Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Gaining Strength on July 24, 2008, 01:50:53 PM
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I have made some progress in my shame slaying. In the past couple of days I have realized that I am still living in indescribable fear of the humiliation that I experienced day in and day out growing up in my family. The big surprise! I had completely sublimated how humiliating my childhood experience was. By recognizing, actually feeling the kick in the stomach, stomach-ache of that day in, day out humiliation I suddenly recognize how powerful, how debilitating that experience was.
Using the word "humiliation" rather than "shame" helps me get in touch with that extreme pain. Suddenly "shame" sounds so benign and "humiliation" has the impact of devastation.
For a long time, I couldn't understand why such trivial things caused me so much pain, why basic things like answering the phone was so difficult, going places where I was expected, doing normal everyday things - obligations. I knew that "obligations" were a HUGE problem for me but not why. Even when I was in college I knew that I could function in areas where there were no expectations but in areas where performance was expected I was frozen. Now I see what it is at operation - humiliation.
Step by step I am finding ways to work through this with my eye on freedom (function).
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I just googled "humiliation" and found these two definitions: "One of the defining characteristics of humiliation as a process is that the victim is forced into passivity, acted upon, made helpless."[3] Johan Galtung, a leading practitioner, agrees with Lindner that the infliction of humiliation is a profoundly violent psychological act that leaves the victim with a deep wound to the psyche.[4]
I have recently written about the passive role I found myself forced into in my life as a child and helplessness - my therapist has been working with me for several years concerning the theory of "learned helplessness".
My father worked hard to render me helpless and then - BAM - when I left his home he completely let go of all obligation. Now I was flailing and completely helpless - but I never knew it. He didn't disappear out of my life - just out of any responsibility or any help for me - but I had never figured that out - until now. Here's an example - the year that I married - I was 23 - I received notice from the IRS that I owed for several years in the past. I remember the feeling when I got that letter. I was frozen - powerless - stunned - ashamed. I tried to talk to my new husband who was in law school but he would do nothing to help me (I could spend an hour psychoanalyzing this) so I went to see H&R Block. I had noone to call. Why not call my father? That's the point of this story - I didn't know why not I only knew that I was humiliated and would have died rather than let him know. How strange is that? Well listen to this - I had never known that I owed taxes - he had filed them but the IRS was notifying me in that letter that he had not submitted the correct amount for 4 previous years. I had never known that I owed taxes, was paying taxes - anything. He never told me. Oh yes - I signed the returns but did not know it. How is that possible. For years when he had me sign things he would put paper over the document and only reveal the signatory line to me. I never even had the concept to question him and now here I am out of his house and completely out of his hands - not a word - not a transition - no guidance - nothing. And only enough psychological damage to know that I was responsible, I was at fault, I was to blame.
Of course that is absurd - but I tell this story to demonstrate how complete the psychological control and domination was. I would never bother sharing this with anyone in 3D other than my psychologist. Noone would believe me and noone would onderstand - they wouldn't even want to try. THAT is the humiliation by society.
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Here's more that I found by a man who was humiliated by a teacher in 2nd or 3rd grade and when humiliated - twice - he wet his pants - thus shamed - thus the pain was transferred from the offender (the teacher) to him (the victim.) That is so powerful.
this is so helpful to me.
Humiliation therefore gets
masked by the shame of the victim. Furthermore, this shame that gets injected into the victim
silences the victim to his own experience of humiliation, rendering the experience isolated in the
psyche and the person alienated from everyone else.
I now realize that I had never thought of humiliation as such and its pertinence in life,
conflict and relationships, because the nature of experiences of humiliation is such that it makes
these experiences impervious to consciousness and closed to any kind of scrutiny as a result of
the painful emotions that they give rise to.
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Thank you for sharing this discovery--this will help a lot of us, I bet.
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Here's a study of humiliation and the long term effects:
Abstract
Objective: To evaluate a model in which chronic emotional inhibition mediates the relationship between a history of childhood emotional invalidation or abuse and adult psychological distress.
Method: One hundred and twenty-seven participants completed a series of self-report questionnaires, and a subset of this group (n=88) completed an additional measure of current avoidant coping in response to a laboratory stressor. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate and compare a full and partial mediational model.
Results: Findings strongly supported a model in which a history of childhood emotional invalidation (i.e., psychological abuse and parental punishment, minimization, and distress in response to negative emotion) was associated with chronic emotional inhibition in adulthood (i.e., ambivalence over emotional expression, thought suppression, and avoidant stress responses). In turn, emotional inhibition significantly predicted psychological distress, including depression and anxiety symptoms.
Conclusion: This study found support for a model in which the relation between recollected negative emotion socialization in childhood and adult psychological distress was fully mediated by a style of inhibiting emotional experience and expression. Although it is likely that childhood emotional inhibition is functional (e.g., reduces parental distress and rejection), results suggest that chronic emotional inhibition may have long-term negative consequences for the inhibitor.
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This is from a study about how humiliation turns to violence. Most work on the internet is about the relationship with humiliation and violence. The violence in my life has been actually something turned inward.
The only situation in which frustration without deliberate insult was found to elicit anger was when the frustration was unjustified (e.g., a bus driver deliberately bypassing a bus stop). This does not constitute an exception to the principle that anger and violence are caused by feeling shamed, however, for the perception that one has been a victim of injustice elicits feelings of shame: over being valued so little by the other person, and for being too weak to make him treat one fairly http://www.nyas.org/ebriefreps/ebrief/000263/rr/rr07.html
This is exactly what I have been posting about when I started the thread about taking things personally. Here is it in black and white - those acts trigger my profound sense of being valueless.
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Thanks Juno - that is so kind of you. Here I am just posting away, caught up in my franzy to get at the source of the debilitating injury and then comes your note of support. Like a hand reaching down from heaven sending a sign of encouragement and hope. Thank you.
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HOOOOO BOY!
Reading about how your Dad tricked you on the income taxes sets my viking rage button on stun!!! First, by not discussing taxes with you, then by not even letting you know what you were signing - and SETTING YOU UP for the accumulated past due balance later... he was sadistically manipulating you for what possible payoff???? It boggles the mind to even try to guess. Sick, sick man. For me, anger is the antidote to humilation... it's a loud, demanding "How could you DO such a thing??" that simultaneously shields one from the humilation and the shame... and says in no uncertain way that this is an egregious boundary violation; abuse.
