I was just wrung out. Eating made me sick, and at the other end of the digestion process, just worsened the whole experience.
Also, I expected myself to soldier through this and not mention it to anyone. And oftentimes I would choose to push forward in situations that brought on the pain, but I never conquered it that way. It didn't make the pain go away or solve anything.
It happened less often in my 20's but still did happen. Yet, in my 20s I believe I began to be avoidant of situations that provoked this kind of pain. Say, new jobs or job searching or applying to grad school are just the sort of things that would provoke major pain, so I stayed in the same job for a decade. I took GREs and LSATs but couldn't bring myself to apply anywhere, etc.
But it has not happened at all since a friend of mine told me what she did. She said - she experienced such cramps and she asked her stomach to tell her what the concern was. She sat with herself and patiently directed her attention in a receptive way to this area of the body and listened to all it had to say. And the cramps went away. Now I do that, too.
See, in the past, I was punishing myself for what I had to say (and what my body had to say) - I was acting like my N parent to myself. I was soldiering on because I wasn't allowed to have fear, vulnerability, anxiousness - that sort of thing infuriated my dad because it was needy. So I ignored and punished that neediness in myself, and hated myself for it and the pain continued.
I still have anxiety issues, but not to the extent of that incredible physical pain. I still have a lot to learn about the proper way to interact with my own body and self and others too, but I do yoga and study yoga philosophy and feel it helps very much because it is a practice of actions that are kind and wise and friendly with yourself. It's a practical path of action on these issues.
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You guys mean so much to me.
Iphi----- that is so fantastic to ask your "stomach" to speak
Nursie--you are such a comfort
Thanks Hops, Hope, Peace, Tweety, Spy,Bones and dear Janet
Right now I have a stomachache .I get it from having a yeast infection from all this internal stress in the last 3 weeks--- plus house breaking a Yorkie.
I think that I have been absorbing people's "bad' emotions since I was 14. I used that word on my thread. I realized when I saw the word"absorb", that that was the problem. I am like some 'living charcoal" . I absorb all the anger, fear and pain.This is what I did as a child. I do it with My H, now.
I am so afraid of anger and abandonment. These last 3 weeks, I am standing up. I have stood up many times. I feel dizzy and afraid. However, I know that there is no quality of life for me if I don't own my core. it is that simple. I am fighting for my life.
If I even think that someone could be mad at me, I get dizzy
. These are old responses from when I was a child. It must have been truly horrible to see that your mother was a raging 3 yr.old and you were totally alone-- at her mercy. You had to keep figuring out how to placate her. You just wanted her to be O.K. so you would not have to be afraid. You just wanted to be someplace where you could be the child-- not the watchman for her anger..
Love Ami
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I have always had irritable bowel syndrome which acts up at various times, seemingly stressful times but not always. The worst time I had with my stomach was when I worked for the N several years ago. By the end of my five years there I was having a great deal of nausea and indigestion and thought I had developed food intolerances. So, I started eating about half as much as usual and cut out all dairy. I lost about 20 pounds in six months. (Then I walked out on the job anyway!) I went from 125 to 105 (on a 4'11" frame). While I was and am pleased to have lost some excess weight, it is not a method I would recommend!
Recently read two books on Autism and Asperger's syndrome. My father diagnosed himself with Asperger's toward the end of his life. I figure that condition would have a major impact on family life and read these books to see if I "recognized" anything or anyone. I did.
Both books mention the relationship of gluten and casein in the diet to both of these conditions. That also rang a bell with me. According to this theory, casein and gluten in the diet have a detrimental effect on the digestive tract of some people with Asperger's and Autism. Removal of foods containing these items helps the digestive tract and also the Autism. I am considering trying an at least partially casein free/gluten free diet to see if that helps my stomach and maybe even my personality.
I was really surprised to see that diet could have an impact on some types of personality. A physical connection to something that I thought was mostly spiritual or emotional. Not everybody buys this theory, but the authors of both books have personal experience with it and saw real improvement when they started the diets in their families.
Pennyplant