Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: gratitude28 on August 08, 2007, 02:17:10 PM
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I have been thinking about our "places" on the board. We come here, most of us, needing help. For months, at least, a new member, especially one who has just discovered NPD in a close person and doesn't know anything about the disorder, will want to take in everything he/she can and will want to hear about others who are in the same spot. I think this is an information-gathering time. After this stage, the person should want to move on to the What Do I Do To Feel Better stage. At this point, you will start to understand about negative tapes, reactions to things that are actually reactions to the N in your life but displaced, and ways we have hurt ourselves. Now is the time for growth. Once a person has had much growth, he or she would stay on the board to provide help to others and share what he/she has learned. Or the person leaves the board pretty much altogether.
Of course, even those who have had a lot of growth need to go back to stage one sometimes and ask for help.
What do you all think about this... the stages and the growth????
Love, Beth
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Hi Beth
I agree with stages.
I had already rid my brain of thoughts of any N who had 'destroyed' me and was now working on me and voicelessness
Still am, and I am constantly on the lookout for changes, negative or positive , then work on them from there.
My therapist helps a lot as well
Love
Izzy
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Yes - the stages and the working them over and over at times, moving forward. helping others work through their stuff often helps me work through mine. I like what you have written here Beth. Thanks
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Dear Beth,
What a great topic!
My experience has been that - well beyond the initial realization of NPD and that overwhelming sense of desperation, there are aftershocks.
For me, the challenge has been to recognize the longstanding effects of a very N'ish upbringing and how that training primed me for a future marriage to a fullblown NPD.
Underlying all of that is the voicelessness, to which I think I'd have been susceptible even if raised in a very "normal" (whatever that is) home.
So now I'm seeing how my own personality contributed to my inclinations and led me into negative situations, and declaring this the time and the opportuity to focus on healthy ways to mature.
At this point, it's not so much about dissecting and overcoming NPD as it is about learning to relate and communicate with a new voice - one that's able to effectively avoid giving or taking offense. When that voice first hit the open air, it had a poor tone... much like an instrument whch hasn't been used or tuned in ages. So I guess this, for me, is about fine tuning... recognizing emotions & learning how to properly express or dispose of them... all of which, I believe, goes hand in hand with establishing proper internal boundaries. This is a great place to practice a new voice and hopefully share the burdens of those who appreciate that voice.
And besides all that... I can't think of a group of people with whom I'd rather discuss... anything!! :)
Love,
Hope
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hello there,
i think your stages fit with my experiences, as well as what i've read others describe. i would, however, hesitate to say "should" in the context of healing....that may make people feel like if they aren't progressing in that way or time frame that there is something wrong with them?
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Actually, I avoided saying should when it comes to sticking around and helping others. But in the first part, I really believe the person *should* get to the point of wanting to make some changes. Just having the knowledge will not be enough to make a person happy, I don't think. Simply knowing that I was disliked by my N was not enough... at that point, to have some growth, I needed to decide how I would react to that person in order to start feeling better about myself.
Love, Beth
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Dear Beth,
Are you feeling bad about yourself for still being here?
I hope not.
We knit ourselves back together and move onward, but sometimes the knots get tied in haste and one or two may come loose or need adjustment... (sorry, I am lousy at metaphors).
Anyhow, I hope you're okay.
Love,
Hope
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Dear Beth,
This is the only place where I can talk about my mother and not get a blank stare"This is the only place where someone who had a mother like mine can talk about recovering from it.
I don't have to hide. You all know the "death dance" that is a relationship with an NPD.You know the heartbreak and the despair.
I, simply. don't have to "tell "you. You already know.
Love Ami
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Hi CH,
No, I don't feel bad at all. I am grateful that I can be both an "oldtimer" and a person who needs guidance here... and, like Ami said, I am so grateful to have people who understand.
I guess I am puzzling a bit about why people go forever or stay forever. And is there a point when you break free from it all... if you are healthy... or is that a time you can give to others who are hurting. I think that is what I am turning over in my mind now.
Love, Beth
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I understand, Beth... and I've been turning something similar over in my mind, too.
Never intended to be back, really... but to everything there is a season :)
I'm glad you're here!
Love,
Hope
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Dear Beth,
I think that there will be a natural evolution concerning your(our our) life on the board. I went to a support group for 10 years. Then, I found God and felt like I wanted to go to a church and not a support group. I feel that there is a natural ebb and flow of things in our lives if we listen to that "still small voice" Love Ami
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Interesting thread. I am so aware of the swings and roundabouts......... I get focused, make big changes, have fun, and the anger emerges, move on again, make new decisions, have fun, feel ok, sad, frustrated, and the anger emerges. The constant for me is the anger. It is still there, my anger, nothing to do with Xn just my anger. I indulge it, I swill around in it, I hate/love it....... this is big to acknowlege this. but this is what I do. I do not want to let go of the anger. It is an integral part of my life. What is my life without the anger??????????
I am an expert at masking it but it is beneath everything. I am not sure how to rid myself of it. I know when I do not feel it it is only an interlude, the anger is constant and lying beneath everything. I am working on it, I do not know if i will ever rid myself of it. I disguise it in passivity, I disguise it in kindness.......... it is so part of my core. I distract from it all the time. If you guys met me in real live most of you would like me. You would never guess how angry I am. I am only finding it out now. I think I choose Ns so that I can justify my OWN anger. Oh boy, this is hard for me.
I feel at some level I get such affirmation from my growth and healing, which IS happening but also I am so aware now that the anger has not changed. And yes I do know that beneath the anger is hurt, real soul hurt.
Feeling it
axa
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Dear Axa,
Something BIG has changed. You are facing it. That is HUGE. You are seeing it with your heart and not just your head.Also, you are admitting it.
You are doing really well. Axa Love Ami
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I guess I am puzzling a bit about why people go forever or stay forever. And is there a point when you break free from it all... if you are healthy... or is that a time you can give to others who are hurting.
It seems like a pattern here. But I think everyone's motivations are different. My healing has entered a different stage which keeps me kind of distant from the board. Partly it is just the kind of person I am or am becoming. It seems like often enough I need distance. I still read here every day. But I don't spend the kind of time here that I used to. It used to be hours a day. It became something of an addiction, which surprised me as I never thought I was the addictive "type". A couple times I got my feelings hurt here and that kind of broke the addiction. And led me to pay more attention to my day to day life. Which was a good thing actually. It was the next step and all that.
Break free from it? I haven't broke free of it at all. "It" is part of who I am, who I became, and probably who I always will be on some level. And I am not healthy yet. I am much farther along that path than I ever thought to hope for. But when I look all around me at the "normal" people, I see how many, many more miles I still have to go.
Giving to others who are hurting--here it seems, just like in my real life, I don't have much in common with many of the board members. Not enough in common to really offer anything that seems like it would be useful. Never been divorced, never been to court, never been stalked (on edit: except by a couple of girls for a few months in 9th grade--which is not quite the same as being stalked by an adult-male-full-blown narcissist), don't go to church, weigh the same as I did in high school, still don't have much in the way of working social skills. If I recommend a book or something it is bound to be obscure or odd. Perhaps I feel like this because of my ever simmering depression. But there are some real differences in my life in comparison to many of you.
It is interesting, sometimes, being a fly on the wall here. I can work out what bothers me and why it bothers me. But what am I going to say about it? Some of this stuff is so specific to me.
I've had some real breakthroughs the last few months. And going through them has been so draining at times, that I just don't want to rehash it here. Then, soon enough, the breakthrough becomes just a new fact of my life and I'm almost so close to it that I can't any longer explain it. Maybe it would have been better to post about it when it was happening but that's not always possible.
Beth, you do ask good, thought-provoking questions! Have you got your finger on the pulse of this place? I do think so 8) .
Pennyplant
on edit: Upon reading teartracks' post, I'm thinking I should clarify what I mean by "it" in my post. I'm referring to Narcissism and Voicelessness. Maybe I misunderstood what Beth meant by breaking free of it. I thought she meant breaking free of Voicelessness and Narcissism. Did you mean breaking free of the Board, Beth?
Also, about the helping others part--I think I am still confused about what is me helping others and what is just me doing my same old "overly responsible" bit. So, I think I still have boundary issues.
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Hi Beth.
Like your thread.
Evolution of the board.
Evolution of the people on the board.
Interesting subject.
Here are some random thoughts about the evolution on the board.
When I came here I was in a pitiful state.
About half way through, I thought I'd get through 'it' and come out the other side with a life similar to what I had before. Not! My experience with Nissues seems to fit that of most whose background is similar, i.e., Nmother. I honestly don't know what stage I'm in right now. I just know that I am an unfinished work. I honestly don't know to what extent the board has helped along the way. I came here trying to dig my way out of a hole. I was so desperate, the bookkeeping as to what worked best or least suffered.
Threads get hijacked, but the board seems very stable. The people change. The issues stay pretty much the same.
Why have I hung around? For all the reasons y'all have mentioned. I left for a while, though.
What are my observations? Very close to what y'all have described.
I feel a bond with the board that I didn't feel a year ago. I don't see the board as an it. I do see it as a very important tool for persons searching for understanding about emotional issues caused by narcissism. I've come to appreciate the way it works. To me, it is something of a cyber wonder.
I think I view the board as a community, similar to the realspace community where I live. When the world wide web came into being with all its features, the capacity to add another layer of community became available. To use a real estate metaphor, we searched around for a community that suited our needs. Some of us moved in and put down roots. Some come and go. Others move away and so on.
I think the people are endlessly interesting.
tt
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Hi Penny,
You had good questions here and I let them hang - one because I needed to think and two because I am in my unfurnished home with a chair pulled up to the dog cage that I am using as a desk for the computer - you remember the days lol.
TT- You are right. I am very comfortable here. I also see it as a wonder. It sustains itself and feeds itself and I have never seen that on other places online to this extent. This is really the only site I have dedicated myself to, aside from an alcoholism site a few years ago.
Back to Penny... I guess that is the thing for me. It is like a rolling moss ball and it picks up stray fibers. But the core is fairly solid. And when I wonder about who stays or leaves, I think I am comparing it to AA and the principles. When we have been helped, we are supposed to continue to help others to keep ourselves sober and to continue the program. So I guess I was wondering if there was some correlation here. That we stay healthy when we help others understand and become healthy. Also, I think that if you are growing here, you most likely will be growing in 3D life and overall your life should be improving.
There are those in AA who give 100% to the program and continue to do so... I guess my goal with the program was to learn how to live in society - not just among AA members. Just like here, I want to have people who understand me, but I don't want to ONLY be with people who have the same background.
Does this make any sense?????
Just tossing out ideas as they were tossing around in my head...
Love, Beth
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Dear Beth,
I think that the answer to your question is that when we become comfortable inside ourselves, we can navigate many kinds of situations and people
I think that this is the key.
How do we get there? The board is helping me to find my voice. Last weekend when we had people over, I was more comfortable. There were many different types of people.
I felt more of a peace inside and I was more comfortable with myself . I noticed that I felt that the situation flowed.
I think that my internal confidence is the key in situations. Whatever helps us to get that(God, AA,Al- Anon,, the board) is what we need to follow(IMO) Love Ami
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YES Ami!!!!
That is it - being comfortable. And, I think, being willing to ask for help and look for help when you know you need it. Life skills - the things we didn't learn growing up.
(((((((((((((Ami))))))))))))))))
Love, Beth
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I think the last post I posted on this thread was not necessarily in the appropriate place............ if so sorry but in relation to the evolution on the board. The real question. I know I don't always have the need to post in the way I used to........ a lot ofposts per day and this I take as some sort of movement. In the beginning it was the only place where I felt I was heard and understood also. I could relate to so many other people that it was if I was sharing a voice. I know it has done me so much good being here. I have found the comfort I needed and the challenges which have prodded me to move on. I often wonder will I be here forever and I look at this question as a question of self care. I feel safe enough to speak the truth here, maybe some day in 3d life I will feel like that but my hope is that I will stay connected with this board. Knowing the support I received I want to be in a position to add my support when appropriate, or challenge if I also feel that is appropriate.
I can see a time when my 3d life becomes more the focus but I hope I will always remember the specialness of this place and keep popping in.
One thing I miss about being here is not hearing your 3d voices.
I think the more we engage in the 3d world the less time we spend here, not sure if this is true or not, just seems to be more my experience.
axa
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I think the board, reading and writing here, has made me more present with people in the 3D world.
I do have a drive for intimacy, and this board gives me some. So, out here, I feel less jangly around
people, more ready to be present...and playful, which is one of the main ways I interact.
I didn't articulate that very well, but I'm sure the board has made it easier for me to relate to
people and for people to relate to me. All the work and love and learning here has increased
my love and appreciation for people in 3D as well. I feel more confident and comfortable.
Hops
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Oh Beth, I do remember waiting weeks for furniture! That is so unnatural!!! A person needs a comfy place to sit! It's good that Henry came with furniture....
I did not know this about AA--the principle of giving back to others. Maybe that is why I don't do so well in groups. Deep down inside I don't really believe I have anything to give to others that they would want. And I seem to have so little in common with others. It may be who I am, who I was made into, or the depression which is never far below the surface. Or all three? That's possible too.