OK, I've calmed down a bit. I don't know that "society" would try to humiliate you, upon hearing this story. I wouldn't be so certain. Your father didn't permit you to know you owed taxes; it was necessary in his plot for setting you up for the eventual kick in the pants when the IRS contacted you. I think most people would condemn him as a really mean, sadistic lunatic. And people would be quick to validate you with "you didn't do anything wrong", dear. No reason to extend his abusive humiliation to expectations of this from others. I think other people would surprise you with their compassion and understanding.
I have one humilation story to share. There might be more that I'm discounting... but this is the one that stands out for me. I'd been selected to participate in a 4-H fashion show, modelling the dress I was supposed to have made. (Never mind, that my mom said I'd never get into the show unless she made it...that was more important than me learning to sew.) THEN - the rape happened.
I begged, pleaded, cried, tried everything possible to get out of going. Tell them I'm sick, I cried. But no. This was HER heydey... by god, there's nothing wrong with you... you'll see... you'll like this. So I went through the practices... trying very hard to do what I was taught and to remember what I was supposed to do. Even that walk on, stop & turn and continue across the stage was hard to remember with the in/out of dissociation.
So the night of the show, we're backstage and I go to the restroom before dressing. I'd started my period and of course, had nothing with me. My mother wouldn't let me use tampax; insisted on pads and a belt. Only trashy girls used tampax. When I told her and said I COULDN'T go on stage... she made me go anyway; she said: just don't sit down. Never mind that I was so embarrassed I couldn't stop trembling; and the tears streamed down my face. My mother said it was just stage fright. I can remember getting out to the front of the stage... and I remember NOTHING after that point. I could've fainted; froze; tripped; fell off the stage... I just don't remember. The only thing I remember is that it was all my fault. Just like everything else. How could I disappoint her that way? After all the work she did?
I guess what I don't remember is the humiliation. And only later - remembering the consequent shaming for feeling humiliated in the first place.
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I am just stunned by your experience. The horror of that experience is incomprehensible. I can't even get a handle on it.
I keep trying to put into words the way I feel but I can't. But what I can do is to tell you how sorry I am that you EVER had the experience of being humiliated by a mother who had zero concern for her, already, traumatized teenaged daughter. I can't get a handle on it because it is so horrific. What is must have done to you, to your already fragile psyche, already traumatized being. This is true evil and it break my heart for you.
You have so much courage to share that.
I want so much to go to that little girl and rescue her from that wretched being of a mother. I want to rescue her and whisk her away to safety and protect her and console her and save her and heal her. Someone needed to do that. You deserved that then and deserve that now.
I feel that something more needs to be said but I don't know what and it makes me feel so empty to not find words that can make a difference - but that's just it - no words could possibly make any difference to you or to you as that young devastated girl. Thanks for your courage in sharing that. We are not alone in having grown up with such devastating horrific parents but the pain is indescribable.
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This from a book entitled Suffer the Children: A theology of Liberation by a Victim of Child Abuse.
To the extent that adults who were victims of abuse in childhood reject their own feelings of childhood humiliation, pain, weakness, helplessness, and neediness, they will have contempt for those such feelings in children.
[on the same page]
...it takes enormous courage to face and accept repressed feelings of pain, humiliation and helplessness.
[and more]
It is always tempting to try to abandon her [LJ - the authors oppressed child] again, to repress her feelings and reinstitue the inner adult-child split. But now that I am conscious of her and in relationship with her I know that I am responsible to her and that only she can heal me, with God's help. LJ is abused sexually, neglected emotionally, wounded narcissistically, and denied her feelings and her perceptions of reality.
The only "actions" available to children in reaction to their abuse, such as conforming to adult wishes, running away, ... mental illness, tend not to liberate children, but rather to make their oppression worse.
Here's a link: http://books.google.com/books?id=NeYEZVDyrQYC&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=humiliation+%2Bpsychology+%2B%22child+abuse%22+-sexual+%2Bhealing&source=web&ots=xZUhCcdPp-&sig=MCOOCdHAuSFC6ks9wXGlMXfJEg4&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA19,M1
Wow that's a long link!
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Dear SS
I am reading "Your Body Never Lies by Alice Miller. It discusses how we must accept all our feelings in order to be well and also not to project on others, as you were saying. Love Ami
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Hi SS,
It's really, really interesting to follow your journey. I am so sorry for everything that have gone through.
As I read your first post, I got the thought that shame and humiliation can be different things. Humiliation seems to me like something external, forced on you by someone else (e.g., your father). Shame seems like what you feel inside. It's an internal reaction to any number of things, especially humiliation. Technically I guess one can be "shamed" -- same as humiliation -- but this just sort of occurred to me.
The story about your father and the taxes is horrendous. It sounds to me like he was trying to infantilize you -- prove to you, as you say, that you are helpless without him. But on second thought, I guess he wasn't because if he had been, he would have continued to be there and bail you out of situations when you were in trouble. But I'm going to leave this thought in, anyway.
A lot of what you're talking about -- the emotional numbness and essentially the process talked about in the study -- are the results of anger shut down and/or turned inward. Feelings are an entire system. You can't shut one down without shutting all of them down along with it. So, if you're not permitted to express a feeling, say, anger, the whole system is shut off. Boom. Numb city. As an adult, or whenever one starts addressing this, you have to start working on getting the primary feelings out in the open.
I know whereof I speak; when I first went into therapy I was just as you describe: numb, sort of an automaton (although I did have emotional expression, but they weren't my true feelings, they were substitutes, "converted" feelings), a zombie of sorts. My therapist and I started working on getting in touch with the feelings. Mostly, it was anger. And twenty years later I still have trouble expressing it -- but at least now I know when I feel it and I can acknowledge internally, at least.
All this is probably relates to your comment in the other thread about your sister. You are absolutely correct. She's avoiding getting in touch with things because if she gets in touch with one feeling, they'll all come out, and that would be too much for her. My sister is like this. On the outside she appears to have a pretty good life, but I know that on the inside she's a mess. She clearly does not want to face her emotional reality, however, so she "doesn't go there." IMO she obsesses about dog agility instead.
