Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Ami on May 01, 2008, 07:21:14 AM
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I have to tell you about s/thing wonderful that happened to me. I have been sharing about having stomach aches I can't get rid of and also the pain of my M, which I can't seem to exorcise, either.
Yesterday, James was an "enlightened witness" for me, as Alice Miller terms it. I never had this experience in all my life, all my therapy etc. There is no intellectualization like "Your parent did the best they could". It is all about how you FELT ,as a child. . I cried deep tears and today, my stomach ache ,which I always wake up with, is gone.
I see ,now, that childhood pain gets locked in the body,as mine did.
I have done a lot of intellectualizing ,but that never touched the deep pain.
I feel very grateful for this experience and I am different,today.
I see why many therapies do not work. There is a level of emotions and there is a level of intellectualization. The level of emotions must be accessed . There is an actual "energy" of pain locked in to your body that no amount of intellectual understanding will touch.
I am profoundly grateful for a door opening .
Ami
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((((((((( Ami )))))))))))
I am so glad that James "Listened" to what you were actually saying -- that, I believe, is the KEY to the door!
Speaking personally, I strongly believe, from my own experience, in my healing life work journey --
that it really is all about "Knowing - Awareness - and Ownership : of Thoughts, Feelings, and Actions"
whatsoever ones Thoughts and Feelings may be, past or present.
Joyfully, so glad for you, dear Ami.
Love, Leah
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Wow-- ami-- where you were-- that is where I am-- I have all kinds of chronic stress psychosomatic health problems like digestive issues, joint and muscle pain, allergies, breathing issues, fatigue, etc etc.
I am always intellectualizing and I am always telling myself things like, "She was sick, she did the best she could, she tried," etc etc.
And pushing the feelings down.
So afriad to be mad at mom, that feels so dangerous and wrong. So I get mad at my sweet husband instead. :rollseyes:
I feel very threatened when my husband or son shows strong irritation or anger. My son usually get redirected to "act nice".
And here I am, sitting here, feeling "fine", and scared, and numb.
So, what did James say?
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I am always intellectualizing and I am always telling myself things like, "She was sick, she did the best she could, she tried," etc etc.
And pushing the feelings down.
Exactly, Chamomile
Accepting what others told me to acknowledge, "she could not help it" and "she did the best she could"
only served to hold me captive, imprisoned, to received and endure, many years of abusive behaviours, including 'shame dumping'
However, now:
The feeling of liberty and freedom, to live
is beyond price, and exceptionally different, to BE - Free indeed.
Joyfully yours,
Love, Leah
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I have done a lot of intellectualizing ,but that never touched the deep pain.
The level of emotions must be accessed . There is an actual "energy" of pain locked in to your body that no amount of intellectual understanding will touch.
This is so powerful. I have "known" this but had not put it into words. The process that I have been using allows me to feel these wretched emotions and change them but what you are describing sounds so powerful, so soothing, so healing. Maybe someday I can have that experience with another human but for now I am thankful that I can continue to make this progress.
"she could not help it" and "she did the best she could"
These phrases have engendered in me a rage of indescribable depth - a primal rage. Even if true that is not enough. It suggests that all I deserve is someones depraved, deprived best when someone else got the whole thing - real love. It says that my complaint has no merit - It says to suck it up. All of that makes me mad.
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Yes. In a word. Yes.
On a different forum, months ago, I read someone describe the position we are in vis a vis our Nparent as - consuming silent inner agony. Like your soul being in a fire all the time.
I know that feeling in the stomach and I truly feel for you Ami as someone who also experiences it. The trick with me is that I experience it only in certain realms of life and certain areas - so I avoid them. I've amputated my dreams in order to avoid the pain. And I yearn for those phantom limbs. I guess I feel them missing all the time. I never realized before that it is the same thing as you trying to live from 'the core' because - I just use different words and concepts. Duh - head getting in the way!
I'm so happy for you that you got out of your head and into your actual experience.