For awhile there I thought I had found a firm niche on this board. But I ended up feeling the way I always do in real life. Kind of out of it. Not really particularly vital. I wonder if it is because I didn't say anything the times I got my feelings hurt. I noticed lately that some people have gotten hurt and they have just said so and worked their way through it. Just said what was on their minds. I kind of shut down when it happened to me. I was embarrassed because I assumed I deserved the hurtful responses I got. I felt humiliated actually. And unimportant.
And here I am on a roll and I have to go to work.
The story of my life.
I think it is really hard for people to have voicelessness together. It is really hard to be helpful when you're hurt. So, in that way I think this place is probably some kind of miracle--that it works at all, let alone that it works as well as it does.
Pennyplant
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Dear Pennyplant,
Not saying anything when my feelings were hurt has been... my nemesis, throughout life.
Trying to sort and work it all out internally can bring some version of resolution and the sense of self-control, but it's so empty... only reinforces a deeper sense of isolation.
I hear you saying that you feel so little in common and I recognize that as where I was, for a lifetime. It's an illusion, I now believe...
an internal defense which was arose before memory, to protect a fearful little person who didn't know how to connect.
Every place I turn now, it all comes back to that prehistoric shyness. I guess that I'm supposed to dig into that and uncover the rest of the story... but I don't... or haven't... not yet, anyway. Yesterday I read some of the "highly sensitive people" material and cringed.
Do I really want that label? What if that really is who I am? And then what?
Anyhow, there is an awareness now, in me, that we all really do have alot more in common than I ever imagined. It's still a mildly foreign concept, but I'm seeing more of it every day. It's not always pleasant to see, because that realization destroys some other old illusions... but I think it's necessary.
Love,
Hope
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I really have to go now, but thank you Hope.
PP
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Hi Pennyplant,
I'm sorry you got your feelings hurt. :( I expect that happens to most here if they hang around long enough. And it isn't that the other person necessarily sets out to be malicious or mean, (although I've seen that happen too) it's mostly that communication is hard in the best of circumstances. I am a fan of what you write. I've never been one to respond to everything on the board, and I don't read everything, but I know there is substance in what you write. I am pretty limited to what I can respond to with experience and that is having an Nmother. I think I have good intuition/instincts about human nature and sometimes feel I can peg issues in that regard. I have a huge regard for the board and the good it does. The longer I linger and read, the less I have to say on issues, especially those I haven't experienced. I figure there will always be someone who has had experience and who can offer up suggestions from that experience, where I'd just be punching in the dark.
Sorry you had to run earlier. Now I have to run. I have an appointment (I think it might qualify for an Artist Date on the Artist's Way thread.)
Want to try to pick up on our trains of thought later?
tt
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Yes, hopefully we can go further with this train of thought. Tomorrow is a very early work day for me (3:30 am) so I will be turning in early tonight. But perhaps this thread will help me sort out some things. It is more than what happens on this board. It is also about the evolution of relationships in real life and how complicated or mysterious it gets when something is missing from those very early relationships in our FOO.
Pennyplant
PS Thank you TT for being a fan :oops:
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Pennyplant,
You're welcome :) My pleasure! I've always felt a connection with your posts and shared some of your views on life... enough to sense that there may be more that we each could recognize through a bit of note comparison. Worth a try!
There was definitely alot missing in my earliest relationships, to a degree that I'm only just beginning to evaluate. Talked with 16yo daughter about some of this earlier today... because she is also shy, but not in the crippling sense in which I was affected. Still, I know that there are things she needs from me which I've not been equipped to recognize... and so she and I together are trying to identify those needs (for support re: future college plans, etc) and determine together how I can help as advisor. It's just so difficult to know even what questions to ask, when nobody ever extended that sort of support. My mother demanded answers... and I was just sposed to know, I guess.
Talk about a blank.
Anyhow, I'm here when/if you want to continue... :)
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Hi Beth & friends,
I have found a little energy today, so I would like to add my thoughts before I run out of steam.
When I first came here I was a mess! A HAPPY mess, because I found a place where people understand me. So...I let it all hang out.
Yes, I got my feelings hurt a few times, but that happens in real life, too.
I, like a lot of folks on this board, am VERY sensitive. I think that comes from not EVER being heard by my NMother & absent father.
But, I came back. This board has helped me a lot more than it's hurt me. I decided NOT to run away, like I do in the real world. I was so scared, but I stayed!
Now, of course I've been ill, but even before that, I found I wanted to wallow less in my pain & try to heal.
But, of course, if I get a nasty controlling phone call from my NMother, that might change. I might need to vent! :lol:
And I know you guys will be there for me as I try to be there for you.
Beth, I feel myself evolving, and I like it.
I was very upset that some people didn't understand my early need to rant, but I now realize that I might get to that point as well if I stick around a long time.
It's OK, it really is.
The best part about all this has been that AHA moment that it's HER not ME. That is worth more than gold to me.
When my NMother does what she does, I know what's wrong with her. I NEVER knew that. Where was the internet when I was a little kid? :lol:
I could be MUCH futher along! But, for everything there is a season.
I ask my GOD to bless all my friends on this board every night before I go to bed.
I used to ask him WHY? Why was I treated so horribly as a child. WHY? WHY? WHY?
Now I have an answer! She was/is an NMother!
It's the KNOWING that makes everything so much better. You guys & Dr. Grossman changed my life!
Thanks!
Love,
Bigalspal
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Dear Penny,
I am like Hops. As I get a stronger voice, my 3D life seems less threatening. I think that life is all about "having your own power". It is sad that it is this way,but I think that it is the reality.
Life simply does not work if you don;t have your own power(IMO).
We all have FOO issues. We repeat old patterns. The board is a great place to face these patterns. It is easier to do it on the board than in 3 D life.
So, I would encourage you Penny, to find a few special friends that you can PM when you have a general problem with the board. then ,use the board to get your voice back.
I could not remain here without a few special friends that let me vent about what is happening on the board . That is what I do ,anyway.
I have learned so, so much here. In real life,it is rare to find someone who understands N's.So, "normal" people have no idea what we have "suffered"
As I get more whole, I can interact with others( who don't have N's) without needing the validation and affirmation that I get here
One thing that was really painful to me was when girlfriends could not understand my M ,at all. They would say things that really, really made me feel "alone" like '
"She is your mother--- just forgive her"or "Why aren't you over it already?"
I don't expect other people (outside here) to get it about N's , so I can interact on other levels as I get more confidence in myself from getting my voice back on the board.
Love Ami
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I hear you saying that you feel so little in common and I recognize that as where I was, for a lifetime. It's an illusion, I now believe...an internal defense which was arose before memory, to protect a fearful little person who didn't know how to connect.
Hope, this really speaks to me. How I would love to break through that illusion of separateness. I can picture my fearful little self coming up with that kind of an armor. It is a control thing, too, as you say. My life has always been out of my control. Every little aspect of life. Doesn't everyone on some level want to have at least some control over the things that are theirs, that effect their day to day life? Isn't wanting to be in control just another way of wanting to matter? I have never really mattered to very many people. I have especially never really mattered to me. And that is the source of a lot anger and heartbreak for me.
So, I come on here and post and once in a great while someone else will dismiss what I posted. And I think--well, I guess I don't matter here either. How heartbreaking is that? It has happened maybe three or four times in a year and a half. Not bad, really. But very memorable and very painful at the time. It must be part of being very, very sensitive as Bigalspal points out. Wow, it is so hard to be this sensitive.
I've been here long enough to remember some people who came and went and haven't been heard from in awhile. But I never name a thread for them. That's just my thing. It seems like if I do that I'm leaving out someone else and maybe making them think, why doesn't anyone miss me enough to name a thread for me and wonder where I am? I don't think people do that in order to hurt others. But it hurts me sometimes. And I figure it might hurt others too. Sometimes the people being "called out to" have only missed a couple of days of posting. I figure they got busy or something and will be back. Should I worry more than I do? I don't want to have more things to worry about!
It does feel better to know that there are others here with similar N-experience to my own. I know I am very fortunate not to have married an N because I was certainly groomed very well to do so. But the thing is, even though I am glad I didn't have to suffer that, on this board there is a certain comradery that develops among the people with certain experiences and traumas. Like a ready-made bond. Probably a bond you folks didn't ask for! I guess I'm still looking for such a bond. Or looking to build one.
Likely I am still playing it safe and not really expressing myself 100 percent. I have a lot of fear about expressing myself fully. It's very hard to really connect if you are stingy about expressing yourself. I think I am very stingy that way.
Pennyplant
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Hi Ami,
I want so much to have my own power. Power from within, not power over others. I am still very afraid to be myself, like I was saying above. In the past here, I have done some PMing. Even in PMs I don't feel safe to express my true opinions on some things. Not sure if it is my normal lack of trust or a result of seeing a couple people here make PMs public. Honestly, I think I have a very deep-seated lack of trust. I can't really separate that out from other issues on the board. That is what I bring to this place, a lack of trust.
I love reading people's true opinions and feelings. I am amazed that they feel free enough or brave enough to do that. There have been some very blunt comments here from time to time. Usually I have to be very angry to be blunt. Or hyper or something.
Way back when, I got PMed by someone who I had supported on the board. It was nice. But it ended awkwardly. The person suddenly stopped answering me. It reminded me of what my latest N had done by using silence to torment me. Now with the N, it was my own fault. I told him all my weak points--laid it all right out there in one long conversation. He soaked it up like a sponge and used every bit of it against me over time. The board member who PMed me may or may not have been doing the same thing. But it felt like the same thing. Only, I never told them that. I just let it go. And vowed to not interact much with that person. Now I think I handled it the wrong way. But I don't know what the right way would have been! Honesty maybe? I didn't want to seem blaming or paranoid. I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt. But what to say to someone who has possibly innocently triggered you?
Sometimes it feels like I have to keep starting over again all the time!
You're completely right about the lack of understanding of N in the real world. In my situation, I see Ns getting everything all the time. People gravitate to them, prefer them, kowtow to them. Once in awhile, someone will say, Oh, I see right through so and so. That feels good to get validation that way. But it really doesn't happen all that often.
I guess that's why I stay here even when I'm unhappy with the place. If there is anyplace where I might eventually fit in or figure it out--it's this place and these people. It's never simple though.
Must say good night now. 3:30 am will be here before I know it.
Love, Pennyplant
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Hi PP,
I missed you. I am sorry I didn't say so earlier.
I do think about you. I think of your photo, that beautiful white room, your house, the P.O., and I wonder how it's going for you.
I really appreciate your bravery in digging into all this.
And I'm glad you're here.
I know you're uncomfortable and I think if you keep plugging on, keep risking a bit, that you'll find you can let go the letdowns and allow some pleasure to come through.
love
Hops
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Dear Pennyplant,
I'm sitting here staring at a blank notepad document with nothing to say.
Feels like an arrow went through the bulls-eye of the shy zone and rendered my verbal skills useless.
Daughter and I were reading something today about learning to draw with the right side of your brain. Well, I can't draw... and I can't seem to express what's buried over there on that right side, either.
Yes, I think it's about control... but I also think that this shyness/sensitivity business lies out of reach of that control, so I know it's not about pride.
If wanting to control is about wanting to matter, is that the same as saying that we want to have an impact on people because then we'll feel valuable?
And what's the standard of measurement? How would we quantify our effect on people?
Pennyplant, what would it take for you to matter to yourself?
I thought that I mattered to me once, but it was for all the wrong reasons... only to the extent that I could do well, that I could solve problems, that I could help people, raise a good family. I was driven by perfectionism, then driven by anger, then driven by alcohol, nearly into the ground... and I still can't say that I matter to me, with all those things gone... because truly, I can't say for sure who I was.
I only know I'm not that person anymore. And I know that I matter to God... and that you matter to Him... along with all the other people in this world... and so I keep trying to reach out. Not because I think I can matter to anyone else, but because I know that's what God wants me to do. He seems to know who I am alot better than I do and still I want to know what happened to that terrified, shy little girl. She didn't grow up... she just learned to wear masks and act out roles and survive.
That's how I dealt with being so sensitive... and yet I know that all along I felt just exactly as you describe. I didn't share anything and when I'd see hurt approaching, I'd leave. I just remembered a repeating dream as a little girl, where someone was after me and my solution was to play dead. That became a lifelong habit. Just don't let them see you blink or breathe... they'll go away.
You're expressing yourself alot better than I can at this level. This has been like pulling teeth and I don't know why. I'm not consciously trying to hide anything, it's just nearly impossible to draw it out. I think I am stingy about expressing myself to myself. My kids know more about this stuff than I do... but then they didn't grow up with my mother.
I don't know what's next, PP, but I'll sure keep trying. I'll think on this and do some serious reading on the sensitive, shame, shyness issues, with the goal of not spinning it around in my head, but letting it into my heart. I hope you'll keep writing, too.
Sorry this is such a mess.