You're doing great, SS. I know it's very hard, but boy, you are approaching this with such courage and integrity and tenacity. Very admirable. I know you're going to get huge pay-backs.
LC
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I want so much to go to that little girl and rescue her from that wretched being of a mother. I want to rescue her and whisk her away to safety and protect her and console her and save her and heal her. Someone needed to do that. You deserved that then and deserve that now.
I feel that something more needs to be said but I don't know what and it makes me feel so empty to not find words that can make a difference - but that's just it - no words could possibly make any difference to you or to you as that young devastated girl.
I started to post a thank you for such touching compassion yesterday, but I erased it. I realized that there was more to my feelings than the humbling, yet heart-healing and soothing sheer gratitude I felt - but I was speechless (yeah, it takes quite a bit to make me speechless!) ;D
I am in a place right now, where I am "hearing" and "seeing" and "receiving" so much from the people I'm around; chance words; the sun shining and a light breeze; and simple human interactions. I think I've been closed, withdrawn, self-isolating behind a wall that simultaneously protected me and imprisoned me. Words like yours, SS are the trumpet that causes the wall to fall. Your words and the warm feelings behind them DO make a very huge difference!
In fact, I think you've just helped push me over the "finish line" - how important is THAT?
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I started out yesterday, with a question: why is it I'm able to be immediately angry at your father, but you seem to lean more to shame? Why is it that your compassion for me, when I was Twiggy, is so ready & forthcoming - but I have to go looking for my own compassion for my self? I couldn't answer this yesterday and I only have part of an answer now, because I think only you can answer for yourself.
(oh... my head hurts now for what I'm about to say next, publicly...)
I wasn't allowed to feel compassion for my self. It was "crying over spilt milk", childish, selfish and UNGRATEFUL for all my mother had suffered to finally divorce my Dad and make us SAFE. "After all she had done"... "I only stayed with your Dad those 14 years for YOU KIDS"... "what's WRONG with you... why do you insist on feeling those feelings after ALL I HAVE DONE AND SUFFERED THROUGH - for you?" I was made to feel selfish & ungrateful - for my feelings about my experiences - because IT COULD BE WORSE.
Here's the kicker: I knew we were even less safe than before. Especially me. Any time I openly cared about myself before caring for my mother & brother I was dismissed, put down, called selfish and ungrateful, and "just like my dad".... I didn't care about HER. Any time a glimmer of simple peace or happiness came to me in that time... it "hurt" her and I was to get "out of there" until I could be what she wanted me to be. I couldn't talk about feelings at all - only be the dumping ground for hers. That was the ONLY importance I had to her - apart from housekeeping. I truly, truly didn't matter to her at ALL unless I was serving her NEEDS.
Here's what she says when I finally answer the phone these days: "So? You're finally home?". As if my only purpose in life is to be there when she wants to dump more feelings again. As if I OWE her this for "all she's done for me". Like the wolf in the story of Brer Rabbit - I let myself get tricked AGAIN. Today, I realized that beyond not loving my mother, I'm also fiercely UNGRATEFUL for "all she's done for me" - all her abuse. Because all these years, "all she's done for me" is summed up in my desperate act of survival - abandoning Twiggy - like some fallen soldier in a battle, to save my own ass and take the slim chance that I would eventually ESCAPE to FREEDOM.
As Twiggy, my despair was so great that I wanted to die. That seemed the only choice available to me, to escape. So I split her and her feelings and memories OFF, and tenderly packed it all away in the chinese puzzle box of my unconscious mind. For safekeeping. A secret, buried treasure. Twiggy had started smoking when experimentation gave her the discovery that it helped her think rationally - it helped her deal with the brain injury she suffered in the rape. It helped her be MORE ACCEPTABLE to her mother.
The funny thing about stuffing something into the unconscious, is that only conscious awareness of "it" goes away. The feelings and emotions, however remain - just below the surface of day to day experience. Like lava, they would erupt with vulcanic violence whenever something cracked through the hard, cold crust of a manufactured personality. They made absolutely NO SENSE in the context of my day to day life - until I was able to pull out the pieces of those memories from my unconscious self.
My/twiggy's desire to die - that overwhelming death wish to escape and not be abandoned, abused, denied SELF - lived right under my skin and took the form of nicotine addiction. EVERYTHING depended on this. And this is why it never made sense that I was able to quit for 2 years - and yet, I went right back to it over what was a normal disagreement with a co-worker; the lava of anger erupted with ALL the feelings that I had as Twiggy... and I needed a pack of Marlboros. To punish myself... because it was "not allowed" to be angry at my co-worker.... and it "wasn't a big deal"... in other words: I and my feelings weren't important.
And guess what? I understood better my question of yesterday. The reason I had to search for compassion for myself - is because I was expected to reserve all that for my mother. The reason I punish myself - am killing myself smoking - is because I DID have compassion for myself, and I DID have anger at my mother - and neither of them were allowed to be directed at the right people. Instead, my compassion for myself was stolen by mother (Brer Rabbit, again) and all I was left with was anger, that should've been directed at HER, but got turned on myself for abandoning "twiggy"... and it reinforced the wish to die...
cigarettes were so easy to come by for kids in those days. And what was the ultimate put-down, the ultimate denial of my self, and my feelings and my self-worth/importance? What did my mother say about my smoking?
"IT COULD BE WORSE". Those are the words that have cursed me and my whole life. Instead of allowing for the possibility that "IT CAN BE BETTER" - I matter so little to my mother, that I don't even have the "right" or the "entitlement" complain or be angry with her.
Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - -
SS. Your words mean so much to me. Your words ARE what I need/needed to hear. I can hear the caring in them; I feel the comfort that is normal human compassion... that doesn't even exist in my mother's soul... you words broke a whole section of wall down! And I want to return the favor, but I've taken up enough space in your thread with my own stuff already this morning. I'll be back.
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Hi SS,
It's really, really interesting to follow your journey. I am so sorry for everything that have gone through.
As I read your first post, I got the thought that shame and humiliation can be different things. Humiliation seems to me like something external, forced on you by someone else (e.g., your father). Shame seems like what you feel inside. It's an internal reaction to any number of things, especially humiliation. Technically I guess one can be "shamed" -- same as humiliation -- but this just sort of occurred to me.
