Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Gaining Strength on October 03, 2008, 10:34:19 AM
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I am facing a huge hurdle today and I must come here to deal withit. I know what it is and I know that I have been through this process many times before and with significant success. But I am afraid and the fear is real, but it is different from the fear I have faced in the past. It is not the same debilitating fear that I have encountered at other turns and yet it feels more insurmountable.
I am simply working this stuff out here because this is a safe and comforting place for me to be. This place takes place of the family security that I never had.
Something came to me the other day. When I was given assignments in my childhood home and left to deal with them on my own sometimes I wouldn't know how to do it, other times it was a pain to do and other times I just needed another human being to be there with me. But if I didn't get it done correctly then what happened was it either got done without me or I got the wrath of heaven screaming and yelling until a broken, devastated humiliated child got it done. She felt very Cinderella like in the way the step mother and step sisters treated Cinderella when she was cleaning. Either outcome in my past was terribly negative. I am still waiting for the fairy godmother to come and help me - not to do it for me but to help me, to be there with me, to encourage me, to care.
When ever I got things done or didn't I received criticism and never praise. I didn't deserve any credit or any encouragement. I can tap into that shaming and rejection that I experienced as a child. It is more painful than I had remembered. Thanks for letting me share this.
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TWo Insights:
still punishing myself for being abandoned
self-hatred connects me to my parents abusiveness b/c I fear their abandonment and sure death.
If I flourish then I will be abandoned. If I fail then I can continue to receive their contempt. their contempt is necessary for me to live. BREAK THIS CURSE!
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Hi GS aka WK
Do I know you? an EDIT-- :oops:
Are your parents still alive? Are there any other people with whom you deal who are exactly like your parents, or is this awful feeling one you have not rectified within yourself even in calmer surroundings.
That is awful for a little girl in her growing years to receive that abuse. However, you were not to blame. There could be many reason but I can think of only, were you too young to do these chores? were you never told how to do these chores?
For those two reasons alone you can tell yourself that you were asked to do the 'impossible' and therefore begin to try to let go of the feeling of being at fault.
We cannot cry over spilled milk, literally. My sister as a little girl was told to carry a large pail of milk from the barn to the house. I can just picture it, the big pail banging against her leg and milk slopping out on her little fat leg...as I had such orders as well, other times. She made it safely to the kitchen door,,,,,,, then tripped on the doorsill. I was on the far side of the kitchen and the milk ran all over the floor and straight at me. No way to replace it. The cows had been milked and the bucket set aside, as all the rest was fed to the pigs.. For a parents such as we had who yelled and screamed and beat us and never let us forget, that is the ONE time they didn't. I was about 3-4 years old.
No one ought to be felt shamed, inept or humiliated when learning something for a first time that requires more assistance and knowledge.
As growups now we try to find a way to tell this to ourselves and believe it; perhaps by repetition' repetition works for me.
do you have a thereapist to talk with, or someone else.
How are you doing now with your work and play jobs?
You are living in fear that is not there!
We all deserve credit, a pat on the back now and then, a 'good for you'. I never received much of anything until I left home, went to work full time and I was given planty of praise. That, alone, didn't heal me, as I had other issues, but I came to realize all the positive things I could say about myself regarding work:
punctual
a good worker,
stuck to it until the problerm was solved,
was rewarded with a pay cheqye
was rewarded with postive words from my superiors.
There is always some place to start...
Good Luxk
Izzy
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I am in touch with huge amounts of anger/rage. I want so much to find out what is underneath it. The rage has to do with being left out, over and over and over, with being pushed away and belittled and laughed at for needing my parents. I am so angry about that. I hate witnessing people setting people up to be laughed at. Because ithappened to me and I am in excruciating pain from it. Until I connect with the original pain I am stuck in the anger and rage. This is the only place I can come to talk about it.
I'm angry and filled with resentment. These feelings come from deep within and have a long history. They have been present with me my whole life. They have colored my outlook in everything. I don't want to be a slave to them anymore.
Across the years of dealing with these issues I have learned that the words come to me before the freedom from them. The feelings intensify and take on a life of their own. There are loops in these issues in which the resentment throws me into anger and on and on. One memory leads to another and each and every one angers me more and more. I want out of this loop. I want out of the anger and resentment. I want out of the sloven life and paralysis. I want to be able to move forward and leave all of this behind. I am tired of being angry and tired of being resentful and tired of being reactive and tired of being left out. I want in. I want to participate in this American life. I want to work and make money and have a life.
I believe I will but I must get to the bottom of this rage and resentment. I must touch this deep seated pain - all the way down.
Tired of being helpless, hopeless.
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I have more to write. I am at another significant hurdle in this healing process, one that promises to bring more healilng, more freedom. I know the board is slowing down but I am sad that noone has posted an encouraging word. I feel so lonely in this process especially sharing it here and not hearing anything back. But that can be the nature of this place as well.