I feel the same feeling as all of you at the idea that 'he did the best he could' or that he would have done better if he could have. It's almost like a frenzy of frustration. The truth is that he chose not to do better at every single turn of the road. Every point of choice, he chose the path of not doing better. After almost 40 years I have seen so many points of choice and he always chooses the same. So many things have happened, so much could have been learned, so much growth could have occurred. My dad had no early trauma to freeze him like he is. He is gifted and brilliant, admired, catered to and beloved. He is entitled and subject to special exceptions and has been all his life and he expects everyone to always tell him that whatever he does is justified and above reproach. The bar is specially lowered for him, due to his harsh health circumstances, and still he can't be bothered to exert any effort but has in fact sulked in self pity for going on 30 years now. He can't be bothered to live, consoles himself with self indulgence, excuses himself from anything he doesn't care to do unless there is a chance to force someone else to do it.
It drives me nuts. I'm sorry for the rant.
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Dear GS, Leah ,Iphi and Cham,
I am so excited that you resonate with this thread.It felt very personal and I was afraid to post it. I can see how I stayed sick and see how to get well.
I had a paradigm shift about healing b/c I experienced it.
Our inner child does not heal with intellectual reasoning. . It needs reassurance and understanding, as a real child would.
I think this type of healing must be experienced in order to understand ,like tasting chocolate. It is hard to describe.
I thought my relationship with God could heal me and it could if I could give up at a deep level. However, I was not doing that. I was giving up at an intellctual level,only or mostly.
My pain and rejection was not really being touched(or not much)
I took the first step,but it offers tremendous hope . Love Ami
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consuming silent inner agony. Like your soul being in a fire all the time.
Thats it! In a nushell - I have never come across anyone explain, what resonates clearly, with how I walked around, for years.
"Silent Inner Agony" is profoundly accurate, and it truly did consume my every thought and feeling.
Thank you, Iphi, for sharing this precious pearl, of validation.
Love, Leah
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Yes Leah that poster who originally described it nailed it, I thought, and her words will always stick with me.
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HOW? How do you feel so free?
How do you access the deeper level of emotion?
How do you set up boundaries?
I guess I know the answers to some of these things, but this is what I am working out currently.
What do I actually DO.
I wish someone would just tell me what to do and how to feel-- ironically-- but that just puts me back into my old rut again, doesn't it. Lol.
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Ami I relate to what you are saying. In common with many here, for years I was the person in my FOO with 'the problem' because I was the scapegoat. Well, I still am, in their system. But whatever.
Point is - for years I was trying to solve myself as 'the problem.' I took 'the problem' seriously and you know, therapy, psych classes, books, exploring, trying to solve myself. Taking on everything that came up - my frustration, losing patience, the way parts of me would rise up against submitting, surrendering, agreeing, accepting - all parts of 'the problem' that was Iphi that was such a tsk tsk tsk burden and cross to my dad.
All lies.
But for years I was intellectually trying to strategize, scrutinize, and solve 'the problem.' But I couldn't because the actual experience, my empirical experience, was reporting absolutely different evidence than the putative, so-called 'problem.' The evidence of my actual feelings, actual eyes, actual gut, actual experience, the actual happenings - all add up to a completely different story than the mythology of my FOO.
But within my FOO there is no place for that story - that story makes me a heretic, and an exile.
For me, intellectualizing served a purpose of trying to straddle the gap, resolve the chasm, between myth and reality, so I wouldn't have to give up - my family. It's just another way I was trying to solve the problem in the family. I've always been trying to find a way to give myself up so I could have my family, but I cannot manage to give up my actual subjective experience of consciousness. Every day, I wake up as myself - every day I am in this subjective experience of consciousness that is telling me that the family myth is false. I've been trying to climb out of myself for years, but I can't. I am locked into this life as Iphi. That suits my FOO fine since I am 'the problem' and they like that story fine, but naturally I wanted to find a solution.
Turns out the solution is choosing to actually experience my actual experience and pay attention to the evidence of my own experience. To allow myself to 'know what I know.'
But still I have stomach aches when I go against my training. And obsessive fears and really persistent feelings of inferiority, shame and outrage against myself trying to 'put myself forward' unjustly. I think we've touched on some months ago that for me it is very much about my mind, taking myself seriously, being free to take part in life, being free to advance myself as an equal to anybody, feeling that I can work toward something and make it happen - instead of feeling that I can only work toward things for others and must do it for free and anonymously.