The story about your father and the taxes is horrendous. It sounds to me like he was trying to infantilize you -- prove to you, as you say, that you are helpless without him. But on second thought, I guess he wasn't because if he had been, he would have continued to be there and bail you out of situations when you were in trouble. But I'm going to leave this thought in, anyway.
A lot of what you're talking about -- the emotional numbness and essentially the process talked about in the study -- are the results of anger shut down and/or turned inward. Feelings are an entire system. You can't shut one down without shutting all of them down along with it. So, if you're not permitted to express a feeling, say, anger, the whole system is shut off. Boom. Numb city. As an adult, or whenever one starts addressing this, you have to start working on getting the primary feelings out in the open.
I know whereof I speak; when I first went into therapy I was just as you describe: numb, sort of an automaton (although I did have emotional expression, but they weren't my true feelings, they were substitutes, "converted" feelings), a zombie of sorts. My therapist and I started working on getting in touch with the feelings. Mostly, it was anger. And twenty years later I still have trouble expressing it -- but at least now I know when I feel it and I can acknowledge internally, at least.
All this is probably relates to your comment in the other thread about your sister. You are absolutely correct. She's avoiding getting in touch with things because if she gets in touch with one feeling, they'll all come out, and that would be too much for her. My sister is like this. On the outside she appears to have a pretty good life, but I know that on the inside she's a mess. She clearly does not want to face her emotional reality, however, so she "doesn't go there." IMO she obsesses about dog agility instead.
You're doing great, SS. I know it's very hard, but boy, you are approaching this with such courage and integrity and tenacity. Very admirable. I know you're going to get huge pay-backs.
LC
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SS, I had trouble posting my reply before; the internet connection was slow. So I logged off and came back on awhile later (now). I posted the above reply, but it was meant for your other thread. If it sounds a little out of whack with this one, that's why.
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"One of the defining characteristics of humiliation as a process is that the victim is forced into passivity, acted upon, made helpless."[3]
My father worked hard to render me helpless and then - BAM - when I left his home he completely let go of all obligation.
These 2 quotes sound like your Brer Rabbit - the trickster who got away - SS. You had the natural expectation, that if you were as helpless as his treatment of you seemed to say was obvious to HIM... that he would continue to fulfill his role in that (already abusive) scenario. This was your "normal" ... even though IT WASN'T TRUE.
When he didn't fulfill that role - and intentionally left you without knowledge... that was a betrayal of your "normal", right? An overwhelming disappointment of your expectation of him. Is this where humilation or shame begins? Or was there some kid-logic, some interpretation on your part of his behavior that triggered those feelings that happened first? Or do the feelings arrive before - at the message of helplessness?
Did you have childhood friends to compare notes with? Spend time at their houses? Watch how those families worked? Or were you kept isolated? Withholding basic information and knowledge is one aspect of child abuse. I had to learn I needed a bra, to wear deoderant from my next door neighbor...at 12. Mother kept telling I wasn't old enough to know these things.
I think I see some (with 20/20 hindsight) faulty premises, if this is what really happened. I don't know that this picture I'm painting is totally accurate... but I think it holds promise in your effort to release humiliation and shame in your work. Wish I could be of more help to you.
I do feel, from what you've written so far - that your father was a monster. Without your mother to defend you, you became his prime target for control & mayhem - and he exercised both with no remorse. I so connect to this vulnerable being in you - because it wasn't true that you were "helpless"; you didn't deserve him humiliating you like that for whatever sense of power it gave him - truth is, you were only helpless in that one situation because you were a mere child - and kept as childlike, no doubt, to further enable his ignoble, inhuman ability to torture you, longer.
Outside that situation, you needn't expect the same treatment from other people.... and can teach yourself to let go the reactions you match those old expectations, too. It takes time & practice. You are warm, loving, deserving of respect for how far you've come already - how much of that little girl you've reclaimed and welcomed into your self. I am so lucky to count you as a friend.
Twiggy has a message for little A:
I have a swing by the creek, under a big tree. Wanna come swing with me? Or we'll find something to do that you like to do! Do you like to play baseball or jump rope? If you want, we can just swing... and I'll be quiet. I can draw your picture, if you want... then you can draw mine!
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Words like yours, SS are the trumpet that causes the wall to fall. Your words and the warm feelings behind them DO make a very huge difference!
In fact, I think you've just helped push me over the "finish line" - how important is THAT? Thank you PR. You have just given me a validation that I have value in life. My hope of having value has been so crusted over for so long but these words of compassion have just exposed that wound and helped me see that there is even more than hope, that there is real existence of value in me. Thank you.
I started out yesterday, with a question: why is it I'm able to be immediately angry at your father, but you seem to lean more to shame? Why is it that your compassion for me, when I was Twiggy, is so ready & forthcoming - but I have to go looking for my own compassion for my self? I couldn't answer this yesterday and I only have part of an answer now, because I think only you can answer for yourself. I see what you are getting. In this is the whole thing of healing. The whole nut. In this compact expression reside everything just the way the whole oak resides in the acorn. In having the compassion for each other we actually mirrored for each other in the way a baby looks to the mother to mirror back. But our mothers had nothing to mirror back except pain and emptiness and the like. So now I see the compassion for that girl (me) through your eyes and suddenly I understand that I can have compassion for myself because LG (little girl) always has had it. For the first time I see that I don't need to go back and get the right parenting. I have been getting it and seeing it all along but I didn't know it because it didn't come from my parents, so I rejected it in favor of the shame and pain and hatred that they gave birth to me to receive and hold for them. I can't hold that anymore. I choose compassion. And I have enough of it - you have shown me that.
Here's what she says when I finally answer the phone these days: "So? You're finally home?". As if my only purpose in life is to be there when she wants to dump more feelings again. As if I OWE her this for "all she's done for me". Like the wolf in the story of Brer Rabbit - I let myself get tricked AGAIN. Today, I realized that beyond not loving my mother, I'm also fiercely UNGRATEFUL for "all she's done for me" - all her abuse. Because all these years, "all she's done for me" is summed up in my desperate act of survival - abandoning Twiggy - like some fallen soldier in a battle, to save my own ass and take the slim chance that I would eventually ESCAPE to FREEDOM. Yeah. That is our life's purpose - to be a recepticle for their shame and their hurt and their pain. We were born to receive - but not love from them - just their dark pain which they could not take.