The dark side of my childhood is growing larger and larger. This has happened several times before as a large issue works its way to the surface. All kinds of stuff from the unconsciousness is pushing upward and connections are being made. I'm in touch with the fear and the profound sense not experience of being unwanted and rejected over and over in my childhood only to be told that I am loved but that I don't appreciate all that I receive. I'm told that I am not appreciative when I want to be close and included and I am given "things" instead to mollify me and to avert my attention from wanting to be in on the activity gong on between my parents and brothers. From the time I was 3 I was told that I was too young. Thing is - I never got old enough. The other thing is there was only 20 months between me and the middle brother and 38 months between me and the oldest. It had nothing to do with age. I was left out from the get-go. And I am still experiencing the very same reactions that I did as a toddler.
I feel the rejection and get a shot of adrenaline - fear, panic, frantically try to adjust my behavior to get included and become apoplectic and tantrum about being rejected - it feels like my life is on the line.
Problem is - insight this morning - on a profoundly unconscious level I expect the rejection and/or humiliation whenever I encounter others. That expectation sets me up to get what I expect.
I have no idea how to get a new process except to do what i have done in the past to deal with shame and other issues. I must absolutely plunge myself down into those memories and experiences and let the pain work itself out until the alternative options open up.
The abandoment and rejection are so painful and I have lived a life of it. It hurts.
My memories of 5 and under all have the feature of being leftout or treated differently and being punished if I complained or ridiculed if I acted out. And the ridicule would go on for years - the tale told over and over. Even now I cannot share with you the stories because the shame is far too great eventhough I can clearly see that none of you would see that aspect in the story themselves.
That pain is horrendous. I just wanted to be loved. I didn't ask to come into this world but once I did I needed to be loved and cherished and nurtured.
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Writing out things here that I am dealing with internally helps me in a way I would never have believed. Since I last posted (a couple of hours ago) I have made a substantial connection - being connected/included (the opposite of abandoned) is the lifeblood for me but early in my life being connected got twisted up with condemnation and self-punishment. In the dark recesses of my unconsciousness I have made self-condemnation a pre-requisite to being connected/living and a consequence of this was more condemnation and rejection - a wretched, horrid cycle that I have lived in and lived out.
I pray that making these connections either breaks the spell or leads to the path that breaks the spell and that I can get out of this loop and find my way out of this forest at last. I know life outside is worth living. My life right now is not. I truly want out and I want to help others find a way out.
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WK:
The cycle of feeling left out, rejected, shamed, and then trying to control your environment by self-rejecting and anticipating that the pattern will play out in all future relationships must feel familiar to many people here. I can relate to it, absolutely. My NF now, officially, in front of others, actually blames me for being treated "differently" as a child because I was female. I do not recall selecting my gender, but that is beside the point. He will never accept responsibility. He will not change. Yours may not either.
But you are changing. You have changed. You are willing to face the hurt head-on and move into strength and peace within yourself. It may seem like that goal is a long way off, but if your journey is anything like mine, it's not really a destination. It's a process. I feel great when I have only one or two rage attacks a week. They still come. How could they not? But they're fewer and farther in between and not debilitating like they used to be.
Your future is, truly, in your hands. You do have the power to limit or completely eradicate someone's influence in your life. It may seem impossible at times, at least it does for me, but I try to keep my eyes on the prize, that being peace of mind, joy, freedom.
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I have made self-condemnation a pre-requisite to being connected
Wow.
That
is
HUGE
kudos, WK,
Hops
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hi W
My memories of 5 and under all have the feature of being leftout or treated differently and being punished if I complained or ridiculed if I acted out. And the ridicule would go on for years - the tale told over and over. Even now I cannot share with you the stories because the shame is far too great eventhough I can clearly see that none of you would see that aspect in the story themselves.
K
It's strange how this is the story of my life, things I mentioned when I came on board, over 1½ years ago, and it was the root of all my problems, that I was always leftout or treated differently , and this was from as far back as I can remember and still. I was ridiculed and taunted by my siblings and father and there is much more, but this goes to show that until a person recognizes it in one's own life, someone else saying the same thing does not 'ring a bell'.
Yet I didn't have to wait to remember. It followed me all through my life, as a live memory that could not be approached or the response would be "Stop living in the past."
Izzy
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Wow - to come on line and see three responses felt like I had come home and found some friends had come over for a surprise visit. It felt great!!! Thanks guys.
Gjazz, your words make me feel like I belong, that others know the pain. Boy is that a good feeling. Thanks so much. I am astonished that you father would actually say acknowledge out loud that you were left out b/c you were a girl. That happened in my life but my father would never say it outloud. He would find a way to blame me for anything bad that happened. He always did that. It's painful - that's for sure. I'm sorry you experienced that but jeez - how bizarre that he thinks that's reasonable enough to admit!!!!
Thank you so much for your encouragement. That alone is the food I need to push forward. I didn't get it and cannot get it still from my family but I need it and it is more significant still because you understand and have been through similar insanity. I definitely keep my eyes on the prize. I believe anything is ultimately possible. When I wrote above that it was like having friends drop by - I thought, "Wow wouldn't that be nice to even have friends who COULD drop by." and I realized - it is - it is possible - don't ever give up. I believe. [the other day I was walking around in the kitchen preparing dinner talking to myself when my son said, "What do you believe Mom?" because what I was saying to myself was, "I believe, I believe, I believe ...."]
Thanks Hops - it really is huge. It helps so much to make that connection. I also see that I have isolated in order to avoid the pain of the whole cycle. I hope that I can now tune into how I opt for self-condemnation and stop doing it.