I hope this sharing of my experience of intellectualization and subjective experience is helpful.
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I had a really neat thing happen to me ,today. I was so hungry and I ate a big lunch, which could be normal for most people ,but not for me. It was delicious and I felt great. I never could do this ,before, not for years. Thank you, James. Love Ami
(((((((James))))))
PS Cham , I am going to go on the Alice Miller website , which should explain the type of experience I had. Also, I got a book called Reclaimimg your Life by Jean Jenson, which explains HOW to access the deeper emotions.Primal Therapy by Janov and Banished Knowlege by Alice Miller, James recommended,also.
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Wow, I just learned a lot from Iphi's last post. I think in some ways I am still trying to fix myself for my family. Was trying to. I think that's really the source of the confusion within myself. Whew, done with that!
Than kyou for sharing, Iphi, it was very helpful to me. My experience is so parallel.
Wow, I am learning so much from you guys.
Ami I relate to what you are saying. In common with many here, for years I was the person in my FOO with 'the problem' because I was the scapegoat. Well, I still am, in their system. But whatever.
Point is - for years I was trying to solve myself as 'the problem.' I took 'the problem' seriously and you know, therapy, psych classes, books, exploring, trying to solve myself. Taking on everything that came up - my frustration, losing patience, the way parts of me would rise up against submitting, surrendering, agreeing, accepting - all parts of 'the problem' that was Iphi that was such a tsk tsk tsk burden and cross to my dad.
All lies.
But for years I was intellectually trying to strategize, scrutinize, and solve 'the problem.' But I couldn't because the actual experience, my empirical experience, was reporting absolutely different evidence than the putative, so-called 'problem.' The evidence of my actual feelings, actual eyes, actual gut, actual experience, the actual happenings - all add up to a completely different story than the mythology of my FOO.
But within my FOO there is no place for that story - that story makes me a heretic, and an exile.
For me, intellectualizing served a purpose of trying to straddle the gap, resolve the chasm, between myth and reality, so I wouldn't have to give up - my family. It's just another way I was trying to solve the problem in the family. I've always been trying to find a way to give myself up so I could have my family, but I cannot manage to give up my actual subjective experience of consciousness. Every day, I wake up as myself - every day I am in this subjective experience of consciousness that is telling me that the family myth is false. I've been trying to climb out of myself for years, but I can't. I am locked into this life as Iphi. That suits my FOO fine since I am 'the problem' and they like that story fine, but naturally I wanted to find a solution.
Turns out the solution is choosing to actually experience my actual experience and pay attention to the evidence of my own experience. To allow myself to 'know what I know.'
But still I have stomach aches when I go against my training. And obsessive fears and really persistent feelings of inferiority, shame and outrage against myself trying to 'put myself forward' unjustly. I think we've touched on some months ago that for me it is very much about my mind, taking myself seriously, being free to take part in life, being free to advance myself as an equal to anybody, feeling that I can work toward something and make it happen - instead of feeling that I can only work toward things for others and must do it for free and anonymously.
I hope this sharing of my experience of intellectualization and subjective experience is helpful.
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(((Chamomile))) Right in there with ya.
Ami so glad you had a big lunch!
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Ami.........intellectualizing served one purpose for me and that was to avoid pain that i was not consciously aware of. It does have practical value in understanding what one is experiencing at some point but it really did not allow me to heal, i simply used it as a form of denial which kept my real past at a distance and i fooled myself thinking that i was really onto something that would make a difference. This never worked. My T accompanied me into my unconscious as my witness and there i found almost unbearable pain. It was the pain my child felt. I would never have believed the intensity unless i had seen it for myself. This repressed /suppressed reality was what was causing most of my problems as an adult and once i found the real truth abt what happened a lot of my old unwanted behavior and feelings not only made sense but have changed or vanished.....it takes time and doesn't happen all at once. It's real change that seems lasting. One interesting thing that occurred was when i realized and felt the pain of being unloved almost all my body pains including my stomach and intestinal problems vanished almost at once and for the most part have never returned. GS...i was locked into a loop of anger too and i could not escape. I found my anger was a reaction to terrible injuries that i experienced and once i felt these hurts a lot of my anger left. Since then i don't have the anger i had, in fact a lot of it has vanished. Any time someone mentioned that my parents "really didn't mean to do it etc" i felt so much anger. I think what was happening was when they said this i felt forced to deny the reality of my unconscious pain and trauma. In essence a denial of my real self, my feelings. This hurt and made me very angry. I am so glad i never listened to these people.......James
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Quote: People are hurt on many levels: intellectual, emotional, physical, psychic, relational, spiritual.