The funny thing about stuffing something into the unconscious, is that only conscious awareness of "it" goes away. The feelings and emotions, however remain - just below the surface of day to day experience. Like lava, they would erupt with vulcanic violence whenever something cracked through the hard, cold crust of a manufactured personality. They made absolutely NO SENSE in the context of my day to day life - until I was able to pull out the pieces of those memories from my unconscious self. Oh my heavens PR, your ability to see it and express it is just unbelievable. You cut like a surgeon - straight to the heart of it. That LG - (little Girl) has been going bonkers all along. I have been so repressing and not escaping.
And guess what? I understood better my question of yesterday. The reason I had to search for compassion for myself - is because I was expected to reserve all that for my mother. The reason I punish myself - am killing myself smoking - is because I DID have compassion for myself, and I DID have anger at my mother - and neither of them were allowed to be directed at the right people. Instead, my compassion for myself was stolen by mother (Brer Rabbit, again) and all I was left with was anger, that should've been directed at HER, but got turned on myself for abandoning "twiggy"... and it reinforced the wish to die... This is the second time I have written this post. The first one got lost in some bizarre fluke when I pressed SAVE. I say this because my first post was so strong and had so much in it and I cannot reconstruct it and consequently am really losing the passion and power of my responce. But right here you have touched the essense of the wound and the way out. You had compassion for yourself but were forced to give it all away - to her. She stole your very core and turned your psyche unsidedown and inside out. Now I see why that damage was the worst.
"IT COULD BE WORSE". Those are the words that have cursed me and my whole life. Instead of allowing for the possibility that "IT CAN BE BETTER" - I matter so little to my mother, that I don't even have the "right" or the "entitlement" complain or be angry with her. MINIMIZE!!! MINIMIZE!!!! MINIMIZE!! to say you don't matter - part of the braincontroll to turn your compassion to her - and why not - she deserved it - she gave you life - sort of - well.
And I want to return the favor, but I've taken up enough space in your thread with my own stuff already this morning. No - there is no thread if it is just pieces of information I pick up off the internet, just stuff that validates my experience and that connects to me. There is no thread unless what I feel connects to someone else. The whole healing thing is happening right here. The back and forth, give and take is right here and I would not have gotten any of this healing if you were not returning the favor by sharing here.
Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - -
right back!
I am moving into the healing place. I see that LG must have compassion. But the key is that I also see that I have enough to give her. That is thanks to you and your mirroring.
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Hey LilyCat - I get what you are saying about the difference between shame and humiliation. Thanks.
It sounds to me like he was trying to infantilize you -- prove to you, as you say, that you are helpless without him. But on second thought, I guess he wasn't because if he had been, he would have continued to be there and bail you out of situations when you were in trouble. Yeah I see it. You are right. But I finally get the other part too. Thanks. He dropped it because I was an OBLIGATION and one he hated. Once I was old enough his obligation was OVER!!! GONE!!! While I was his obligation he infantilized me because it helped him control me. He rendered me helpless so he would be in controll. OMG- I have spent so much time and money trying to figure this out. Boy - you are good. Thanks.
I know you're going to get huge pay-backs. Yep - they are starting to flow.
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When he didn't fulfill that role - and intentionally left you without knowledge... that was a betrayal of your "normal", right? YES!!! That's it. The word NORMAL!!!!! My whole world hinges on your word NORMAL!!!! Because it is normal there are worlds of expectation that hang on that - expectations that go way beyond the conscious articulation - the everything about what life was and was to be - the everything!! Part of that expectation was that MY NORMAL was the same as those friends I had grown up with - and then suddenly IT WASN'T. And I could not make sense of it and fell into deep depression and shame.
An overwhelming disappointment of your expectation of him. YES!! BUT ..... ERKKKK - the disappointment got dumped on ME. [rewrite] An overwhelming disappointment of your expectation of ME!!! And I have lived that disappointment out. BINGO!!
Is this where humilation or shame begins? Or was there some kid-logic, some interpretation on your part of his behavior that triggered those feelings that happened first? Or do the feelings arrive before - at the message of helplessness? NOt sure but I think it is the inversion of owning all his shame, pain, blah, blah blah coupled with the fact that I never saw what was happening - that he had completely dumped me but pretended to be the same kind of father as all his buddies. That illussion coupled with holding their shame and pain did not allow me to just say, "To hell with this, I'm cutting out of this c**p and taking care of myself." Instead I have stayed around to gather up the crumbs from their tables and beg for more kicks and slaps just hoping for a crumb. Boy - I think I'm ready to go. These crumbs are too small.
Did you have childhood friends to compare notes with? Spend time at their houses? Watch how those families worked? I did - but the appearances were the same. That was the big problem. I thought we all had the same. My father pretended to be doing the same things.
you were only helpless in that one situation because you were a mere child - and kept as childlike, no doubt, to further enable his ignoble, inhuman ability to torture you, longer. I so get it - at long, long last. I really feel like the power he has over me has broken.
I have a swing by the creek, under a big tree. Wanna come swing with me? Or we'll find something to do that you like to do! Do you like to play baseball or jump rope? If you want, we can just swing... and I'll be quiet. I can draw your picture, if you want... then you can draw mine! Twiggy, I'm coming. I love to play!!! and swing. I'm not very good at drawing but let's do it anyway. Thanks for asking. It will be fun.
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Being good at it, isn't required - only having fun! :D
(and maybe LilyCat will let us come horseback riding with her)...
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Wow - that hit me hard - didn't realize that LG needed to be good at things. My parents would definitely be mean about it. Isn't that funny. I never realized that before. I used to keep so much to myself because unless I was good at it they would make fun of me. They would definitely make fun of my picture and if they knew I had fun at your house they would make fun of you too - just to be mean to me - because they didn't pick you as my friend - I did. That makes my stomach hurt. Twiggy.
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OH... I'm sorry!
I should have remembered. I've only recently learned that I CAN play video games, since my hubby bought a Wii. It took me a while to realize that I could have fun, even if I wasn't very good at it - but I only learned that watching the kids. They'd laugh & laugh at themselves... and I would give up and plead a phobia or not able to understand the controls or something... and just leave it. But when even hubby's 80 yr old mom started bowling strikes and dunking the guy in the carnival games... and laughing so hard she said "I almost peed myself!!"... I realized that "winning" or being really good at the games wasn't the POINT of the game.