You know Izzy, my memories are not new, I've always had them but what is new is how it all connects. I've never seen how I got stuck into a passive pattern of waiting to be "helped" out of my dilemma. I've never seen how I have participated in the condemnation and criticism - that I carried it around with me in my own head and how I could not/would not do what I needed to do to get out of my predicament out of some bizarre responsibility to their demands/condemnation. It's too bizarre to make sense out of and yet unless I attach this understanding to these memories I will never be free. All too weird to fully understand. Just glad you guys would allow me to share with you.
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Hang in there. People here understand. And yes, my father said it, but mostly because he was drunk off his ass. The argument went like this: you weren't treated differently. Me: OK. Him: well you think you were treated differently. I listed a couple examples. Him: well that's because you deserved it. Why? "A girl."
OK, Einstein. Whatever.
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Isn't it stupid GSWK? Our parents do not control us now but we think they do because we have been hard wired that way. I have gone through classes and heard it said that you HAVE to undo it by replacing it with positive words. Actually saying them outloud. Boy, I pray and pray that God would take this cup from me. Do you? I just hold you up!!
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Slowly but surely OC I do feel that I am getting to that original wound and finding my way out. It is painful to be sure but not nearly as horrid as the life I have lived.
Here is a memory from age 7 that came up this morning:
My family was on vacation at a resort. My father's sister and her young children met us there. The first day my middle brother and I went to "The Playhouse" where there were supervised children's activities (no parents accompanied us). While there a boy took my sweater and put it under his shirt and would not let me have it back. My brother stood up for me and got it back. It was the only time in my life that he stood up for me.
Later that afternoon we were at the pool. There was a low brick wall between the pool and the outside cafe. I jumped over it and cut open my shin. My parents took me to the infirmary and they bandaged it (no doctor to stitch it). I was not allowed to swim the rest of the week. Two parts of this memory stand out: 1) my father said I deserved the cut and the consequential missed swimming for jumping the wall and 2) I still remember the smell of the bandage when I got home 6 days later. The smell was putrid. There was sand in the wound and the bandage was wet from bay water for days and days. My mother humiliated me for the state of the bandage and my leg. I still feel the humiliation. But as an adult and as a mother I realize that what happened is that she couldn't be bothered with changing my bandage - the whole week!!! and she blamed me and humiliated me for that.
Both of these memories are incredibly painful and relate to much of what I brought forward and lived out.
The loneliness of these memories in almost unbearable. To deserve all the bad that befell me with no sympathy at any time is a form of condemnation that has kept me down. It has been a weight that I could not rise above. It has been so oppressive and it has lead directly to the mess I live in. Because what I learned is that I get what I deserve and all the bad is what I deserve so I cannot undo it. I deserve it. The pain of all of this is incredible. I so hope someone here will understand.
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Hi GSWK,
still punishing myself for being abandoned
This struck a chord with me. I carried a deep, abiding inner feeling of guilt for so long. I can't remember when it began. When I tried to explain it to a friend, she thought it sounded like shame. I said, No. It's guilt. The thing is, I didn't know what this unidentifiable feeling of guilt was about. In other words, I knew about the freedom that confession and divine forgiveness brings. But what was I to confess? Why couldn't I identify it? Later during one of my 'seclusions' deep in the Kentucky mountains, it came to me. It was about the guilt I felt for abandoning my own self as a child. (not saying it was justified guilt, but it was in me and I needed to deal with it) So then, as best I understood how, I in essence apologized to and begged forgiveness of myself. The guilt went away. I know this sounds convoluted, but it was real. I was carrying guilt about having abandoned my own self. I expect this may be a necessary part of inner child work. I think it was at this point that I began to remother myself. Learning that principle helped tremendously on a lot of levels.
tt
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I have come here to write today because I am in so much pain - excruciating pain and have been for several days now. The pain is not new. It has been with me a lifetime, building and building and building. But for the past few days the mask on this pain has come down and I am no longer repressing it, no longer masking it and pretending it is not there, wishing it away.
As I feel it I see things about it. I am seeing how in feeling the pain I have felt venomously towards people who have been unkind or who have shut me out or excluded me. In a dream I was in a church for a non-worship service and I was making my way into the 4th or 5th pew. There was a young girl there who was down syndrome. She was with her family and I sat next to her. We started chatting until the program began. After it began I found she was leaning into me and in front of me. I felt claustrophobic. I felt a rage and a sharp searing pain. By befriending her suddenly I was left alone and everyone else was turning the cold shoulder to me. In an instant I knew that I had befriended her because it was the right thing but it wasn't because my heart was in it. I had anticipated being praised for it and instead got rejected. But the rejection was not b/c of anything I did but because noone else wanted to be bothered, wanted to sacrifice their time or their small talk connections.
On the surface this seems like small potatoes but what I get from this is something about a lifetime of actions and values. I didn't connect with her because I connected with her and was drawn to her heart but because it was the right thing to do and there would be a reward for it - but the reward was not forthcoming - the whole experience was suffocating.