Hope
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Hi PP,
Wanted to pass this link on. It is about highly sensitibe people. Dr. Aron takes a very positive approach in her writng about shy, sensitive people, saying they comprise 15 - 20% of the popultion and that some are actually extraverts. Wow! If you haven't already been to this site, it might be of interest.
Hope you have a good work morning. Geez 3:30 a m...don't know if I'd survive that.
Here's the link.
http://www.hsperson.com/pages/hsp.htm
tt
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I am beginning to allow myself to open up and depend on this board. There's no place else I can talk about my mother and father without getting horrified stares, embarrassed glances at the floor, and no return calls. I have a hard time opening up - I intellectualize too much instead of just being be. The old fear of criticism, I guess. But the more I post here the more I feel myself relaxing and being me. I don't hear the haunting voice tapes here so much as I do in real life.
towrite
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towrite,
Calm in the midst of the storm...I agree, the board has the feel of a safe zone. A place where I can have an emotional blowout or express exactly what is in my heart is pretty special. It's special too that we can comfort each other at each juncture of healing and recovery.
tt
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Dear Penny.
I think that you took the first step. You told about WHERE you were. You tried to look within and you expressed it. I have been doing that since I got here for one reason--- I was dying.
I could not eat, I gave up. I was skinny and sitting in a messy house. My H told the people that he worked with that he could not even bring them to the house-(lol).
I had given up-- inside. no one understood my mother. Friends said,"Just forget about it. You have a nice life" I did have a nice life. I was just "not there'.My body was taking this "death"message,I think.
God sent Maria over to pull me out. It was a Divine experience. She kept getting the impression to come to my house. . She pulled me up. She helped me get my house beautiful. She is an incredible "amateur" decorator.
We threw away the leather sofa that was ripped. I used to sit on that sofa----- .paralyzed. I would say,'I really need to fix up this place and the just 'sit there".
When I found people who had a mother like mine( on the board), I was in heaven. Then, I realized that I could express myself here and people would understand. Towrite has it right. I had given up b/c of all the blank stares and embarrassed looks when I tried to explain about my life. Where was I to go? I had been in a support group for 10 years. Even they did not understand my M.I tried all sorts of therapies that did not help. I tried it all . Nothing could touch that hurting place. Once I met people who had the N mother, I knew that I would be O.K., eventually.
Then, I MADE myself tell my truths. Many people did not like it. It was not comfortable and some people tried to "shame " me in to being more "conventional". I persisted b/c I knew that it was life or death for me. It was not 'cute" little game.
Now, I am on the way up. I think that I will get where I want to go--- to be "real" and whole".
This last post on toxic shame was a turning point for me. It was the biggest blocked area and the biggest"shame"
Penny, I think that you have to simply make a decision that you are worth it--- to live and thrive. Whatever your issues are , other people WILL have them. My S told me this when some people were trying to shame me in to "shutting up" He said, Mom, ,with ALL those people on the board, SOMEONE has to have had a mother like yours."
It is the same for you,Penny. Whatever your situation or feelings, someone( probably many people) will have them too.Then ,newcomers will come out and share ,also..
I think that it is essential to have a few people that you can PM. Chances are some people Will be threatened by your honesty and try to squelch you. If you don't have support ( with the PM), you could give up and retreat in shame. WE know,only too well, how to retreat in shame. That is Old behavior.
I hope that you take small steps ,as you just did, to "live", Penny. They(FOO and other N's)took
enough from you. Love Ami
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Pennyplant :) Good morning... I hope you're having a good day, despite the early wake-up.
Gaining Strength made a post on her thread about "confronting a person with boundary confusion" which is opening the passages for me to some crucial issues. She wrote:
"It is the give and take that I long for. It definitely was not available here. That's what the problem is with this line Open your heart to me and I will fill you with love.
That is not a relationship.
That is a kind of dominance. At best it is a parent-child. Equals don't "fill [one another] up" that give and receive. I fill my son with love because I brought him into this world and gave him life and expect nothing back from him at his stage. But that doesn't work with equals."
Okay, so... sounds good, doesn't it? But what of that sort of give and take within ourselves?
Are we willing to let one portion of our "self" dominate all the rest or will we teach that (stubborn ?) portion to receive - not only from others, outside,
but also from the "parts" of ourselves which have accomplished so much in this life, filling the roles of wife, mother, employee, etc...
I know that counting my blessings is a wise way to invigorate my outlook and awaken a thankful heart.
How about introducing that fearfully shy little armored creature to the facts/blessings of life?
Shame, shyness, fear... all tangled up together. I have no wretched abuse in my childhood, so what's my excuse? This is what I've asked myself... and now I realize...
What I've been ashamed of is being shy. Such a vicious circle!
So I can reach out to a point, until that ornery shadow of shyness whispers, "don't forget me... I'm still here."
Of course, that's not something which is easily admitted, because when you condemn your self for being so "sensitive", the imagination fills in the blanks with all things negative concerning how others will look down on you.
But you know what? Here's my theory:
Everyone feels this way.
Some are just better at masking it than others.
Whether it's covered by humor, by calloused nonchalance, by doing/fixing/helping, by retreating, or by forging ahead oblivious to consequences
(I've tried all of those methods) "it" remains.
For whatever reason, you do not seem to have constructed such a remedy for yourself and you're left feeling very exposed and vulnerable.
Because I deliberately, consciously tried to recall those feelings last night, for a long moment, I felt the same.
But this morning, Pp, the recognition dawned anew that, in my heart, I believe every single human being who's ever lived has faced this struggle.
Some face it down and grow healthy, some build a saferoom in the home of their hearts and lock it up, and some continue to live in fear that "it" will rule their lives forever... until... when?
Until it's laid completely bare before someone who will not stomp all over it.
I don't think that has to be another human being, Penny. For me, it's been God and my husband, to some extent, but mostly... I see now... it has to be me, myself... who is willing to look that shy, avoidant, painful fear directly in the eye and not turn away.
When things end awkwardly, it's not because of you, Pennyplant. It's because people don't want to look themselves in the eye.
You can know that by guaging your own reactions and responses to yourself, as I am seeing in me... and refuse to look away.
Corny phrases always bug me, but here's one I finally understand... you must be present for yourself... be there for you.
No looking away.
With love,
Hope
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Dear Hope,
That was so profound. I need to re read it several more times. However, a few things struck me on the first few readings. One is the Scripture---- There is no temptation taken you which is common to man ....."This means that we all have the same issues.
Today, I talked to a neighbor that I never talked to before when I was walking( yelling----- excuse me Hops) at my Yorkie. As we were talking, I could see in her face, the SAME issues we talk about on the board. The board helps me to take in what Hope said--- That we all have the same issues. We have to learn to overcome N "pollution" is probably ALL there is. That is probably all that is wrong with us. We were polluted by N's.
Hope, I used to feel guilty ,too, b/c I did not have overt abuse. I thought that I was just "whining". However, Vaknin talks about the cerebral N. That is what I had. It really damaged me even though it was not "overt'.I need to honor that I was abused -- not minimize it.when you talk about your parents,Hope, I see abuse. I really do.
Thanks Hope for your post Love Ami
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Hi tt,
The link you gave, along with several other sites, are the ones I've skimmed recently on the topic of sensitivity.
Still haggling with a reluctance to delve into it too deeply, as though somehow... giving credence to it may cause me to
disintegrate. Also, still struggling to maintain a balance between proper introspection and spiritual accountability. In other words,
how much is too much? Thank you for posting the link here.
towrite,
It's those horrified stares and embarrassed, downward glances that I feel myself giving to myself when I allow for a moment's consideration of the fear and sensitivities within.
Knowing that this buried stuff continues to wield power over the conscious mind... well, I think that's where all the intellectualizing comes from. It's a form of resistence which is really futile and only masks underlying symptoms, but such a tough old habit to break!
I'm so glad that you're feeling some relief from it... and the relaxation to simply be. It's like a tug-a-war, isn't it? Dip toes into the emotional pond and then recoup by intellectualizing... oh, I am so ready for the cease-fire, because a battle it is! Integration is a wonderful concept and with people like you here, it does seem possible :) I'm so glad you're a part of this group!
Ami,
Thank you for the Scripture... that's from 1st Corinthians chapter 10.
The passage reads: "No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry."
What this tells me is that I have just as much innate capacity for unhealthy narcissism as any human being.
In other words, I see NPD as another temptation common to man, into which some choose to plunge, head over heels.
Because of my own very narcissistic upbringing, I'm very aware that I need to guard my own heart against N'ism.
So when I whine (and I know that I do) in the course of recovering from the effects on me of pathological narcissism in others,
I feel that it's up to me to ensure that checks and balances are in place, lest I "flee into idolatry".
You see, I do not believe that there is any "pure" inner entity to be recovered from N-pollution, because I believe that all human beings are mortally polluted by an inherited sin nature. So for me, the solution to the ultimate decontamination is Jesus and the new life, new spirit He gives. What I'm actually working on here is more like damage control... so that I can be free to walk out the new life and salvation which HE worked into me without tripping over all the hidden leftovers from an upbringing that so desperately lacked healthy, Godly input.
My own perspective on this is: I'm still raising my children - 2 grown and gone, 2 still at home - and I have no doubt that I've passed on my own neuroses and dysfunctions to the extent that I seem to have been asleep in unawareness for much of the past 25 years.
That is not my mother's fault and it's not my exes' fault and it's surely not God's fault. What it is, in my view... is life in a sinful, fallen world.
I'm just thankful that God is so patient and merciful to allow me these opportunities and places and people, at home and here on the board, to uncover the hidden traps.
Anyhow, I know what you mean by talking with your neighbor and seeing in her face the same issues that we discuss on this board.
I see it too, now... it's everywhere... it's in all of us... and, in my opinion, becoming unpolluted at the deepest level is a matter of recognizing it within ourselves as much as in others.
That is what my mother was not willing to see - her own deep lack - and what she did not, could not, teach me.
She sees herself as superior because of her fine choices and magnificent dignity (aka Pride) which prevents her from admitting to her flaws and failures, and consequently shuts off every God-given emotion which allows for genuine intimacy. All that's left is a critical spirit and a miserable judmental heart which cannot feel connected to anyone. That's a shame... but it's not my shame, you know?
Neither is your mother's shame in your account.
That is good news, but it's not the Gospel...
and I still need that Saviour who has removed the shame which legitimately was in my own account.
Seems like properly filing the shame and owning my own account is what I'm up to now.
Thanks for posting and sharing your thoughts with me.
Love,
Hope
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I know you're uncomfortable and I think if you keep plugging on, keep risking a bit, that you'll find you can let go the letdowns and allow some pleasure to come through.
Yes, Hops, I am very uncomfortable. Thoroughly ill at ease. I am still absorbing an interesting lesson from work last week and also a rude shock to our household budget this week--both events activated my depression and I'm struggling with that "as we speak". So anyway, quickly this morning I read your post and then just as quickly I checked my horoscope by Rob Brezsny (I just like that kind of stuff) and this is what he had to say about Gemini's upcoming week:
In his poem "The Two Trees," William Butler Yeats says that one tree is holy and grows within the heart. Its branches and trembling flowers thrive on joy. The changing colors of its fruit please the stars, and its leaves give the waves their melody. The second tree has broken boughs and blackened leaves, and is full of "the ravens of unresting thought." I bring this to your attention, Gemini, because in the coming week it really is up to you and your free will which of these two trees you spend most of your time with.
I can see this image and feel it going on in me. I, of course, want to spend my time with the holy, joyous, fruit tree. But the tree full of ravens keeps distracting me.
I would say I have never taken the kinds of risks that would allow the pleasure to come through. Not voluntarily anyway. I don't really know why I see it as such a risk, but I do. It seems to be part of my cell structure.
I guess I keep coming back to this place even when I'm hurting because this is my best bet. This is the only place that has ever made a real difference. In spite of the disappointments. Maybe other people who haven't come back as regularly have found a good therapist or good friend or something creative that feeds their soul. I haven't found that yet. If I ever knew how to find those things, then I must have forgotten.
As far as I've come, I have a long ways to go.
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I thought that I mattered to me once, but it was for all the wrong reasons... only to the extent that I could do well, that I could solve problems, that I could help people, raise a good family. I was driven by perfectionism, then driven by anger, then driven by alcohol, nearly into the ground... and I still can't say that I matter to me, with all those things gone... because truly, I can't say for sure who I was. I only know I'm not that person anymore. And I know that I matter to God... and that you matter to Him... along with all the other people in this world... and so I keep trying to reach out. Not because I think I can matter to anyone else, but because I know that's what God wants me to do. He seems to know who I am alot better than I do and still I want to know what happened to that terrified, shy little girl. She didn't grow up... she just learned to wear masks and act out roles and survive.
Yes, yes, Hope. All of this, except I didn't have to battle alcohol (one good thing about having a weak stomach :wink:). And I probably would put anger first before perfectionism. But now the anger is something else. It doesn't consume me as it once did. I think that is good but it does put more of the responsibility for change onto me and my brain.