My best friend from HS - her mom always hated me and didn't hesitate to let me know it. I lived on the wrong side of the tracks and wasn't good enough to hang out with her daughter. I'm used to it - sad to say. WAAAAAY too used to it.
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I want a Wii. My little boy wants a Wii. Now LG wants a Wii.
I would just love to see your 80 year old MIL wetting her pants playing with the Wii. Now that is funny.
Doesn't matter if you are good. - That's a whole new concept.
I remember being so contemptuous of silly girls who would play games and gleefully laugh at their ineptitude. I hated that feeling but couldn't get over it. It was a sense of superiority and I knew it was wrong and denied it to myself but now I see - it was pure jealousy. I wanted to have fun like they did - but it was condemned by my father - not allowed - verboten.
It all makes so much sense now.
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Hi SS,
You are articulating something that I think is very important in this thread. I look forward to reading along as you share the things that are unfolding for you. Am I hearing you right, that all along humiliation has been the bedrock of the shame you've felt?
tt
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That's what I think TT. It seems so obvious but it has taken me so long to get it.
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SS,
What you've articulated has been my experience. I am curious. Can you trace back to a defining event in childhood that became the genesis of the humiliation and shame you've experienced over your lifetime?
tt
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Hmm. I will think. For some time it has felt like a compilation of millions of small experiences and then it became stuck so that every thing triggered. I will think a while and see if I can come up with ONE. But as I think about it I am just being flooded with memories from the age 5 and under. Not any individual thing. But here is an example, I was six, in the hospital. I had fallen over the banister and fell face first onto the hardwood foyer floor. I had a concussion, broke my jaw and split my chin open. 2nd night in the hospital I am in a semi-private room in the bed closet to the door. It is evening, my mother is there and my father comes in the door with flowers and a toy. I am glad to see him and thrilled to get the gifts but he just nods and keeps on going. He stops by to see the other girl first. When he comes back to see me he has only the toy. I feel humiliated because I thought the gifts were all for me.
I don't remember how I learned not to ask for gifts but I know from this memory that I was taught early on that I was "ungreatful". And this experience was proof of it. I "expected" both the flowers and the toy were going to be mine and he proved me to be greedy and ungreatful without even saying a word.
Of course as an adult I see how bizarre his behavior is. He comes to the hospital to see his daughter who could have died and who has had surgery to repair her broken jaw and sew her chin and wire her gums together and his first consideration is bringing flowers to a girl he does not know and will never see again AND he has to do that BEFORE he says a word to his own child.
I don't think anyone can really understand why this was humiliating. I'm not sure I do but it was. It is the strongest memory I have of that entire accident.
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Hi SS,
I think you should change your name to Humiliation Slayer!
I asked whether you could identify the event that initiated you into humiliation because of my own experience. It happened when I was right around two. I carried a still picture from the experience forever with no memory attached, not knowing what it meant. I read Dr. Phil's book Self Matters . This book explained how to do emotional archaeology. Using it as a guide I was able to revisit and reconstruct the event that introduced and initiated me into fixed, abiding, always there, humiliation. From that day forward I was filled with anxiety, fear, and guilt. I felt threatened by everyone and everything, except books and nature. That day, my coping self was birthed.
As I worked through Dr. Phil's book, I brought God into the process. I was doing self therapy. I needed someone in the trenches with me and He was there all the way. Otherwise, I would not have made it.
I don't want to make your thread about me. I did want to tell you about this part of my recovery because humiliation appears to be a common denominator in our experiences. I so look forward to reading along as you share more of your journey.
tt
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Hi SS,
I can picture your father marching past you to the bed of the other child. What an awful time for him to make a show like that. There's nothing redeemable about the way he made you second. I expect that the pattern was well established by the time you were five and lying bruised and broken in that hospital bed. The good part though, is that you're rising above it, SS.
tt
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Dear SS
You have brought so much healing to the board,with this thread.SS.What hit me after reading about your F and the gifts was that it had NOTHING to do with you, the essential you, your deep self. It was ALL him. It is so easy to see from the outside,but so hard to see when it is you, experiencing it.
It was NEVER you. I wish I could make pills and give them to all of us so we can see ourselves,as we are. Love You, Ami
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Hi SS:
Thank you again for this thread - it's become of the utmost importance to me. I agree with TT, that humilation is the root of all the other symptoms and coping strategies that we (collectively) have developed to deal with this. I too, feel that there were so many humiliations that they all simply accumulated and overwhelmed me. The fashion show story is only the 2nd most extreme example (first, being mother's denial of the rape...).
I was able to list 13 humilations, before I hit the one that for me - is the place to start working. I was humiliated for being my own, injured, dissociated, emotional self. I was made to feel that I was mentally unstable - all because my mother didn't understand emotions and wouldn't even let me know the facts of what had happened to me. How I felt was so inconvenient and uncomfortable for her - that I had no choice but to "split" those feelings (and memories) off - as if they didn't happen.
But the fact is, I felt like such an abomination to my own mother - and so unimportant to her - and those feelings were so intense, overwhelming, and UNSAFE (would only get me more abuse) - that I turned them on the only target available to me: my self. That was the final "hook" my mother needed to begin dumping the REST of the feelings that she should've felt... into me. I began to hate myself so much - for not being smart enough, strong enough - to resist this, that I wanted to die. Instead, the "split" happened - effectively the same sort of thing... and "I" was this being that had to "pretend" to be me... because I'd already experienced the fact that no one was going to help me; no one in the 60's would interfere in the "business" of any family - and my mother did all she could to keep it this way.
Compassion does heal these kinds of deep wounds. I think it takes many, many repetitions and time. And also an awareness of owning what is MINE emotionally and not owning, what rightfully belongs to someone else. The humilation rightfully belongs to my mother - though she's not able to feel it - and not me; not Twiggy. Not any more.
And now, it's simply a matter of finding out what ELSE Twiggy - my unconscious self wants. Retribution is out of the question - she doesn't know what she did is wrong; she doesn't even admit the facts of what happened to me - 40 years later. It wouldn't heal me and Twiggy. But I can, within myself, express all my outrage and sadness and the injustice of what I experienced as her daughter. I can put my mother in a mental anger room, until the emotions burn themselves out - and let all the emotions go, once and for all.