My whole llife has been about "doing the right thing", following some list of "shoulds" rather than being in tuned with and following my heart. Ironies abound here. My NF has always followed "the rules" and "the shoulds" and been very legalistic. There was never any real love, only shoulds. In recent weeks I have been connecting with my little boys heart rather than doing the shoulds and it has had a healing effect on us both. And a third irony has to do with this human spirit who comes to me in the night and holds my broken heart while it spews forth pus from a life on infection and she never tires and never "reacts" to the pain and the need.
From this dream and other images that have come to me in the night I have seen how common it is for people to run for the hills when others are in pain and in need. The strongest image that comes to me is one of drs. and nurses coming into the patient to adminster procedures and medicines but not love and care - no real concern and connection. The connection is where the healing is.
I am living in faith that experiencing this pain - more acutely than ever - is leading to a real healing, a groundedness that I will have the strength and courage to move out of, to live out of and where joy and flourishing can about, where there will be connectedness and friends and love. I am believing on faith.
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I am suppose to be headed to a meeting with an asst. prin. at a school where I want to send my son. I am having a hard time going. This is so normal for me. HUGE barriers for any plan I make.
I am seeing today how much the pain I have been living in has to do with this. My level of pain is so great and the expectation of more pain heaped on it is overwhelming. I am so rooted in the expectation of pain - that has completely controlled my entire life. All of this is making itself known to me. It is unbearably overwhelming.
The only way out is through. I have wanted to go through for years and could not find the way until now. But it is painful none-the-less and I long and need to connect. That is why I am sharing here. Reaching out, fishing for a lifeline.
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I am very sorry about the recurring waves of deep pain, WK.
I know it must exhaust you.
How good it would feel to experience lightness of being, even for a little while.
I would like to make another suggestion for 3-D: a meditation group. Regular. Stick with it...
love,
Hops
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Hi GS/WK,
I undertsand how you feel. Best we can do is 'feel the fear & do it anyway'. I guess what we need is courage, like the lion in Wizard of Oz (how appropriate!).
I have felt like the cowardly lion, but I felt the fear & did it anyway, so I guess that's courage.
Still working on the heart & brain.
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I've walked through that valley, WK, I know the geography. The best thing I can say is that while it might not feel like you're making progress toward liberation, you ARE, just by putting one foot in front of the other (both literally and figuratively). As Hops said, if there's any way to get some 3D support and peace, grab it. It may be that there's nothing anyone can say that helps at this moment, but it may help when the sun rises again tomorrow. Hang in there.
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I don't mind the pain so much - not that it isn't unbearable in a way (I know that is a contradiction but hear me out) - because I do know that the only way out is to go through the pain, to experience it. The funny thing of course is that I have never been without it - only I repressed it or zoned out so that I didn't incur more. In fact this paralysis is in part an unconscious breaking down in order to not incur more pain. That's what my isolating is too. That's why I don't mind even though the pain is so great.
I asked for a lifeline and I got it. No words can express my heartfelt thanks. It does make a difference - a big difference to come on-line and read "I'm sorry", "I understand", and "I've walked through that valley." Boy does that help lift the burden.
Hops - just beat me over the head about meditation (I first typoed "mediation" - hmm). You are right, I know it and I really must, must follow through. Meanwhile I DO have a yoga group and must, must make myself show up each and every time. OK I know YOU won't hit me over the head so I will have to do it myself.
Ann - You are so right. and this is the first time I have ever been able to say that I can feel the fear about s.t. and do it anyway. I love the cowardly lion and I am willing to feel the fear and do it anyway.
gjazz - I really needed to hear that I am making progess even though I do not feel it. I already believed that but it is a whole different ball of wax to hear it from someone else.
What I got from you three is the very thing I needed through out my life and was unable to get elsewhere. The stronger I get the more able I become to bring more of this into my life. We all need it. For some it has come with ease for others it has been more difficult. For most of us who had to devise survival skills that later worked against us we have had to undo lessons and learn better ones. This place has been supreme in allowing that to happen.
Thanks for the courage and encouragement. I am stronger and nourished and nurtured to fight on in my own little battle. And although it is self-serving to say so here and now, I believe that as each of us grows in strength that we add to this world rather than take from it. I know that as long as I live in vicitm role that I am taking from it. It is what it is and I (we) am (are) basically incapacitated while in victim role (or in victim role while incapacitated) but as I (we) grow stronger I (we) can begin giving back and I have always wanted to give back. Not time yet but it will be.
Thanks for your help. It was sorely needed and greatly valued.
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WK,
Yes, as I delve in to the effects of N foo, I am really starting to understand what "courage" means.
Perhaps more than anything, other than love, which gives courage & self belief, what we need is courage & we get courage by just doing it, even if we are frozen by fear.
love,
ann
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WK:
Awesome, your words about facing the pain head-on and about working to shrug that victim role off your shoulders for good. Hey, you may feel like you need propping up, but I'm seeing someone standing proud on her own two legs. I believe very strongly as you do, that when we stop allowing anyone to make a victim (or for that matter, a victimizer) of us, we give back to the world. Keep marching.
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Thank you both again for your words of encouragement. I am going through something very strange indeed. It is definitely a battle and there is no question that love is needed here. I will never understand the darkness and meanness that exists in this world and power of evil that is given life when people refuse to acknowledge it and stand up to it. That will always surprise me.