What would make me matter to me? I have no idea. I have never mattered to me. Probably because I never mattered to my parents--at least not when it would have made a difference in my development into a person. Later, sure they had "uses" for my services as a dutiful daughter. And later still my father finally figured it out. That I mattered as a person and he was lucky that person was his daughter. He finally figured it out when he was dying. All the other "stuff" fell away and became unimportant.
So, I was 43 years old when that happened. It took all that time to have happen something that should have happened the first moment each of them looked into my eyes at 7:35 am on Sunday, June 18th 1961. I spent all that time learning the wrong things about who and what I am.
I don't think it will be a thing I do or get that will make me matter to me. It is probably more what Hops suggested, that I must let it in.
It's funny to me, Hope, that when you said you would have to do some reading on these subjects of sensitivity and shyness and so on, my first thought was, "I am not going to read anything else at all about it!" I don't want more names of conditions, or reasons for neurological differences, or tests that will make me freeze when I take them. One of the tests here I took twice. I answered sincerely each time. I took the test twice within about ten minutes. The first result just didn't ring true to me. I forced myself the second time to be very, very honest about my answers. The second result rang true and it was almost the opposite of the first result. All that effort because I have a very hard time knowing myself or revealing myself to ME!
It is good to read up on this stuff. But with me I noticed that getting that name for what I know in my heart is happening doesn't really give me the relief I seek. I need real progress over time. Then I look back and see the contrast and that is what gives me relief.
I see you have another post, Hope. I will read some more and see what today's ideas are about.
Pennyplant
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TT!
I was just saying that I don't want to take any more tests or read anything technical and then I see this gem:
they comprise 15 - 20% of the popultion and that some are actually extraverts.
For all my being such a twisted-up little person obsessing about what to say, what to do, how to act.... there are many people who know me as being a very loud and expressive person. I told someone once how insecure I am and somewhat shy and she just looked at me and said, "I would've thought you are an extrovert!"
I might have to look at this test. It might teach me something. It would be interesting to understand how a shy person, which I do think is my basic nature, could act extroverted at times. I really don't know what is going on with me much of the time. It's not easy, that I do know.
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This thread is helping me a great deal. I have been having trouble with so many things at once and my depression has been a cloud over it all. Now it feels like I have a clearer direction to go in thanks to what everyone has been bringing up here. I will have to take the next step soon--choosing something to share and post about that I might rather keep inside. It is hard to know where to start--I might start with something that happened at work this past Friday having to do with projection and scapegoating. Not sure. This is hard for me to be so genuine on purpose. It will take some thinking. These posts that people have shared on this thread are so very helpful. People have responded to each other in wonderful ways.
I think if so many of you can be brave enough to try these things, to try and trust each other here, I can try to do the same. It is very hard to just start being a different kind of person out there in 3D. Face to face, people are not so willing or forgiving or in sync. Always I have just put myself out there at their mercy. And "they" were often merciless. I want to see that we are all the same inside. It must be true as Hope has said. It just makes sense. But all the masks distract me and trick me at times.
I think I have been judging myself as well. Wondering why I feel so out of it all the time as I watch others share in fun conversations both here and out there. But I'm just not as far along yet. I haven't been very patient with myself and I should be. It's not going to be the same pace or the same style for everyone.
Pennyplant
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Pennyplant,
I haven't read your last post yet, but wanted to go ahead and put this in here before it turns into a cyber-book.
I've been typing off and on here in notepad, between kp duty, etc, since I read your earlier post, so here it is.
Hugs to you.
Pennyplant,
About this: "But now the anger is something else. It doesn't consume me as it once did. I think that is good but it does put more of the responsibility for change onto me and my brain."
Yes. I felt very exposed without the anger for a long while. Without it, and without the perfectionistic drive, it seemed there was nothing to propel me into forward movement. I could still smile and find enjoyment, but for the most part, I just felt... deflated... and helpless. It was like... I can't "be good" to feel good, I can't "do well" or "help others" to feel better, I can't nurse a grudge against x, y, or z... what's left?
I'm so sorry that your parents never saw you. I'm certain that if they'd seen you as the individual you are, they would have appreciated you so much, as you say - when they looked into your eyes on the day of your birth.
You're a year younger than I... those were the days, huh.
I agree with the not doing or getting to find value in you... but rather, letting it in. That's something I could never do before, because I learned from my mother that people are not trust-worthy, that things and degree of control are what made you valuable. I rejected the things and went full tilt into the attempts to control.
You wrote: "It's funny to me, Hope, that when you said you would have to do some reading on these subjects of sensitivity and shyness and so on, my first thought was, "I am not going to read anything else at all about it!" I don't want more names of conditions, or reasons for neurological differences, or tests that will make me freeze when I take them."
My thoughts and feelings exactly! That's just why I've been avoiding this stuff like the plague. I do not want any more of it either... and last night, in trying to type to you, I felt frozen, inept, completely out of touch, and... helpless.
If you took the test on the link tt gave here, that's the one I took the other day
and told Izzy... I checked every one except the one about caffeine, since I haven't avoided it, so don't really know the full impact of its effects.
As I considered the questions, I had to dig back to who I was before I learned to apply a number of coping mechanisms, but it wasn't too difficult. Free of alcohol (thank God for your weak stomach!) I am more "myself" and definitely more aware of sensitivities than for years previously.
Realizing that I have not changed much inwardly from that shy and sensitive little girl of 40 years ago was startling... and I was dismayed. So I didn't go back and read anymore, but the awareness that I've been avoiding it has been haunting me. Writing to you last night, I felt the terror at having to face the little girl who's still hiding behind the shrubbery and shielding her eyes from the bright lights and aching for some respite from all the noise. Good grief, that's my mother... she's the one who can't have any music playing, won't allow anyone else to handle the remote control, must have utter dominion over her entire surroundings at all times. Freaked me out.
And this morning... I saw a new perspective, through the eyes of someone who wasn't exhausted and frantically trying to uncover the truth about this disconnectedness. I saw me... in my home, with my responsibilities, in my quasi-messy little nooks and crannies, with the ability to get things done when necessary and the need to locate the ability to stop trying to find a quick fix for every problem. That's me. There's a you in there like that, too, Pp, but I think maybe that I felt last night what you're experiencing...
and it felt almost like I'd developed an extreme sensitivity to myself.
Like an allergic reaction... or a rejection reaction, after an organ transplant.
Who's rejecting what over which issue is something that's different for each of us, I think... and yet it all comes down to what you've said here, I think -
looking back and seeing the contrasts. In the Bible, it's called renewing the mind. The spirit is made new by grace through faith, but the mind needs complete re-training and renewing to the truth which doesn't crumble, even when we feel ourselves on shaky ground.
And about your post to tt (reply #44) - me, too.
Hope
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Well, that was an easy test! I checked off 22 of the items. If I'm understanding right, it sounds like shyness can be a coping mechanism for dealing with all the stimuli. So, an extrovert who is highly sensitive could respond with shy behaviors. I can't say I know whether that is true of me or not. I can remember some very early episodes where I felt scrutinized or on display and responded in a shy way. This would be very early, toddler years. There is a lot to reconstruct, though. It seems to me that I was surrounded by people with difficult personalities and, me being so alert to these things, I just automatically catered to their needs.
I have a lot of my baby pictures and have looked at them many times over the years. It seems to me that the happy and carefree facial expressions on my baby face soon became alert and worried expressions, by about age two. I know by then my mother had two babies to take care of and was already dissatisfied with her marriage. None of it was meeting her expectations. I suppose I thought I had to be "good". Who was I to add to the burden? Nobody important.
I feel very supported by everyone who has posted on this subject. I wonder what Beth will think of the twists and turns. This has been so helpful.
Pennyplant
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Dear Pennyplant,
I don't think that anyone or anything has ever met my mother's expectations, so at least I don't feel alone in that.
(Wish there was a half smile... I'd insert it here).
I'm so glad that you're feeling more... uplifted here, too. That's worth a full smile :)
So far, I haven't had much success reconstructing early years, but stressing it isn't going to get it done. Feels like these discussions do more good than trying to record a time-line or any other systematic sort of approach.
Which two tests have you taken so far, Pp? I only did the sensitivity one, where every item applied and I briefly wondered whether a cave wouldn't be more suitable living quarters :? ( as I type behind closed blinds... lol)
I'm looking forward to reading whatever you want to share, any time, Pennyplant.
From my heart,
Hope
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Well, I took the one where you end up being INJP or various other abbreviations--that's the one where I came out two different ways, I believe. As you can see, I can't get my mind around that one. It's hard for me to remember what the abbreviations stand for.
I also took the Enneagram test and turned out to be a type 4 Individualist. That one is me to a T. Re-reading the basic description makes me think I'm fighting with my very nature. "Basic Fear: That they have no identity or personal significance. Basic Desire: To find themselves and their significance (to create an identity).....Key Motivations: Want to express themselves and their individuality, to create and surround themselves with beauty, to maintain certain moods and feelings, to withdraw to protect their self-image, to take care of emotional needs before attending to anything else, to attract a 'rescuer'." These type of people tend to get lost in their thoughts. That would be me.
I am interested in history and biography. So, trying to remember or figure out my childhood with some kind of timeline is kind of a natural tendency for me. I don't have a precise memory, though. I tend to remember things that impressed me emotionally. I also use photos to put together some kind of story to make some kind of sense. Give myself a general impression of what was going on. Plus, what I remember of what my parents said or did. And how they remember it today.
I bet many, many mothers who grew up in the 40s and 50s had certain "happily ever after" expectations that were seriously disappointed by the reality of their marriages and children.
A cave sounds nice...... Part of my retreating from here lately may be due to my general feeling of wanting to get away from it ALL. Everything feels like a demand lately. Part of me thinks, nobody else in my 3D life wants to change themselves, even though some of them are a REAL pain in my butt. Why do I have to keep changing all the time while they get to stay the same and even feel good about being a jerk? What's that all about? Maybe I've changed enough? That's what I was hoping. But being dragged right down by my depression this week, wow. That was a wake-up call. It was so familiar and so dreaded. For emotions to be so ill that it caused a physical sensation. I hated it.
I guess it's not me changing myself, it's me healing.
PP
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Dear Penny,
I am sorry that you feel so discouraged. I am finding that as I heal, my relationships get easier--- not harder. My H and S(golden) are being really good to me. My other son (older) and I have a good relationship.I stand up for myself much better , so I am getting treated better.
As you heal, the pain gets better Love Ami
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I hear you, Pennyplant.
I've had the urges to just hibernate, but seems like I've used up all my "get away from it all for free" cards.
That injp thing... I remember the Myers Briggs. Took it once years ago, turned out INJ... but not P, and I can't remember. Is there an F?
lol oy vey, I am tired.
I burned the results in one of my last bonfires. The whole thick envelope... up in smoke. That's how much I didn't want to be that person anymore. Actually, I think the test would come out differently now.. that was 1999, before npd-ex... but who knows. Maybe tomorrow. Kinda hate to test a work in progress... feeling a bit naked over here.
So yes, I hear you.
The Enneagram test result sure does sound like an ideal fit for you, based on what you've shared here. Kinda neat to see yourself summarized in a natural, normal way and realize that there are other "4"s out there :) Maybe I'll see what # they give me... tomorrow.
My brain is toast right now.
Daughter and I have been piddling with the right brain - left brain dominance tests, and learning-style tests (auditory or visual), and other similar things. Makes for interesting conversations between us :) She's young... she recovers alot faster than I do from the brain strain.
It's hard to keep motivated toward positive growth and change when you're surrounded by Homer Simpsons, I know.
Not that I have a Homer, but he's pretty self-satisfied... lol... and actually, pretty satisfied with me, too. I'm the one who wants more out of me. That's a good enough reason to keep changing, I think. And... I do believe that others will notice and at least have a chance to learn by example. Of course, that's up to them.
Sounds like healing to me, PP. Really, it does. I "feel" better just having spewed all over these pages.
Exhausted, but better!
Hope
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Thank you Ami. I am healing but I have such a long ways to go. I still have trouble with feeling good about myself and easy with others. When the depression recedes, I do better with that. I guess I thought that it would be steady forward progress, especially since I can measure my healing and it is significant. Sometimes the one step back feels like ten steps back. Today I called up a friend that I haven't talked to in awhile. It took me a week to feel well enough, energetic enough, whatever, to make the call. I wanted to call when I knew I could enjoy our conversation. To be able to go a whole week waiting to feel good enough to talk with a friend--that feels like several steps backward!
When I have time, I think I will start the thread about what happened at work on Friday. It is pertinent to this subject of relationships and being treated better when we feel better.
Hopefully tomorrow.
I know I keep bringing it up like a tease. But it had a significant impact on me. Still absorbing the lesson. So, hopefully tomorrow.
Hope, I think our version of spewing and what the Ns and N-types do to us is a whole different thing. Well, I understand your spewing quite well anyway and it just feels like sharing good ideas.
Good night,
Pennyplant
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Hi PP,
I've been a while getting back. Been sick AGAIN! Felling much better now.
Anyway, I agree that it can get tiresome being proffered yet another article or book that might 'fix' us. In recommending Dr. Aron, I had a little moe confidence than usual because I'd sent the link to a friend who was struggling with connecting with people. It ended up having a large impact on her (and she's not easy to impress). So I hoped there might be something to glean from it.