And I can stop pretending to be someone I'm not; I can BE Twiggy... and I won't be humilated for it anymore.
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PR - Thank you for your honest and powerful work and for sharing it. I can only read a part at a time as I feel such empathy that the pain is actually a little overwhelming. I need to process it myself, I connect strongly. I admire your ability to open up your wound and strip the scab off right here in public. The wound is not humiliating, it is how you were made to feel about your wound that humiliated and I feel initially the fear and then the rage that that was done to you. Thank you so much for your postings. They encourage me to continue plumbing.
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For everyone,
I researched pastoral abuse of power during my lunch hour and found this (below). I thought of you, ShameSlayer, and Phoenix, and everyone, and thought you would want to read this:
"In some small way, I’d like to affect the death of the deadly cycle of shame. No human is born with it. Shame is acquired from the outside. What abusers actually do is rob their victim of all self-esteem & dump deadly shame in its place."
(from a website on clergy abuse; this is in one of the victims' stories)
You are also so courageous, and so inspiring. (That's from me, not the website.)
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err, there was a slight typo on my part - I meant to type "you are all so courageous.."
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"In some small way, I’d like to affect the death of the deadly cycle of shame. No human is born with it. Shame is acquired from the outside. What abusers actually do is rob their victim of all self-esteem & dump deadly shame in its place."
Sometimes some words, that on the surface seem so obvious and inocuous strike so accurately at the heart that they are piercing. This concept seems so simple and so straightforward but boy does it have power. Through this 2nd sentence I see the bait and switch that was my life and the life of so many others. Thanks Lily Cat.
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This is going to be unpopular. But I'm going to voice it all the same. I believe we are all born with the capacity for shame, as we are born with the capacity for empathy. I believe that without the capacity for shame, we have no capacity to achieve our highest potential as human beings. Shame, that is, as it relates to behavior we wish we had not engaged in. Things we wish we had not said. If there is no shame--I ask you honestly--shouldn't the people who mistreated us as children and/or adults, ideally, feel shame for that? Not WILL they, but should they? And if they could, wouldn't that signal hope?
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gJazz... I agree with most of your ideas here. I'm not totally convinced that everyone is born with the capacity for shame, though. Nature vs Nurture... or some of both? If the scientists are correct that chemical imbalances are responsible for emotional, psychological disfunctions... that human doesn't have much of a choice or much control over his/her situation.
I also agree that abusers SHOULD feel shame for mistreating others, but I've given up hope that most of them care enough to try to change. Most are so self-unaware... and don't acknowledge that other people are even REAL or entitled to feelings different from theirs... so they are almost genetically indifferent to their impact on others. Technically, I think it's possible for even people like this to change; but the rarity of examples puts it very close to the same category as "miraculous".
My opinion... only an opinion. I haven't stayed in a Holiday Inn Express, played a doctor on TV, or have anything to back up my opinion except my own personal experience...
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SS, I'm glad it reached you. I thought it might. They are very powerful words, indeed. Consider it a greeting card from me.
gjazz, I think you are correct. I think we need the capacity for shame; it's what keeps most of society in check, if you will. If we had no capacity for shame we wouldn't care how we treated others and we'd probably have a pretty lawless society. ...I think there is a reason behind the creation of all (each) human feeling.
But there is shame and there is shame. Societal shame that encourages right behavior is very different from shame that is foisted upon someone for false reasons, to abuse, control, or for self-satisfaction. That is very wrong, obviously.
Glad you spoke up and took that risk. Good example for us all!
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SS: how goes it with your work on humiliation? Making headway now?
I wondered if your experience was similar to mine. I dove into the emotion for a day, yesterday. And the more I acknowledged the emotion - let it be - and let my feelings guide my thoughts... the more I could feel a release of the original emotional wounding pain.
Many things now seem possible to me today - that were such a struggle before addressing this old, unacknowledged feeling. And the relationship between me and unconscious self is also changing... things happening at the same time: breaking free of the idea of being imprisoned in old habits, routines & beliefs... and also a settling into place (proper place) of the feelings & memories of my personal "history".
It will still take a lot of repetitions before the old habits change, I think. But now there is a separation between the old emotions and the habits themselves.
Hope you're getting some of this kind of "relief" too!
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I am making great progress. I toggle back and forth between feeling the pain and using something akin to CBT to (not repress the memory) but to ease the pain. I am astonished at how I have overlooked the stomach pain that I have lived with for years and years. I can't imagine how I just ignored it - it is a huge pain. When I don't feel stomach pain I often feel the shock feeling of anxiety - the sense that I just put my finger in the socket. I have such a propensity towards self-criicism. I have known that for a while but I was not aware of when it was happening, now I am. That's the difference.
I am interested in seeing where this will take me.
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Dear SS
I started having problems eating(stomach pain) when Scott was born(21 years ago). I remember back to not being able to eat at that time. Alice Millers book, 'Your Body Never Lies" really helped me.
She says that if you stuff emotions, they will come out in your mind and body.
It has helped me more than any single thing I have ever done. It gave me the courage to face the truth about how I really felt.
You are doing so,so well. I am inspired by your progress Love Ami
((((((((((SS)))))))))))
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SS, I think you're right - where this path takes you is going to be very, very interesting!
For now, my set of circumstances... Twiggy's situation... has taken me down my own path to a surprising, unexpected destination. It's diverging from our shared experiences, so I'm going to revive the Re-Integration thread as a place to post that process... those realizations. (I don't want to muddy up your journey... or track all over your path - those milestones are very, very important!)
I think I've found my own antidote to humiliation, shame, the other feelings of rage, of hopelessness... powerlessness. I wish with all my heart that you find your antidote soon, too.
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I am very interested in reading about your antidote. I am glad you are going to continue to work on this. Your posts here have been so helpful and pushed me forward. Some time ago - in late spring - I posted a thread about working together with someone on this stuff - and that is what has happened here. It makes a difference. Thanks.
Ami - I have the stomach issue too. What does Miller say about stomach pain - what wounding resides in the stomach?
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SS,
I had a thought while working through some of my own stuff the last few days, and thought it might something for you. (I've been feeling due shame over a few contributions I made to the N pastor mess.)