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hi GS
I recognized me in what you wrote in your bginning posts. Being left out, being ridicluled and all the the painful things instigated by your FOO.
I'm trying to remember your words...painful, abandonment, rejection, "black horror" embarrassment, humiliation.....
It is beyond me how a person, and adult person, a parent , can cause these feelings in his/her own child, but I have been there as I have said.
The thing with me is...do you remember?.....I don't feel my feelings as do the rest of you. I have a 'black box' that sucks them in before I have a grasp on them. I built that 'black box' likely before age 2. So I know my feelings but don't feel them.
I was at my therapist's yesterday and I told him that I was not going to take all that time (like 20 years...when I'm 69 now) just to peel the onion and end up being overwhelmed with the full impact of all my feelings. I said I would do fine this way, because (and I mentioned you, as a woman who posts where I do) there is no way I want to feel this pain you are describing, and it comes from your FOO, just as mine does.
My granddaughter is now 19, the age my D was when she thought she loved an N, and married at 20. I don't want to hear that G'd is pregnant or getting married and not continuing her education, when she is so smart, just like her mother. BUT if I do hear these things, I won't feel the crushing blow....it will be a disappointment but the rest goes to the 'black box'. I've been like this all my life.
I don't want to here that my grandson, 16, is taking dope for the above reasons, but I will endure such things without fallling apart.
This is what has made me so strong and independent all my life and able to accept what happened, know where it came from and now just shove everyone over a fence and block the toxic people from me. I used to go around looking for their love and approval and never got it. I don't want it now and they can stay over the fence, in the weeds, where they belong. No Contact!
xx
Izzy
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Izzy, I completely get your point. It is definitely a choice, a decision. If I were content with my life that way it seems you are then I would probably make the same choice. It is definitely painful BUT the thing is that it actually alllows me to bear other pains more easily. Let me give a for instance. I was walking back to our car today with my little boy after a hike with Cub Scouts. He was crying because we couldn't invite a little boy over afterward. Another time I would have had been impatient with him even angry. Today I was able to feel a loving, kind, compassion for him and his sadness.
My point is - that even though it is painful it is not excruciatingly painful over a long period of time. The pain is deep and sharp but not long lasting. But the big thing is that it relieves so much pain in the normal day to day. And that is what makes it worth it for me.
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Resentment - woke up to huge wall of resentment, been brewing. Time to dace it and deal with it - really don't want to.
As I write, I touched into a memory - of betrayal. This is the second time in as many days that this memory has returned. In the experience, I shared something with someone about a painful experience I had had. What I needed was some sympathy and caring, what I got was that this memory I shared was turned against me.
I suspect this memory comes now as a reminder and as something to be dealt with. Deep woundings cannot be shared willynilly - too dangerous.
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I am researching "resentment" and I found a site that is helpful to me. among the 9 pages in a document is this line:
Resentment is emotional suicide, it is like a hole in the heart that drains away our life
This reveals a truth that echos in my heart today. It speaks to where I am and encompasses much of what I have recently written to describe my understanding of what is going on in my life today.
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Resentments:
"Even little children are better able to handle grief than deceit." Leslie Weatherhead
Wow - huge resentment - remember mother/family not telling me of a pet's death (more than once) under the guise of protecting me and yet my not knowing was laughed about for years. The resentment and rage to boil underneath these memories is HUGE. When my husband died, I took my infant son to the funeral and asked 3 people who knew us both to come and photograph him there. When I read the above line I knew instantly that this concept was so powerfully impressed in my long ago that I wanted my son to know that he had been there to participate in the way that infants can only participate in life in a way that will be submerged in their unconsciousness. I wanted - in that dark time - for his unconsciousness to be imbued with inclusion and the opposite of deceit.
In the Weatherhad book there is a story of a little boy who is thrown from his horse and runs crying into his house to be met with reprimand by his father, "Stop snivelling. Boys don't cry. You should be ashamed of yourself." When he goes to his mother she brushes him off because she "couldn't be bothered just then" as she was on her way to her afternoon bridge party. Later that night when his mother came to put him to bed it was discovered that his arm was broken. The doctor was summoned and a cast and sling were put in place and his parents and siblings took on a very solicitous attitude towards him. That broken arm afforded him more attention and love than he had experienced heretofore and ever again. Throughout his early adult years he would unconsciously resort to pain and illness to generate the much deprived love he once experienced as a wounded child.
[Boy - this struck home. When I was 10 I fractured my arm jumping on a trampoline in the neighborhood. I only knew my arm was hurt. When I got home my brother was outside and needed me to play a game of ball with him. When I told him my arm was hurt he belittled me until I gave in and did what he asked. When our mother came home she was not interested at all in hearing about my arm, she and my father were going out to a party that night. That evening my babysitter helped me put together a sling made up by tieing two of my father's handkerchiefs together. Throughout the evening my brothers made fun of me and belittled me for exaggerating the hurt. I was in physical agony and the next morning my mother reluctantly agreed to take me to the Dr. I will never forget the extreme pain I was in. I recall every bump in the road and her anger and exasperation with me over my complaints and pleas that she drive more carefully. I also remember that she stopped for gas along the way. The gas station was less than a mile from the Dr.'s office. Looking back it is more than obvious that she could have delayed that stop until after taking me to the Dr. (she never lets her tank get below 1/4 full). She was unapologetic. She had absolutely no sympathy and no concern for me. It is nothing short of a miracle that I was taken to the Dr.'s office at all. The x-ray revealed a fracture just by the elbow and a cast was put on my left arm. I also remember forms of torment that my brothers were permitted to perpetrate on me during the weeks I had my cast. The pain of it and humiliation is still sharp. My brothers would mete out their cruelty without admonition right in front of my parents and grandparent. Not a word to curtail it.