I thought the extravert part interesting too. I am decidedly an introvert. Can't imagine even vaguely what it would be like to be extraverted, but surprised at the prospect that someone could be extraverted and shy. Can't say I understand the concept though.
I'm so enjoying reading this thread and GS's thread and hearing your confirmations that things were being said that really spoke to a particular need or answered a question. To me that is one of the important features of the board and these threads are good examples.
Thank you Beth and each one who has contributed to a very meaningful thread.
I look forward to all you have care to contribute PP.
tt
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I have been thinking about our "places" on the board. We come here, most of us, needing help. For months, at least, a new member, especially one who has just discovered NPD in a close person and doesn't know anything about the disorder, will want to take in everything he/she can and will want to hear about others who are in the same spot. I think this is an information-gathering time. After this stage, the person should want to move on to the What Do I Do To Feel Better stage. At this point, you will start to understand about negative tapes, reactions to things that are actually reactions to the N in your life but displaced, and ways we have hurt ourselves. Now is the time for growth. Once a person has had much growth, he or she would stay on the board to provide help to others and share what he/she has learned. Or the person leaves the board pretty much altogether.
Of course, even those who have had a lot of growth need to go back to stage one sometimes and ask for help.
What do you all think about this... the stages and the growth????
Love, Beth
I am coming in very late here, and thought long and hard about posting at all.
I agree completely, beth, with everything. But I'd add one thing. There are some things you just can't do in this setting. Deep process work is one of them. A year ago, I thought it might be possible, but now I know it's not. That kind of work requires a dedicated therapy group... and that's what I'm headed for now.
I hate how this sounds, but I can't find a better way to put it: I want to be in a place where everyone is there to get garbage out of their own heads too, not just to commiserate about "those awful people out there".
We have a fable here, a very powerful myth that seems almost impossible to challenge: we are all just dandy, and it's only the Ns who are vile. Not so. It is simply impossible for us to live through what we have lived through and emerge intact, undamaged, unscathed. As long as we have to pretend that's so, as long as we're unable to part with the images of ourselves as perfect, we are doomed to continue through life hurting ourselves and others.
I've seen plenty of vile behavior here, and only *some* instances of it have been mine. But this, We Do Not Talk About. We don't take our own inventories. We rare back and glare at any who even raise the thought that We the Innocent Victims might hurt and abuse others because we learned to do it on a deep, instinctive level, from those who hurt and abused us. And then we make sure to give the renegade an extra helping of abuse just to larn them not to think such things of us. Many of us would rather die naked and flogged, than ever admit that we have wronged someone here and - god forbid - apologize to them. It would tarnish the image unbearably, and the image is the thing that matters.
This makes me want to shake people until their teeth rattle, and that is not good for me or them. Not to mention innocent bystanders.
I've been helped hugely here. I don't want to sound like I'm unaware of that. But I think, in my case, that the help has come because I had my therapist with me every step of the way. I was working with him when I signed up here the first time, and this time. He's seen the site and knows my screen name, and I've talked with him on many occasions about what has gone on here - my sins of omission and commission, and the omissions and comissions I've experienced, both onboard and in PMs. He knows what I think about pretty much everything and everyone - at least where I have an opinion. Sometimes he agrees, sometimes he disagrees, usually he asks me why I think as I do. And he always gets the story 'afterward'. He doesn't tell me what to think or do.
Without that sounding board, I'd have stalled very early, because I couldn't 'get into' anything deeply at all otherwise. I found, and find, that when I try, it either frightens people, angers them, or both. I've reached the point where I'm seeing a lot of interpersonal dynamics here that I can't talk about [I've been called an N and worse when I try], especially as they affect me and I affect them in turn. At this point, I need not one therapist, but a roomful of therapist-peers. A therapy group. If I can find one. Because, for me, as long as I have to dissemble in a therapeutic environment, it can never be completely therapeutic.
I would LOVE to talk constructively and openly here about my own flaws and imperfections and distortions and unrealistic expectations, and get honest non-defensive agenda-free feedback about them. No can do. This is not a therapy group; it's a support group. One of a kind, incredible, but still, a support group. Trying to use it as a therapy group is not going to work; it's not designed to be one. Lesson learned, and accepted.
Lest this be dismissed as Another of Stormchild's Recent Rants, let me leave you with a thought, and a challenge. I believe that the people who have made the most progress here - in the psychological sense, not the temporal or financial sense - are people who have 'kissed their monsters on the nose' [from Friel and Friel, I think] - people who face and own their labels, and in so doing, break the spell.
Write, who is bipolar and unashamed. Moon, who is also bipolar and unashamed. Yourself, an AA member and unashamed. And others...
Because there IS no shame in these things! There is only courage and freedom to be found in facing them.
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This makes me want to shake people until their teeth rattle, and that is not good for me or them. Not to mention innocent bystanders.
Oh please Miz Storm, throw me in that briar patch, but please, please don't shake me until more teeth rattle. I already have some of those and there is a hungry dentist with dollar signs flying out of his eyes and mouth to get at them. Now there's an innocent bystander who would benefit! :P
All kiding aside, Storm, enjoyed your blog, It's all about the abuse blog on gailwarnings.
And I want to respond to your post as well.
tt
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Dear Pennyplant,
I've been thinking more about what makes this sort of discussion so... satisfying and fulfilling to me, and I see that it's not nearly so much about answered questions and putting each item neatly into its place, but it's just the sharing.
I can feel the sharing, the give and take, and it's pleasurable.
I can picture each of us with our little piles of blocks to stack and arrange, but sometimes we need that extra piece here and there, in order to complete the design we have in mind. Nobody's anxiously pushing and shoving to tell us how to build... sticking their hands into our space to make adjustments... just sitting nearby, available to lend a hand when asked and also willing to acknowledge the need for an occasional assist.
And I'm thinking that if you and I could be that sort of friend, each to our selves, then we wouldn't have to wait a week to feel well enough, energetic enough, to talk with a friend (yes, I'm like that, too... big time).
This spewing isn't venting like N does at all, no. To me, it's just the releasing of... whatever... that may not be all well-ordered and prepped for release, but we can try to put it out there anyway. It's not fancy and decorated and intellectualized to be all pretty and neat... it's raw and unprocessed... in a good way.
Oh, and I don't feel a bit teased by your holding off on posting about what happened at work on Friday. It'll come out when its ready... when you're ready. When something like that has such an impact, I can't usually just toss it out there... unless the tossing is driven by fear, that would be the exception. Other than that, yes... takes me a longgggg while to absorb some of these things and the asborbing stage can be a very vulnerable place.
It's hard to describe a change in progress... kinda leaves you feeling like all your joints and connective tissues are loose and dangly.
Dear Beth,
Thank you for this thread! It sure has taken some unique turns and I'm just so glad you put it out there to gather thoughts!
I hope you're both having a great Thursday :)
Hope
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Dear Storm,
That was a profound post. YES--- that is it--- BREAK the spell. It is that simple.
Penny,I think, was talking about getting "mired" in all the theories. I agree 100%. I think that the inner child"work" takes you inside, where we had the "spell" put on us. We have to take off the 'spell". We DON"T need to learn new theories(IMO)
We need to find our essential core and our own power.
It is a digging out--- not 'taking IN new informarion(IMO)
How do you break the spell? TRUTH
Truth about ourselves and our lives. Truth is the weapon to break any spell(IMO) Love Ami
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TT, I'm glad you're feeling better enough to post! I went back and read GS's thread after it was mentioned on this one and it was so interesting. Learned a lot from what everyone said and I'm sorry I missed it from the beginning.
What is happening with me now as far as reading and researching--I'm digging into the past and decided to read some books on Autism and Asperger's since my father thought he was Asperger's. I figured my having been raised by someone who could not understand and express emotions and who could not understand how to easily connect with others must have had a significant impact on what I was able to learn about those same areas of life. I read those books looking for myself in there. I found some interesting things as I read along. I think I found my son in there. The oldest one who I have had trouble connecting with from day one. And I'm still absorbing this new knowledge.
So, more reading? Hmmmm. It would be good for me. I might even like it. But I just feel a sort of turmoil inside right now. I need to let that pass. At the same time I'm also digging into my own memories and feelings and ways. Journaling and learning how to pay attention--that's a big one. I don't pay attention very well. I'm usually distracted by my thoughts and stronger emotions. For now, I'm going to keep working on this current turmoil and a couple of threads here and keep in mind the hypersensitivity issue. My test results tell me it is a big issue for me and working on it would be helpful. But it will have to be later.
I have to get back to work now and would like to respond more to this thread tonight.
Bye for now.
Pennyplant
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Hi PP,
How about dance lessons?
Seriously. I have an idea that doing something like dancing with others, or Tai Chi classes, would enable you to focus on physical patterns, which might turn out to be a sort of EFT for your inner self.
love
Hops
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Pennyplant,
About not paying attention well...
I've been thinking of that, too... it's something of which I've been aware forever, it seems, but never made a deliberate effort to understand the whys and wherefores. Pretty much thought it was just one of my quirks.
But now I'm finding it's tied in to a sense of helplessness, I think... and also a bit of a fatalistic mindset which says: "what difference does it make? ... everything is prearranged anyhow; I'm just along for the ride" (going wayyy back to earliest childhood).
Rushing through this at the moment, just home from "town", but checked in here to see whether you'd posted and wanted to add this before I forget.
We had to go do the tour at son's new middle school, which is fairly familiar territory to us, since his sisters both did their years there :) and yet... of course, it's all new to him. Anyhow, I recognized anew the difficulty I have with paying attention to locations... trying to help him practice his route from class to class... I can do it, but it's a most definite, conscious struggle. So many people and the hallways all congested... I could feel my mind beginning swamp.
Then walmart, for a few last minute school supplies... and all the people, lights, colors... I felt those old signals of impending shut-down... and yet it wasn't so bad, simply because of the awareness.
I think it's because the reflex anger/frustration reaction is mostly gone these days, it's like I'm more aware of my actual surroundings and how they're affecting me... and that dual awareness is paying off. I still find this stuff tiring, but not exhausting and incapacitating.
And I wondered... does your "not paying attention" extend to your physical surroundings as well as your internal emotional condition? For years I've felt like a bit of a fool about these sorts of things, but now just beginning to see the way through this particular little quirk.
Later :)
Hope
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Penny,
I have been thinking about you so much and am going to back this all up to a few days ago when I reintroduced the thread and you answered saying that you felt different from others often and that you always feel this way in a group... I think you are hiding. I think you get scared and back off from others. I was such a "unique" person, I felt, for the longest time. And a person like me just never "fit in." And in some ways I feel that at times now... but I have to also go with what was said to you here - it's a way to keep yourself safe. It's so funny - you say you have nothing important to share with others, and yet I see you as one of the authorities and wise voices on this board. And, tough tootsies, lady, I think we are a lot alike. LOL. Really, I am going through an opposite stage now - getting used to realizing that I am LIKE others. And that is a bit scary to me. I have swung the other way and feel very unspecial now.
((((((((((((Penny))))))))))))) I want to write more, but company calls...
Love, Beth
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Stormy, That was excellent--I'm glad you decided to post your thoughts on this. Now my thoughts are going in a direction that I don't know how to explain. I'm coming at it from a different angle though. Why don't people want to dig deep or face their monsters? Why do they become uncomfortable with someone who is doing just that? Is it their unique personality? Or is it that what they came out of is just too terrible to re-live and examine? Are there some things better left buried? Is that ever possible?
I am one who wants to dig. I might not tell people about some of what comes up. But I want to know these things. And all the while I know that what I am digging up is rather mild compared to the tortures that some here have survived. The girl who stalked me in 9th grade and terrorized me for several months was a victim of incest. I don't have an answer or fix for something like that. I'm just wondering if there are some basic problems for some people when it comes to facing things.
In general, I am a huge fan of truth. And expressing truth and emotions. In my world, that's not a particularly common trait. I don't think it is common anywhere.
Wow, I am struggling here. Okay, when you mentioned the fable, the myth of this place, that we are the good ones and the bad ones are the Ns out there..... Well, I agree with that. I do see this board as operating under such a mindset. So, I wonder, why do we have to seem so good? How do we maintain a truer balance? How do we admit to things without it all falling apart? I see this in everyday life too. When someone is in trouble, or causing trouble, or being unbearable, the other people just want it to stop. They'll do anything to make it stop. They'll even say, I don't care anymore, just make it stop, give her what she wants, I don't want to hear it anymore.
And maybe some people reach a point of healing or whatever that feels like enough. They can live with it like this from now on. I have not reached a point of healing where I think it is enough. I want more. There are things I want to accomplish in this life and I don't think I will if I don't heal and grow and figure out how to let the happiness and contentment in. I'm not even halfway there yet.
I hope everyone here wants to keep going.
Pennyplant
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Dear Penny,
What a cry for help. I am glad that I was here to hear it. I think that some people ( a few) want to be really honest and many do not.
I ,always ,think of my son(younger) in a fraternity. The idea of being in a fraternity or sorority makes me shudder b/c I lost myself and think that I would be overwhelmed.