...I feel comfortable saying this to you, because we have shared bits of our faith journey.
Shame, like every other feeling, is a gift from God. The appropriate shame that we feel -- when we know we truly have done something wrong in God's eyes -- if accepted, leads us to repentance. Repentance is the open door to God's love and mercy.
Inappropriate shame -- that unwarranted shame that others force upon us, as your mother does --
can also be a path to repentance, but it takes two brave people. The person who has been shamed can tell the shamer about it in an emotionally honest way; and the inflicter of the shame, if willing to listen, accept responsibility, and be empathetic, can take the shame upon them, appropriately so, and ask forgiveness of the shamee and repent to God. This, again, opens the door for God's love and mercy.
I'm not defending the people who shame and humiliate others -- not at all -- and I am NOT saying that these people are necessarily (even usually) willing to listen and bear accountability ... but it can happen.
I think the shame of the person who has been wronged, in particular, gets God's ear and tenderness. God loves the humble and the meek and the oppressed.
So, there are my thoughts for the day.
(((((SS)))))), and
Peace in Christ,
Lily
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Lily Cat - You make two good points. The word shame is quite ambiguous and we use it in every day life in a variety of ways. You distinguish between two meanings by using the modifiers "appropriate" and "inappropriate". Many experts refer to "appropriate" shame as guilt and Bradshaw refers to "inappropriate" shame as "toxic shame".
I am definitely referring to toxic shame rather than something that leads to something positive. The issue of shame is certainly complicated and your post does a good job of highlighting that. Thank you.
I think "shame" or any offense would be an opportunity for repentance and with that healing. Unfortunately the problems caused by inappropriate or toxic shame can actually be intensified when the person doing the shaming or humiliating does not or would not participate in such a process. In my case, neither of my parents would be interested in or willing to entertain any thought of owning or even acknowledging their role - in fact the opposite is true - they have always and continue to hold me responsible for anything bad, negative or painful that has happened to me. If something they did hurt me then I deserved it. Not much room for any healing there.
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Hi SS,
Yes, I knew that was what you were referring to. And sadly, I was pretty sure that's what you were going to say about your parents. In no way do I /did I want to take away from what you feel and what you've had to endure; or suggest that your parents might be receptive and you should talk to them.
No, no, no. I was just making the general point. (I'm pretty sure you picked up on that.)
So glad you're reading Bradshaw. I think he's really good.
You know, years ago the Atlantic Monthy had a cover article on shame as a new and very important new focus area in psychotherapy. I wonder if it's available online. I'll check. It was a really good article.
You are doing so well -- really an inspiration for all of us.
Hugs,
LC
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(I'm pretty sure you picked up on that.)
I sure did. Thank you Lily Cat.
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SS - I had an IDEA:
Something just popped into my head; might help with all those activities - and the emotions associated with them.
Because most of my "triggers" for smoking are emotional, I've been working on separating the reflex - smoking - from the emotion. Waiting 5-10 minutes from the time the emotion pops up: restlessness, boredom, anger, whatever. Then, I can smoke. It's a type of "practice" - to separate the behavior I'm trying to change from the emotion that I used to obscure with smoking.
I've also been working on refining emotional boundaries... and it just went "ding-ding-ding" in my head that part of this smoking thing is related to my not learning about boundaries properly. When you're not allowed to have boundaries from other people in your FOO, you never learn that WITHIN yourself, you need some boundaries, too. Conscious decisions about health habits - nutrition, smoking, drinking... behavioral things... because without those "inner" boundaries - anything is permitted; anything fair game.... and we learned that there was unpredictability and powerlessness in that place without boundaries... all that stuff became "beyond our control"... because we didn't know we needed to tell ourselves "no" or "this is better".
I wonder what would happen, if when the feelings come up associated with normal activities, you just gave the feelings 2-5 minutes of time BEFORE starting your chosen activity? If that would separate the feeling from the doing? Keep the feeling from intruding on the process?
Something you said about doing 1 thing... connected with me... we learned multi-tasking really, really early... because we were always trying to decode what our parents were doing, we were struggling with our feelings, and trying to fulfill those expectations - all at one time. It was too much coming at us to process it all at once. But it was familiar; what we were used to; it was also how we were vulnerable, I think.
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Just thinking of you, SS. Thank you for these profound threads. Love Ami
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I wake up in the morning and life is just too overwhelming. I actually fear the fear. This is a very strange place to be. I am able to act but just a bit. But the paralyzing factor has shifted. It has to do with fear of the fear. The pain of the fear and shame is SO great and has been for so long that I see now that it has actully become something of a habit - the fear comes because it has always come.
Itis easier to not move than to move and experience the fear and the pain.
One of the other things to overcome is that I am absolutely exhausted from years of fear and shame. I want to rest. Besides how can I make a plan - there is so much to do. Where do I begin and then I have to deal with that wretched issue - it is never enough.
Just ranting - getting it out so I can make order.
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Hey SS,
Here is something I copied for you... keep telling yourself this....
Fear is a jealous gate-keeper and he wants you staying put in your make-believe prison. That’s how he operates. He doesn’t want you to see what’s out there, what’s possible for you. He can’t keep you in there but only he knows that. He’s been holding a pair of threes while you’ve had four aces in your hand for years, but he’s bluffed you every time. Stared you down, made you believe something that wasn’t true - that what you have in your hand isn’t good enough. Well listen up…
It is good enough. You are good enough.
This is not feel-good, positive thinking mumbo jumbo, its reality. But you need to make it YOUR reality. Fear doesn’t want you making decisions, taking chances or exploring your potential because that’s where he loses his power. He doesn’t want you hanging out with those ‘positive thinking’ types and he certainly doesn’t want you paying too much attention to articles like this one.
Fear is the other side...of.....FREEDOM.....
The cards are in your hands now SS..you know the cards....call fears bluff...and just DO IT....all the way to Freedom........
Love
Deb
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Dear SS
I understand the exhaustion.I felt that way today and then my dear friend let me cry and I cried and grieved and I felt energy come back to me.
We have been holding SO much pain in our bodies. It hurts terribly and makes us feel hopeless.
I am here for you, whenever you need me. Love Ami
(((((((((((SS))))))))))