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Ah yes. It all rings a bell.
I have an arm story too. When I was about five my parents went to Hawaii. They'd barely gotten on the plane before my brothers "let" me play with them, convinced me to climb to the top of a jungle gym, then promptly shook me down. My arm broke clear across. My aunt was called and came right over and took me to the hospital but the doctors wouldn't set it until they got my parents' consent (why, you ask? it's a good story. involves money. don't they all.). So I had to wait there as the plane crossed the Pacific--and what I remember is, the doctors were so nice to me, I almost didn't mind the pain.
Later, I twice tried to kill myself--once when I was 11 (pills) and again when I was 14 (also pills). When I was eleven, I had no idea what I was doing, made myself violently ill but was probably not in real danger of dying. However, nothing was said about what I'd done--to me. It was clear my parents and the doctor had discussed it but no word whatsoever to me. I was compelled to go back to my life as though it hadn't happened. When I was 14, I came closer to "succeeding." The doctor was of course called to the house (no public displays of indelicate behavior, please), I was treated, and again all talk happened outside my earshot. I was far too terrified to bring it up. The whole point had been to free myself, and I'd only made things worse. This time I was now old enough to make the occasional command appearance at my parents' cocktail parties, where little inside jokes were made about pathetic people who offed themselves, during which my father and his friends would cross one loafer over a knee, lean back and snigger into their Scotch. I remember being unable to breathe, I was so mortified. To this day, nobody has ever acknowledged either attempt directly. So very, very odd.
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Gjazz,
How did you survive this indifferent, neglectful parenting and become insightful and wise?
I would NEVER have left a 5 y/o to head off to Hawaii. Damn.
Did you find nurturing people later in your life?
Hops
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Oh my goodness. Well let me first say that I don't intend to take away from GS's thread. If that's happening GS, let me/us know. In regard to my parent's going to Hawaii--this raises a very delicate issue for me, but let me just say it this way: it was not uncommon for my parents to be absent. So that in and of itself wasn't odd. We had professional keepers. My aunt was called in because everyone was terrified over this disaster, and what it might mean for them. Fair enough, truly. The hospital wouldn't treat me without my father's signature because they knew him well, and were afraid they could do everything right but still face a lawsuit (to be clear, this is where his family was fundamentally different from my mother's, who collectively would never dream of such a distasteful public display). So in the days before fax, before internet, I waited nearly three days to have my broken arm set. Ultimately, it had to be broken again. UUUGH! But I LOVED it, though I was puking from the pain. Center of attention. All the handsome 30-ish interns brought me ice cream (OK I hated ice cream, still do, but I ate it anyway). I was a six-year-old from a cold huge house, and I never wanted to leave that hospital. Thinking back: my aunt, my father's older sister, was probably...30? at the most? Criminy. I won't see forty again and am just considering taking on foster kids.
But I want to say something else, in regards to my suicide attempts: nothing takes place in a vacuum. It would have been highly bizarre to me had anyone come and spoken to me frankly about my attempts. We didn't talk, in my family. Had anyone come to me then and tried to get me to tell the truth I would NOT have done so. I would have made something up about mistakenly taking my father's pills (there were, and are, so many, such an addict), just a mistake. And nobody would have called me on it. EVER. We hear what we want to hear, and we go back to Hawaii. Europe. Mexico.
There were many good things about the way I grew up. It's important to me that I embrace both. It's important to me that I recognize my own failings if I'm going to hold my parents to account. That way it all means something for the future, that life can change.
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You are forgiving and unsparing at the same time.
I admire where you've come...it sounds like a long hard road.
Ease looks easy from the outside, but indoors, can be desperate 11 y/o, and no honest talk.
I'm so very sorry you went through that, Gjazz.
Whatever you're doing today, there's grace afoot.
hugs,
Hops
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From the same chapter:
It must often be true that the selfish, ruthless men of business and the ruthless seekers of power who will tread on anyone to mount higher are disease spots in the social body, and, individually regarded are patients needing treatment. They are hostile to humanity in general, because their parents never loved them or loved them only on condistions that they lived up to their parents' demands; demands probably based on their parents' exaggerated super-egos. Hungry for security which their parents love would have provided, they seek to exploit ruthlessly an unloving world in order to obtain love-substitutes in terms of wealth and power.