However, he is learning to deal with life ,as it is. There are a few sociopaths( we" diagnosed "them) and many other diverse characters(some good and some bad).
I need to learn how to function among all people. I had my head up my A## since 14. Now, I WANT to learn to manuever among all types.
I bring this up to say that IMO, Penny, all you need are a few friends who God will send you-- not everyone and even most.
That to me is a relief. Maybe, I did not even answer your question and it was just my rant. If so, I am sorry, Penny Love Ami
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Hope, I like the image of us sitting with our piles of blocks and making something as we've imagined it with occasional help from others. It is a young image and I know that inside I am very young. I think you just can't skip over entire segments of childhood. Those needs will stay inside you and come out at the strangest times.
The not paying attention--recently I kind of worked this out for myself. I believe I was hyper-vigilant from toddlerhood onwards. I was, and often still am, on the lookout for perils of all kinds. The idea being to prevent any kind of problem or difficulty from occurring. Since I was constantly busy doing that, I was not paying attention to the quieter things, I was not learning the give and take of social skills and friend-making, I was not paying any attention at all to what was happening with my own body and my own moods and ideas. I was always going full-speed ahead. I rarely stopped and existed. Everything I did had to have a purpose. I paid very close attention to what might happen or what was going to happen. Was rarely ever in the moment. Also constantly worrying about "getting in trouble."
It is a struggle to change that about myself. But what has helped lately is that the other way just wears me out. It's just too tiring to be that way anymore. Thank God I can recognize it and just go with it now. But it is a struggle to learn the other way of being. It is a struggle to let myself be.
Pennyplant
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(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((Penny))))))))))))))))))))))))))
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Hopsy, I took yoga last year and had the most anxiety about the exercises that we had to do with partners. Actually I noticed that most of the people in the class brought someone they already knew with them. So, those people never had to worry about doing partner exercises with a stranger or someone who was vastly larger and stronger than them. It was a real struggle for me. I seem to be having more anxiety about things like that than I did as a child.
But dancing--I have been listening to music in my car every day for the past year and I notice I can feel the music more now and can be less inhibited now when I'm listening to music alone. (Yes, I had gotten to the point where I couldn't even relax and dance at home all by myself.) A couple of weeks ago I went to a fire dept. raffle and had some beers and listened to my favorite local band. A couple friends from work were there too and the three of us danced together for awhile and really enjoyed each other's company. I haven't done something like that in over 25 years.
That is one example of what I mean when I say I have a long ways to go. I let many parts of my life and myself come to a screeching halt once I got pregnant at age 18. I see now that I did this to myself. But I didn't realize that then.
When I was a little girl I took tap, jazz and hula! We had a recital every year and got to wear stage makeup. I remember how exciting that was. But I quit taking lessons after 7th grade. Not sure anymore why I quit.
It's getting late and I need to stop "talking" now! I'm getting a little worn out.
I do have a couple more things to say, though. Tomorrow.
Love, Pennyplant
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Dear Pennyplant,
I do want to keep going and will write more tomorrow.
First I'd like to think more about the hyper-vigilance you've described and how that compares with my own passivity over the years (if that's even true - I'm not sure). I hear so much regret in your voice... and yet I also hear hope and the stirrings of new dreams. I'm thinking that it's okay to let the old dreams go to make room for fresh ones. More tomorrow.
With love,
Hope
P.S. I like the block picture, too :)
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I think you are hiding. I think you get scared and back off from others. I was such a "unique" person, I felt, for the longest time. And a person like me just never "fit in." And in some ways I feel that at times now... but I have to also go with what was said to you here - it's a way to keep yourself safe.
It must be true, Beth. Because I sure do feel scared so much of the time with other people. I'm anxious and scared before I even start sometimes. When I don't feel anxious, that's the rarity. Things go much better for me when that anxiety disappears for awhile. I don't have any real control over that yet.
I can remember so many times as a kid when I was blind-sided by the mean things the other kids said or did. It always seemed so out of proportion to whatever I had done to "offend." I can remember times when I was just being silly or loud and some boy would haul off and punch me in the face or stomach. Right in front of people too. And everyone would look and say, "What did he do that for?" Damned if I knew. I can remember doing some bad or naughty things too and then the wrath of the entire group would fall on me. I would be mystified and hurt. Why wasn't the boy who punched me banished? Why am I banished for doing something similar that he or they always "got away with"? My perception was, and often still is, that I can't get away with the smallest infractions while others go scot free for doing what seem to me to be terrible things. Injustice. Maybe this is related to my never feeling safe. And wanting to feel safe. And controlling everything I say and do in order to be safe or at least be ready for the wrath of others instead of being blind-sided and unprepared.
I remember once when I was about nine a little girl was being quite annoying to me at the park. I wanted her to stop it and leave me alone. But she wouldn't. So I grabbed her by the hair on both sides of her head and pulled it and shook her and made her cry. Everyone blew up at me. "She's littler than you! Look at her hair that you pulled out!" And I said, "So, it's only okay if the smaller person is ME!" And nobody said a word. It was true. All of the kids who were yelling at me in defense of the little pest had each picked on me quite often. They were all bigger and older than me. Most of them were boys. I was right about that. But I still got kicked out of the park for the day. There has always seemed to be a double-standard when I'm involved.
You know, when I start to act like others and realize I am like them, especially if I feel like I have something in common with someone I detest, I get this very creepy, icky feeling inside. Is that shame being triggered? Is that also related to fear? I really don't know. I hate that creepy feeling.
And, tough tootsies, lady, I think we are a lot alike.
I think so, too. I like to think so :D :D :D .
It's time to head off to work again. I plan to be back later on.
Pennyplant
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dear Penny,
Those are patterns that you "live by" today EVEN though they do not make sense in your adult situation. they make "sense" only in a crazy environment when you were a child.
I am seeing my similar patterns of always being afraid of anger. There are many others,too. I am reacting the same way that I did when I was little .
Then, I needed them for pure survival. Now, they are killing me. Love Ami
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Pennyplant,
First day I've been alone since end-May... kids back to school - 1 day and then the weekend = a gentle beginning. Taking that as a reminder to myself... to allow for gentle beginnings and then to apply that sort of mindful gentleness all the way through.
This concept of hyper-vigilance got me wondering... because I hadn't ever deduced any particular mental attitude for myself as a child. I'm just beginning to go back that far and re-evaluate.
Where you tried to lookout for perils and prevent difficulties, I seem to have gone farther into my shell as the years of childhood progressed, tuning out to my environment. However, I was aware that I must not be the cause of any... attention... drawn to myself.
I remember my neck hurting so badly one night... but can't recall whether I said anything about it to my parents.
The next morning, both sides of my neck and throat were extremely swollen... mumps. Age 8, maybe? It was time to get ready for school and I was terrified that my mother would see, so I wrapped a scarf around and got on the schoolbus. Of course they saw it at school and called her.
She never took me to the doctor for anything, so I don't feel as though I was afraid of medical treatment... it was more about terror at being the cause of any upset to her.
My kids have always told me when they're not feeling well...
and if they didn't, I'd wonder why!
What gets me now is - WHY didn't she ask me why I'd tried to hide it?
She never asked anything... about anything... until I got of age to be preparing to go out into the world and she'd demand to know my plans.
Like I had a clue.
Anyhow, I think that I went to the extreme opposite of mindsets/emotional states... into hyper-passivity. As much as I wanted to get away from my parents and their ways, all I knew was to transfer that dependence to someone else. Independence was too foreign... and I had no tools... but by this time, nobody ever would have guessed that by looking at me and I didn't know it was possible to actually share feelings and have them valued, so I never tried. I keep thinking of that boy who said to me at 16... you seem so nice, I wish I could have gotten to know you better. I didn't know what he meant... what's to know? Now I understand.
That hyper-vigilance seems driven by fear and anxiety.
I'm thinking that, like when anger dissipates... as the fear eases...
there's an emptiness, a nakedness, but only for a season.
It's temporary and will pass!
As I finish typing this up on notepad, I just peeked into the thread and see that you've posted again. Just wanted to say that I hope the sort of cross-posting on here that I'm doing doesn't create confusion. Processing some of this is such slow-going for me and I find that as I read the past posts, new thoughts come to light. For you Pennyplant, no need to comment on anything or to try to address any of this... I'm just putting it out there as it comes through. If something registers, that's wonderful! But either way, I appreciate so much the opportunity to weigh what you and others here are expressing and try to find my own perspective. You're providing the outline... identifying some key points... to which I'm oblivious on my own.
Thank you! I'll read over what you last posted, PP... and be mulling over here :)
With love,
Hope
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Those are patterns that you "live by" today EVEN though they do not make sense in your adult situation.
I don't know, Ami. I think the patterns are not helpful in adult life, but since I keep getting triggered it makes me think my adult life is truly mimicking or re-playing a lot of the same things that happened when I was a kid. It seems like I am surrounded by playground bullies--just older and bigger and even less hopeful. It seems like many people around here never quite get past a certain stage of development. Such a stingy, narrow-mindedness here. Pettiness, greed, laziness. I love to find that someone is interested in personal growth. I love to see people learn from the past and make real changes. But I see it all too rarely.
It will be interesting to see if I can really change the dynamics by changing how I feel inside and how I respond to wrong treatment. I think.... it is slowly happening. I need for more time to go by though and for more things to happen so I can compare.
IMO, Penny, all you need are a few friends who God will send you-- not everyone and even most.
That's a hard idea for me to get used to. But I think you are right. I think I will be okay however the "friends thing" turns out. I think I have always had a very set idea about what constituted a "friend". There have been times when I had many and there have been times when I had only one friend. I have lost friends and it broke my heart. It is an area of life where I mostly feel like a loser I would say. But maybe that is because my standards have been too rigid and narrow. For the past several years I have felt like I have friends but I was still lonely because I didn't see them much. People don't drop by very often, etc. But lately I feel that increasing my time spent with friends is something of a burden. I really need more "me time" than I get. I see that now. I crave just being myself, by myself, and having that autonomy. I do so little that is just me, just the way I like something done, when I want to do it, totally relaxed and peaceful with no deadlines and no arbitrary standards set by someone else. It is turning out to be okay that I don't see my friends that often.
I want to stop judging myself so harshly for how I've turned out.
Ami, you've been so helpful with these ideas. You're helping me to clarify things.
Pennyplant
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Dear Penny,
The "friends" issue is hard.I know what you mean that friends are too much of a bother. On the board, I have 3 special friends that I can talk to when I need to discuss things on the board.
Thanks to them, I am still here. If I had not reached out, I would be gone ,now. I would have run away from feeling rejected.
We laugh about the problems and I can go on.I have made great progress. It is only b/c I reached out and took a calculated risk. i trusted my gut and reached out.
So, on the board,it has been wonderful to have some friends.
In real life,it is harder. I know that I have so many patterns that replay when I am with people that I just don't want to bother.it is so much easier to just "not bother". I am in the same situation
It is really, really hard to break the old familiar patterns, Penny Love Ami
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Hope, that is very interesting to me about passivity having been your way of coping. It sounds wiser in some ways than my hyper-vigilance. Because you didn't draw attention to yourself. I was continuously drawing attention to myself. And it wasn't usually a good thing! I don't think I was trying for attention, though. I saw what happened with my sister--she drew all kinds of negative attention and trouble. It wasn't pleasant to watch and would not have been pleasant to experience in my opinion. I hated the scrutiny and feelings of embarrassment from the kind of attention I sometimes got. It made me far too self-conscious.
What I wanted to draw to myself was love and comfort. Acceptance. I kept hoping for that even though it rarely happened. In fact, the few times someone tried to be helpful or positive, I .... thought they were weird.
I do see the self-destructive aspects of some of your episodes of passivity, though .... especially the time you almost drowned. But your approach must have worked on some level for a time. Staying under the radar probably did spare you from additional abuse. And my hyper-vigilance probably did save me from more scrapes than I realized. There's a lot of things people here have suffered that I wasn't exposed to.
I used to think that was a bad thing! In fact, I thought my lack of "experience" was a bad thing right up until probably a few weeks ago. What a surprise to have started to let go of wanting a "past". I was obsessed with that lack of a past. I considered that to be my youth that I never got. I don't think I want that anymore. My oh my. Now, that's a surprise!
I feel like the posters on this thread kind of rallied toward me this week. ((((((((())))))))))) Thank you for that. And thank you to Beth for letting this thread take on a life of its own. ((((((((()))))))))))
I feel more comfortable with myself and my place in life. At least for tonight!!!
Love, Pennyplant
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Oh, Pennyplant... here you wanted a past and all I've wished for the past 5 years or so was to not have one...to not have a past with divorces and a broken family and so many poor, uninformed... okay, idiotic... choices.
It was never a "youth", though... other than a very brief couple of goofy years in my early 20s, which was typical oat-sowing, I guess. But ever since, it's been responsibility heaped atop obligation and multiplied with heartaches... nothing carefree or dramatic about it. Mostly I feel like I was just along for the ride... very strange.