It was the emotional hurt and pain that made my stomach churn.
Someone being flippant and dismissing my pain with words of "she could not help it" AND "suck it up - forget about it and move on"
only served to create angst and make my stomach churn even more!
The additional pain, angst, and bewilderment, of not being listened to, and my experience not being understood, pervaded my entire life, and I just know that this is exactly the same for other people too, worldwide.
Iphi's posting on the subject of "Silent Inner Agony" spoke validation of my lifetime walk along the journey of life, and I feel sure, multitudes of other people too.
The "Silent Inner Agony" having never been heard, because no-one would listen, is just one aspect.
"Like one's soul being on fire all the time" - is profoundly accurate.
What does that do to one's stomach? No surprise then, that so many people have stomach complaints and ailments - created by emotional turmoil?
Psychological Invalidation and Dismissal of a person's reality is not good! A person's feelings and emotions belong to the person who owns them, and as such, they ought to be acknowledged and respected - for the integrity and value of the person.
Disregard, tears a person apart - it objectifies.
Ami and James,
Truly, I am so glad to know that you are healed from your 'stomach ache'
Love to all,
Leah
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Dear James
So many layers, so little time(lol) .I have more to talk about,later, on this thread. Love Ami
PS Leah, I hear you sounding so clear and strong. You are doing so well, Leah.
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Iphi,
I was thinking there might have been an early trauma in your father's life that we don't identify as trauma...if he was constantly, constantly praised as a child, and taught that he was SO special and bright and wonderful, and over indulged, that may have been a trauma to his emotional health, because you can't develop into a balanced person if you are over-exalted for the ordinary. Priase and delight are fine responses to children, but when they're overdone, a kid's ego bloats. I read something to that effect that this can produce narcissists...
love
Hops
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Iphi,
I was thinking there might have been an early trauma in your father's life that we don't identify as trauma...if he was constantly, constantly praised as a child, and taught that he was SO special and bright and wonderful, and over indulged, that may have been a trauma to his emotional health, because you can't develop into a balanced person if you are over-exalted for the ordinary. Priase and delight are fine responses to children, but when they're overdone, a kid's ego bloats. I read something to that effect that this can produce narcissists...
love
Hops
Hops - I am so grateful that I was NOT praised or indulged!! lol Leah x
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When a parent gives praise instead of messages of love, this is called conditional love and the child is left feeling that they are unworthy outside of their actions and achievments-- and that their actions and achievments are only worthy when they are recognized. In otherwords there is no real confidence, no real security, no anchor of self-worth.
You can never spoil a child with too much time and attention of the right sort. But you can spoil and starve a child's soul when in place of real expressions of love you offer things and praise.
Real love is choosing to spend time with your child as often as you reasonably can (they'll understand, I think, if you have to work or whatever, they'll know when you're really trying) and when you really listen to them, and when you tell them, every day, for no reason, that you think they are beautiful and you love them.
I feel bad for the child who is spoiled with material things, lessons, and praise. How sad. They learn to equate their self worth with those things. Perhaps one of the reasons I didn't turn into a narcissist (when at least one sibling did) is because I had people outside of my Nparents who validated my worth unconditionally, outside of all of that peripheral stuff. I thank God for that.
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Perhaps one of the reasons I didn't turn into a narcissist (when at least one sibling did) is because I had people outside of my Nparents who validated my worth unconditionally, outside of all of that peripheral stuff. I thank God for that.
I do think that is so true, having wondered so many times as to how I made it through. And I do thank God that I had people in my life who made a real difference for my life as a person.
Leah x
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Thank you for your thoughts regarding conditional love and 'spoiling,' hops, chamo and leah. Your thoughts help me see my dad's plight with more compassion. I have always had compassion for his apparent situation, but in a lot of ways I have missed his true situation and it is only here and now that I am realizing that.