It is perhaps unnecessary to add that sexual immorality is often due to this depreivation of real love. A man fails to find it in his wife. Another woman is hungry for love, and although she may know she is loved only for her physical sharms, even that, plus a "good time" plus some money and food, may seem better than nothing, and is some kind of substitute for the real thing. Both man and girl may only get a substitute, but if real love is denied and a substitute ready to hand it is easy to see why such a substitute as illicit gratification is resorted to. Neither party is a monster of wickedness. Both could be made both moral and content if they were truly loved. Don Juan himself, tried to disguise, by his many conquests, the fact that nowhere did he find a satisfying love. Real love would have ended his quest and his immorality.
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I don't intend to take away from GS's thread. No - the thread is about hurdles and you are writing about the most significant of hurdles and how to overcome them. I am so thankful for your extraordinary frankness.
I am speechless, really - voiceless in a way. What you write about your arm and about suicide are not to be left untouched, unacknowledged, but anything I might say seems to only trivialize each. Both or more accurately all three are beyond absorption. I wonder, am I playing into that same place by rendering myself silent? I find the best I can do is to copy words from someone else that seem to speak better to the horror of it all - even if not exactly on point - than anything I can muster.
I love the second exerpt that follows. I plan to discuss it with my child. It puts what we have written about today in a very different perspective. To have been raised in a home of love, real love would have made your experiences and mine impossible. In a home in love, real love, there would have been no silence but then there would have never been the thought nor the hope of ending life because there would have been love and with it a longing for life.
Same chapter in Weatherhead:
If, he [the child] is denied love, nothing on earth appears to make up the deficiency. He may be treated to expensive presents and holidays and provided for in every material way, but if he has no love it profiteth not. It is interesting to find support for this view among the Alorese - primitive inhabitants of the Dutch East Indies who systematically deprive their children of any love or care. The parents unconsciously hate their children because they themselves never received love. They take revenge for this on their children, and the vicious circle is unbroken.
Here's another that I was sure I had posted but can't now find. Thid is much like writings from Khalil Gilbran that I was introduced to at age 13.
But the main difficulties lies with the feelings which the conventions of polite society compel us to hide. Many an adolescent hates one or both parents - at least at intervals - and we who are parents have no right to expect, let alone demand, that our children should "love" us, simply because we are their parents. After all, they did not ask to be born. We must win their respect and love, and take at least as much trouble to deserve it as we take in regard to others whose friendship and love we crave to have.
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Making progress. Able to see the connection btw todays pain and the earliest childhood pain. Only needed one human being at any point in time to have enormous sympathy and say, "I'm sorry for your pain. You don't deserve it." I am seeing today that all of this paralysis has been over the extraordinary pain and an unconscious need to shut it down. The pain was so great and absolutely everything I did touched it and made it worse - each and every day. Washing dishes, cleaning up, anything actually shut me down because it evoked the endless criticism and rejection from my entire life.
Now that I have connected the dots from today to first days I am able to begn the true healing, open my heart to something positive, to let the "good" keep my focus instead of the "bad" or "painful".
It has been a long road to this place. I am thankful to be here. I still have a long road to get to level ground but the journey will get easier soon. Thanks to all here who have been willing to walk with me and give me encouragement and been kind and understood even part of what I have been through.
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Nanny 911
Last night I dropped by with my son to visit my mother. She was watching Nanny 911. The two parents were deaf. The mother's oldest daughter was 16 she had three more daughters with her second husband ages about 4, 6, & 8. The 16 year old was the only child who knew American Sign Language so she had been expected to interpret EVERYTHING for the little girls. In fact she had been expected to parent the girls AND to clean the house. It was possibly the most shocking Nanny 911 I have ever seen. What these parents had done to this child was so obvious - that is to everyone watching - but not in the least to the PARENTS!!! Even after the nanny demonstrated to the parents they still did not get it. The step father said to JoJo that he didn't understand why Melissa was so angry and so difficult to get along with. He went on to say that if she would just help a little more with the little girls and clean up the house when she was asked that he could get along with her just fine. Nanny pointed out then and several more times that it was the parent's responsibility to take care of the children and NOT Melissa who was a child herself.
It really was horrific to see how these two grown people could not see how they used this poor child. They did not care anything about her except what she could do to make their parenting load lighter. They had NO idea why she was so angry!!!
It was like looking through a window into many of our own existences. I still can't get over how shocking it was that these parents were completely unconscious about their utter psychological abuse of this poor girl. She had been caring for these 3 little girls since they were born - since she was the age of the oldest of the three. It was like something out of a Romanian orphanage, sort of like The Little Princess. It truly made me sick and still makes me angry.
The only good thing about it is that it gives me insight into why I am so reactive to my mother. Now that's a useful and healing insight. Thanks Nanny 911.
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GS - I guess I missed the whole name change -
I can relate to what you've written about fear, rejection, and the paralysis. I also hear you saying that you pre-emptively condemn yourself before you've even allowed things to go differently. That might be the place to really lever this old pain out, once and for all. I've been trying to work there. It's helping.
We truly can't control others, but it's not a difficult thing - doesn't require a lot of strength - to control those automatic thoughts that generate or trigger those old feelings in ourselves. As for courage, the kind we need to make these kinds of changes - to disrupt the old cycle - is the kind of courage that reaches out with a hug to a crying child... that allows the tears to subside in a circle of comfort. That's maybe an odd definition of courage - but it's working for me.