About my passivity... I would have done anything to avoid drawing my attention to myself, expending most of my energy, always, trying to blend in and not attract notice.
I made impulsive choices about everything, just to get it over with.
Buying clothes, even... most of the time, I don't think I even knew what size I was. I'd just buy something because it had a # on it that seemed to fit once... and never thought about making a more informed selection. And most of my "stuff" - furniture, clothing, shoes... hand-me-downs from mother, grandma, aunt... I was custodian of the family cast-offs.
ugh. That was my role... and I didn't even notice. Not until npd-ex.
He opened my eyes to so many things. I realize now that the things he said and did. and the way he treated me, were all the things my mother never expressed except with that withering look of disdain and contempt... and by her withdrawal.
She abandoned me at every step of the way, whenever my behavior or even just a thought didn't coincide with her image, and yet I made her my ally in my marriage trouble to my kids' dad. Still passive... because by that time, I'd decided that she must have been right all along, considering the mess I wound up with. eeek... I'm blathering.
Penny, I had sex the first time in order to get "experience"... to get it over with... and married him. That was the beginning of a load of experiences which brought me 4 children and a life full of question marks. And then the search for love and acceptance and comfort led straight to N... And yet, if it hadn't been for all that, I could be a shadow of my mother still?
I don't know why it took all that to shake off my fog, but I can't regret the results when I consider the alternative. There is no experience I want from this point on than to live free of shadows... and that's my prayer for you, and for all of us.
Genuine love and comfort and acceptance to you,
Hope
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I'm interrupting a conversation and feel like a boor because this will break the flow.
but I will feel like even more of a boor if I go much longer without saying thank you - tracks and Ami and besee and Pennyplant.
And responding.
tracks, :-). I don't like how strident I get, but I really don't like how I have been treated here - at times - by some. There is an excellent ancient post about 'the calm abuser' that resonates completely with what I believe I've experienced. Whoever this was, I sure wish they were here now. Emphasis below is mine.
From 'trolls and choices', Reply #9 on: November 22, 2004, 01.27.25 AM. Poster: Anonymous [guest].
yes there are trolls and in addition, finger pointing trolls as well.
there are also moles.
be careful of people who try to win your confidence unnecessarily. Do not become emotionally invested in any one poster. Look for consistency in their stories and attitudes and commitment to growth. If they seem committed to conflict, steer clear.
Instead, build your own intuition about what is emotionally safe for you. Invest in the process of this board. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, which are the many voices here to speak truly about their own experiences.
we are not here to build alliances or coalitions but to speak and witness truth about bullying behavior. (hold the semantics about truth for now please.)
Remember that anger is not the same as abuse. It's all in how you express it and deal with it that makes the difference. An abuser will convince you that getting angry and/or holding them accountable is abuse. It isn't.
Name-calling, insults, etc is verbal abuse. We've all done in once in a while in a moment of weakness but when it is a hallmark of someone's communication style, it is abuse.
Keeping one's cool is not necessarily a sign of a nonabuser. There are the kinds of abusers who never get angry and can successfully drive their partner(s) to madness. The madness is only the effect. The abuser's cold cruelty is the cause. Invalidation is only one technique of the calm abuser.
Abusers do not change. Their behavior in controlling you is too rewarding to give up in exchange for your health.
Focus on growth, not on controlling games or drama.
A Troll Survivor
I just refuse, any more, to be held to high standards by people who are unwilling or unable to meet those standards in their treatment of me. I'm going to set my own standards for that type of interaction henceforth. Since I am still a novice at this, I'm going to be rough at first. I will improve with practice. And I'm never going back to where I was.
Ami... you go, girl. :mrgreen:
besee, the post you asked about disappeared because the thread was deleted and then reposted by the author, in order to eliminate my posting. Same thing happened with a thread from another poster, about a colleague being self destructive. I thought the person starting that thread did something very destructive to that colleague, intentionally, and was being disingenuous about the situation [IMO]. I was rather blunt about it, because I've seen too much of that type of behavior in my own workplaces.
Making a challenger's thoughts disappear in this fashion "resolves" the challenge without having to actually address the issue they have raised.
That being said, I have accepted what is. I was definitely blunt. Specific. Explicit. Affect-laden... and intimidating. And, people have a right to their turf. And it's important to know who thinks of what as 'turf'. 'Turf' isn't open space. Turf is closed space, and it's unsafe to think that someone is psychologically open in areas where they are actually closed.
I got turf, too. I've pulled threads when it looked as though they were going down in flames and the whole point of them was going to be lost... so Rosie O'Grady and the Colonel's Lady are sisters under the skin. And a year or more ago, I locked a thread because someone whom I thought - my opinion - entirely mine - was here mainly to be argumentative for kicks, was hassling me, and I wanted to share a controversial idea without its being, um, diluted/diverted. Locked a couple recently, too, but can't remember which ones off the bat.
Difference is, IMO, I knew I was shielding turf. Felt conflicted but it seemed like the best of several bad options.
And I try not to get sucked into donnybrooks, when I feel that the objective is to fight, to have High Drama, rather than to understand or resolve anything. That refusal to engage will certainly look like calm abusing to the other party involved if they don't realize what the dynamics actually are. Which is more often than not the case - who would continue going after drama for drama's sake if they knew that's what the driving force was? [Assuming of course that I figured the dynamics out properly myself!]
Thing is, there's drama and karpman krap, and then there's conflicts and genuine differences in values, and it can seem very relative and subjective trying to sort out which is which. You look at history and how people react to things, and do the best you can with what you know.
Pennyplant... why do we have to seem so good? How do we maintain a truer balance? How do we admit to things without it all falling apart? I see this in everyday life too. When someone is in trouble, or causing trouble, or being unbearable, the other people just want it to stop. They'll do anything to make it stop. They'll even say, I don't care anymore, just make it stop, give her what she wants, I don't want to hear it anymore.
It's a paradox. Jung said it very elegantly - neurosis is a substitute for legitimate suffering. What happens so often, so often, in good therapy [sadly rare, good therapy] is that people come into it certain that they'll be utterly destroyed if they face the thing they fear, whatever it is, the sick secret as they say in ACOA. But as they learn to trust their T, the T becomes a sort of surrogate, safe parent. And then the Thing is faced -
and -
my God. Not only don't they fall apart, but actually, all kinds of garbage falls off, instead. It's a cleansing. A liberation. It may come with tears, but it doesn't usually come with the awful things - the longing to die, the endless replaying of horrible relationships, the need for substances or addictive processes, etc. - that the refusal to face The Thing has been causing all their lives.
But instead, we're so afraid of boogeymen that we prefer to spend our lives trapped in the tombs with werewolves and vampires. Giving away everything and anything, just to appease Ns and bullies, who of course cannot be appeased, and never get enough.
And will you look at that. This has come back around to where it belongs. To you, and beth...!!!!
Here's lookin' at you[r posts], kid. ;-)
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Stormchild, you wrote,
"I will improve with practice. And I'm never going back to where I was."
Amen.
I remember breaking down, having been pushed to the brink of madness. And I promised myself - I would never never ever let myself get to that position ever again. Not for anyone. Not over anyone. Not in response to anyone. Never. My sanity is not worth the price.
I am fully protected. Within myself. I will do ANYTHING to avoid that place again. It's a promise.
Dandylife
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Hi Storm,
I'm going to set my own standards for that type of interaction henceforth.
I always thought you had set your own standards in all areas for participating on the board.
It hasn't been discussed on this thread, but by design or by default, each one who participates here has a set of standards and or boundaries that govern their participation.
My boundaries for participating on the board are by design.
Don't know if any of this makes sense.
tt
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Pennyplant,
Wanted to let you know that I did the Enneagram test, finally.
Got 5 "points" on the #5 (Thinker) and 4 points on the #2 (Helper)... and felt like this fits me, who I am now.
I left many questions unanswered... didn't count how many - maybe 6-7?
Will take it again soon, because the rest of the puzzle is in those unanswered questions and I feel the need to note them.
They presented themselves to me as options, choices... and I felt that I could choose to go either way... but those are the points in particular where I am currently in flux, you know?
It's strange... not so much that - okay, this is where I was and this is where I want to be (on those unanswered ones).
More like - I am literally in betwixt... actively headed in this other direction, but not quite there yet.
It wasn't so much unsettling as... confirming. I'm in transit.
While there, I read about type #4 and thought - yes, that's the Pennyplant I've been reading.
And I wondered... do you feel as though you're in transit, too?
In all of the other types, I scored negative or zero. And I wondered how that may change when I "arrive" :P lol
What a concept... maybe I'll arrive by 50.
No, really, I don't think it's about arriving so much as unearthing, unveiling, cleansing... washing away the rubble.
It's loose, scattered around, still capable of causing unpleasant trips and stumbles... but not weighing so heavily.
Do you feel that way, too?
Soon, I want to do the Meyers Briggs test again and take a fresh look at that... on another thread, though.
Thanks for your time and all you've shared on this thread, Penny... it's been such a pleasure! I'll leave it now to complete its course in whatever direction y'all choose to ride it. I'm looking forward to meeting and sharing with you elsewhere on the board, as you like.
Beth, I hope you don't feel bad, upset, imposed upon, or in any way neglected by my participation here.
You initiated quite a flow on this thread and I'm so thankful for that... and so thankful for you!
I hope that your home is feeling like your own now... and that the visit you've had has wrapped up in some semblance of understanding and... peace.
With love,
Hope
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And then the Thing is faced -
and -
my God. Not only don't they fall apart, but actually, all kinds of garbage falls off, instead. It's a cleansing. A liberation. It may come with tears, but it doesn't usually come with the awful things - the longing to die, the endless replaying of horrible relationships, the need for substances or addictive processes, etc. - that the refusal to face The Thing has been causing all their lives.
And this is what you need a therapist or therapy group for and we have here a support group. I wonder if my refusal, so far, to go to a therapist will limit what I can accomplish in my healing. There's a lot of stuff I can learn to admit to myself, but will I be limited if I don't have someone else to admit it to? We shall see. Maybe someday I will get over my refusal to hire a therapist.
My father used to say, before he actually quit smoking, that he was afraid to be without any cigarettes at all because he might just freak out and go crazy. His big fear. I bet he thought that about a lot of things and I bet I learned that all my life from him. What a burden it is to have been raised by children in adult bodies.
Stormy, I will watch as you set and practice your own standards. I need to learn how to do that myself. I shall be a sponge :mrgreen: .
Pennyplant
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Hope, I think that is always the way, even for people who haven't gone through what we here all have gone through. Everybody thinks the way others did it is preferable somehow. I can't tell you how many people have told me how cute, sweet, wonderful, lucky, whatever, it is that my husband and I each married our first (well, and only). High school sweethearts, awwww, that's so nice!!! People really have no idea. I guess the truth is, nothing is ever easy and nobody really knows what it's like on another's path.
I think your path led the right way for you and my path led the right way for me. I suppose I will always wonder about some things though..... But I sometimes think that people look at my path as "cleaner" somehow. Or neater. And it wasn't. It was really messy. Just a very focused, narrow mess.
I read somewhere about people who survived the Khmer Rouge. The husband was saying that on the run for their lives, full of terror and acting on instinct, maybe the husband ran ahead first and forgot to try and be a hero and protect his wife. And his wife has seen this and knows this about him. And they meet up again a few miles up the road and escape the Khmer Rouge and the wife will always know for as long as they both shall live that he forgot her in his fear for his life.
I'm not saying that my husband and I were ever in danger. But I'm saying we each know the terrible weaknesses of the other. We have seen each other at our worst. And what do you do with that knowledge? There is no moving on and starting over again with someone else somewhere else. We have traveled from age 17 to 46. We've each been pathetic, we've each failed many times, let each other down many times, hated each other a couple of times. It's not clean and neat. It's certainly not sweet, awwww.
So anyway. I guess we've all got a past :? .
You know, I think I understand some of the passivity. You mentioned being the inheritor of all the cast-offs. We've been in our house 14 years. We inherited a garage full of stuff and a basement full of stuff. We bought all the old appliances. The man who sold us the house really wasn't ready to let go of it. In fact, he refused to sell it to the other bidders because they were going to gut it and he couldn't stand the thought. So, I felt this responsibility to work with the house as it was. It has been very difficult to put our own stamp on the place. I felt this responsibility NOT to gut the house. To maintain the gardens. Etc. We have improved slightly in that regard. But each change has been somewhat wrenching to me. WHAT IS THAT ALL ABOUT? It seems nuts to me now that I really think about it. Why have we been afraid, basically, to make this place really ours? Boundary issues with a house. Enmeshment issues with a house. I think it is basically that neither of us really formed a self. Not a full, strong self.
Though my husband comes with some other baggage that kind of adds into this. His father systematically destroyed their house when he, husband, was growing up. His father really had some issues. So, my husband was very ashamed of his home. He doesn't care to repeat that with our home. He gets kind of frozen about working on the house. Understandable. So, this week our 80-year-old plumbing bit the dust. He had to knock out a small wall, part of a ceiling, the bathroom floor. But we got this great plumber. And my husband has been hanging out with him and learning and gaining confidence. It has been very interesting. This whole thing triggered a big depression for me. I had to climb my way out of the that. My husband has been the leader this time, with the assistance of our plumber. It's turning out kind of cool.
So, different kinds of passivity, different ways through.
I don't think the shadows are going to be as much of a problem now, Miss Hope.
Pennyplant
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((((((((Penny))))))))) every single bit of what you wrote, straight to my heart.
From the not-so-sweet-and-awww, to the Khmer Rouge escapees (I think that's one of my formerly greatest fears right there), to the house-enmeshment (that works with vehicles, too.. a twisted form of loyalty), to the frozen handyman issues (hurray for great plumbers!)
Oh my, I get it. I've lived it... in bits and pieces, here and there, but none of it pretty or sweet, except for my children.
Thank you so much, Miss Pennyplant. Your writing has a firm resolve to it which gladdens my heart.
My thought.... all of the knowledge in the world can be translated to wisdom, with proper application.
I love the known... it's the unknown I fear-ed. Shadows begone :)
With love,
Hope
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Authentic, That was an amazing exchange you had with your therapist. Intellectually, I can accept that all people are capable of all things. Starting when I was about 15, I read probably dozens of books by and about Holocaust survivors. I mostly read the first person accounts. Which is not really an accurate thing to do because probably 98% of the people did not survive. Those books were by and about a very tiny, exceptional, minority. I read those books because I needed to keep understanding what people are really made of. I kind of already knew that because of my experiences of life. The kinds of things that have happened to me or to people I know who then went on to take it out on me. I have lived the life of a professional scapegoat. So, I really identified with the Holocaust emotionally. If someone must be abused, it was probably going to be me. Though I have been spared the worst abuse.
I don't tell people how I have been abusive. I tell myself. But I don't entirely accept it. I hate it about me.
I have a hard time accepting that the people in my life who really bother me and get under my skin--have that effect on me because we have something in common. I don't want to have anything in common with those people. I want to differentiate myself from them. It is a real struggle, stuff like that. People who don't really care about the truth have a much easier time of it, I'm sure. I may want to fool myself, but I can't do it for long.
Authentic, I wasn't sure I would be able to respond to you if you posted. I was always interested in your honesty and the things you posted about. But I was always aware of what it is in your past that brings you here. And because of my past history of being seriously hurt by two people who had the same type of abuse you have had, well, it's hard for me to not have some fear dredged up. Then several months ago when you had to leave the board--I was kind of shocked. Well, maybe shocked is not the right word. I guess it was another echo of the past for me. It brought up that fear again.
This post I'm responding to now--well, I guess it was a good subject in that it is very timely, for me anyway, and important. Important enough that I was able to get away from myself and respond to you this time whereas, up to now, I haven't been able to.
This is a good first step, I think.
Pennyplant
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Oh man, I always have to quit for the night before I'm ready! I actually have to work tomorrow. You can see why I had to cut back on my board time. A girl needs to get some sleep. Balance and all that.
((((((((((Good night))))))))))))
Pennyplant
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Penny,
I read with interest your post about reading about the holocaust. I had forgotten that I also did this. I have always read about victims and their capacity to survive. I alligned myself with the victim and unwittingly set myself up as a victim. I do not want this role any longer but realise that only I can change the script. I have had some underlying belief that there was honour in suffering, somehow it made me a better person, more noble etc........ lots of high moral ground and now I see that this was something I held onto because is shielded me from the truth. It was like a tape going round and round, same story in so many different areas of my life.
My big learning over the past months is that I need to change the tape otherwise it will continue. I am in charge of my suffering and my pain and only I can break free of this cycle. Recently I came across a diary I wrote when I was 19 and the same themes are running through it. I want this change. It think my mother cast me in the role of victim and without the necessary skills I took it on and all that came with it.
I want a life of joy, challenge, freedom and understanding and I think loosing my passivity and establishing boundaries for myself are the way forward. I have had boundaries but they were based on what I THOUGHT was appropriate rather than what I felt was appropriate, big difference.
Authentic,
Thank you for posting about your engagement with your T about your Mom. I think there is great wisdom in that encounter. I have denied that shadow Mom side of me and now I know it is there. I wanted to be the all good girl who did not break the rules in the hope of others seeing me like this. I could not understand why others did not see only this in me........ simple really because there were other sides to me, the angry, frustrated, passive me which I denied existed. I believe it is only in knowing these shadow sides that we can integrate and become whole. As long as I play out the "good girl" I will continue to be a victim. I gotta grow up and be the adult warts and all......... painful as it is I think its how it has to be.
axa
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So, I really identified with the Holocaust emotionally. If someone must be abused, it was probably going to be me. Though I have been spared the worst abuse.
Authentic, what I mean here is that I am usually the scapegoat. In the unhealthy groups I've been in or seen functioning, there is always someone who has to be dumped on, picked on, who takes up the slack, who waits on others, someone who can absorb, who can "take it". Groups scope out their members in order to find the person who can fill this role. Sometimes for me it has been a matter of me being completely unaware of this feature of unhealthy groups. being unaware meant that I didn't protect myself from this kind of abuse. Here I am thinking I'm just being nice, or considerate or hard-working.... and that wasn't how the rest of the group was interpreting my actions at all. I would say that up until recently I didn't even realize there was such a thing as unhealthy groups. By groups I mean workplaces, classrooms, families, service organizations, neighborhoods. Wow, I've even sat in unhealthy audiences!
Anyway, certain groups of people were scapegoated during World War II and sent to the concentration camps to be punished or killed. They were the scapegoats for an entire society. Societies look for scapegoats too. I identify with them because I am usually some form of scapegoat for the groups I'm in that need such things.
I have been spared the worst abuse--I mean that I have never been molested. I feel that I was merely fortunate in that regard. However, I was abused by people who were molested and I believe that the molestation was the motivation for the actions of those abusers.
I don't tell people how I have been abusive.
Here I meant abusive not abused. When I was "raising" my oldest, I was one scared and angry little kid. I controlled his behavior, which I thought was out of control, by using fear. I would scare him into behaving. I was a nervous wreck all the time. It was a terrible time and a terrible way to raise a very, very sensitive little boy. It took a long time for me to come to my senses and even have an inkling of a better way to do things. I have always believed that we never bonded properly. I have always felt at fault for all the problems he has had. He doesn't see it that way. And recently I have come to understand that he came into this world with a very strong personality all his own. While I would give anything to go back in time to do a better job with him--I have to recognize that me doing a "better job" probably would not have made his life that much easier. But I still think that I should have done a hundred times better by him. I hope this makes it clearer--it sounded like from your response you thought I meant I don't tell people I have been abused--which I usually don't. But that is not what I was talking about here. I'm talking about me as perpetrator.
We're all here, reaching out in pain and looking for solace for the same reasons and only complete honesty and forthrightness can ever lead us to that place.
This is incredibly important and incredibly difficult. But I am going to keep aiming for it in spite of the difficulty.
Boy, Penny we ARE a lot alike. I know you may not like hearing that.
These days one of my "things" that I'm working on is accepting all the parts of me that I have previously always criticized in others and excused in myself. Though I have tended to be hardest on myself, the last few years I have been having a great deal of trouble "getting along"--seems like more of a problem now anyway. So, when you say we are a lot alike, I have to agree.
The thing is, my not being able to easily respond to you doesn't have anything to do with whether we could be friends or like each other. We probably would be friends or at least like each other in real life. The people who abused me started out as my friends. Very close friends as a matter of fact. The kind of friends I miss having because they were very intelligent and interesting people who gave me a run for my money. I didn't have to dumb myself down for them like I usually have to do with other people. But all that didn't stop them from turning on me and taking out all their rage on me and terrifying me in the process. And your story reminds me of that. You didn't do that to me. But your story is a reminder to me of what happened and, in my heart, there is still some fear that it could happen to me again. It is the fear at work here, not anything specific you did to me. You didn't do anything to me. They did. And it is still a big part of me.
Ami says I need some close friends and that is probably true. But because of what happened to me in the past, I have a hard time trusting friends. At least at this stage of the game.
Anyway, maybe we will talk again, Authentic. I bet it will be interesting.
Pennyplant
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I have had boundaries but they were based on what I THOUGHT was appropriate rather than what I felt was appropriate, big difference.
Well, this is something I hadn't thought of. I have been having trouble with boundaries and I think it is because I didn't understand this aspect of it. I tend to think of boundaries as me "standing up for myself." I have made it into something adversarial. It is still not internalized. I still need to do much more work on my feelings and my beliefs and goals for myself.
Pennyplant
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Hi PP,
It hasn't been discussed on this thread, but by design or by default, each one who participates here has a set of standards and or boundaries that govern their participation.
I said this in an earlier post this thread about boundaries for participating on the board. (I was only talking about board boundaries in this post), but the same thing applies in 3D. If we don't consciously draw up a set of standards or boundaries and enforce them in our interactions with others, then by default, they get to set all the boundaries, including ours. That's when we feel run down, put upon, angry, used, and abused. Does this make sense? I'm not always as articulate as I'd like to be.
tt
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Yes, TT, it makes perfect sense. I have had those kinds of feelings all my life. And especially so where I work now. Others have been setting my boundaries throughout my six years there. I didn't even know I needed to do that. And when someone new was hired two years ago, and she had nearly inviolable boundaries, my life at work got even worse. She is junior to me and yet I still had to meet all those needs for her, too. I had thought I was being treated a certain way because I was the newest. When she was hired I figured out that I was treated a certain way because I was me. That was the biggest shock! That one took awhile to see and once I saw it--it was a physical sensation when I realized what I had "allowed". I was so incredibly angry and felt betrayed all around. And I believe it repeated what I had experienced throughout my childhood--my younger sister was the one who set the boundaries in our family. A completely out of whack situation. I had been away from that for so long and when my work situation repeated that particular history--well, like I said, I was very angry.
Board boundaries. I think I have some specific boundaries here (whereas I apparently did not have any good ones in real life) and I think it is possible because this place has limits. It is a controlled community to a certain extent. If I can figure out specifically what those boundaries are I might be more able to make good ones in real life. I'm still fuzzy on boundaries.
Pennyplant
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I think most teenagers figure out the group scapegoat thing and do all the peer conformity in dress etc. so they won't be the group scapegoat, I was naive, I didn't figure that out, I was naively the nice hard working sensitive one - never realizing the group is going to pick a scapegoat and my nature and manner made me the perfect target, Bradshaw talks about how people try to transfer shame onto others and most people will bounce it off, I never stood up for myself, I felt sorry for the shamer and again I was a perfect target because they realized I wouldn't just bounce it back at them
Besee, I am amazed that kids do know this. Their parents must have taught them it. I think I was almost taught not to conform. I didn't want to follow the pack. And I think my parents taught me this on some level or maybe it's that they didn't teach me anything that would soften it. They really had next to no social skills or sophistication. We were mannerly and all that. But I'm saying we didn't know that there was a power structure out there in society. We didn't know how to make things good for us. We didn't know how not to be targets. We were "nice, hard-working, sensitive" people. We were easily hurt too. And that just draws in a certain element. Bullies can sniff you out when you're easy to hurt.
Most people bounce off the shame that others try to transfer to them. That is very interesting. I have always thought of myself as absorbent.
Thank you for your words about when I knew better I did better. That is one of my favorite ideas from Maya Angelou. It is hard to be easy on myself about it. I was incredibly ignorant of what I should be doing to raise a child in a kind and loving way. I consciously carried on my parents' values because I thought that was the right idea! Molding and criticizing and making a child into someone. I just thought it was my fault that I didn't turn out the way my parents wanted to mold me, that they had to be so picky and critical! And all of that is the opposite of what a parent should do. But it took me a long, long time to learn that. It is fortunate that my son was such a fighter. He fought me every step of the way!!! It was rough on all of us. But I am the parent and I was wrong. Now I have a chance to get to know him better. But I will go at his pace. He is an adult now and I had my chance. So, it's a day at a time on his timetable.
Pennyplant
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I think that when we grow up "abused", we don't learn the "normal" things about life that" non abused' people do.
I had a time in my life when I had healthy thinking. At that time, I 'knew" that I HAD to own my own power. It was an essential part to being in a group.It was not an option.
I think that there are very few "safe" groups. Why? I guess that people have ego's and they come to play in a group settings.The board is no exception
I think that if a person is continually scapegoated, they have not faced the 'realities " of life ---- which is that you have to "prove" yourself in a group(IME). By "prove", I mean to stand up for yourself when(not if) you are baited.
My son,in the fraternity was telling me about this, too. There are kids who are "persecuted". They get put in that position b/c they don't stand up for themselves when they are provoked(or tested)
I guess that people are like "animals". There is a pecking order, based on "strength".
I hate to face life in this way. I have been in a fantasy world until recently. In my fantasy world, people were nice , kind and considerate. I would be treated well IF I treated other's well. My fantasy world had many rules of behavior. HOWEVER, I am finding, now, that none of them worked.
I am really, really hurting b/c I am facing these "realities" This is where I "am", today Love Ami
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Thank You ,Authentic
You really get where I am coming from--- once again . Love Ami