Allowing the old painful responses to fade into the past might be frightening, too. It's what you're accustomed to; it's almost "you" - your experience of you. So it's important to find things to fill up the space left when those old things start to slide away. Like Hops' suggestion for meditation - any number of positive things can help connect you to other people, now. Provide opportunities for positive interactions.
I'm in a space now where I'm learning about myself (soon to be 52... better late than never!!) and who I am. I'm learning to accept that my emotions aren't right or wrong... and that I am not a prisoner condemned to a life sentence of always feeling anxious, worried, responsible/guilty, or immobilized (like your paralysis). I can VISIT those places, if I think there's something useful to learn - but I'm not powerless anymore to remove myself from there. It still takes a conscious effort to breathe slowly, relax, and lots of positive self-talk. I do better when I control the anxiety.
The most dreaded part of my trip to MI for my dad's funeral, was driving out of and into Chicago. It's been twenty years since I was comfortable driving long-distance, at night or in heavy traffic. I'm easily disoriented by sensory overload in the city. I had a moment of panic in O'Hare - the signage was flatout awful. I couldn't figure out how to get OUT of the terminal. And I desperately wanted OUT; not just to smoke - but the noise, the visuals, the people were way too overwhelming. Once out - I couldn't find where I could rent a car. Thankfully, a nice policewoman gave me directions and when she was driving by and noticed I was STILL clueless, she put me right again.
Driving out of the city, I began to notice landmarks from my only trip on that route over 10 years ago. Driving back in on a Tuesday, the traffic was much crazier.... and when I finally made to the Avis center, and was I asked how my trip was: I jumped up & down like a silly little kid exclaiming "I made it! I made it!". For me, this was a HUGE accomplishment and even when I was much younger I wouldn't have seen it as an adventure; only a horrible challenge to be overcome. But I HAD done it... I hadn't gotten lost and didn't get in an accident... I wasn't the "helpless old lady" that I felt like.
I am not who I've felt like I was all these years. Take away the old programmed cycle... I'm someone quite different. And THIS isn't SCARY... on the contrary, it's very validating.
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OMG, in your last line I heard something that I have gotten twisted in my own thoughts. You said, "I'm not who I've felt like I was all these years." When I read that for the 2nd or 3rd time I realized that I have seen that about myself but that I thought that my whole life's history should shift because of it. IOW, I can see how relationships got out of kilter at times in my life and how they would be different if I were then as I am now. (If I saw what had happened to me and how I was reacting out of that pain and getting negative feedback/reactions as a result.) I've thought that since I've shifted that I would be included again and that has not been happening. But that's not what is going to happen - not in that form anyway. Now that I have shifted I will be included in a very different way. (I have no idea what that will be.) It is time to move on, keep changing, keep processing the pain and letting it go. I am in a refining process that I will keep up and believe that something very good will come of it but I have been trying to prescribe what that "good" will be and it just doesn't work that way.
I am angry - with good cause - but it is time to move on. Acknowledge it, understand it and let it go. And do this over and over and over until I have processed the whole vat of lifelong stuff.
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GS - yes, the anger fades out over time, with the kind of processing and work you're doing. But, I think those of us with old wounds are always going to be a bit more sensitive - the anger will be invoked quicker and more intensely - when we experience or become aware of injustice around us.
I was just thinking how this is a strength, for myself - in that my "radar" picks up on these things pretty quickly and I am quick to rush in and support or defend others. Now, to do same for myself! That's just beginning to come around - and high time.
I have felt really bad things about myself - completely wrong things too - having been so wounded. I felt like that's who I was. Like being anxious about driving in chicago; the tapes were reminding me how much I get lost (not); how I'll take the wrong exit (not); how I'll be day dreaming and wind up in Detroit instead of my destination or get into an accident because I'm such a bad driver (not).
Somehow, with this trip, I'm able to put the lie to those old, scratchy albums in my head. And it's OBVIOUS that I'm not what those evil, whispering, gollum-lies say I am... the facts are staring me in the face. Wonder why I couldn't do this before???
Edit in: it took a lot of feedback from other people - here, in therapy, in 3-D - before I realized that my self-image was so distorted; wrong. Without that interaction, the only thing I had to base my concept of the "real me" on, were those feelings - and those were firmly attached to emotionally abusive and WRONG perceptions/observations of me.
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So, I'm going to answer my own question about why I couldn't do this - see myself the way others see me; how I REALLY am - before... I hope it helps.
Emotions have power over our minds. Think about it - when we're sad, really really sad, it seems like we'll never ever be happy again. When angry, when intensely angry, this emotion is capable of making us think, say, and do things that are irrational and even do things we wouldn't normally choose to do.
As adults, of course, we learn that balance between emotions and cognition are necessary for us to get through life. I can't say what I really think or feel, when my boss makes me angry for n-th time... it wouldn't be productive and would only inflame the situation, countering what I really want to happen: that he would listen, take me seriously, and at least partially, agree with my point of view. HOW I express my emotions is directly related to the kind of response I will get - or hope to get.
But as children, we are our emotions pretty much. We swim in and breathe these emotions. The emotions are who we ARE. At school age, we begin to identify ourselves with what we can DO. I'm good at languages, sports, but really lousy at math - except number bases. She is really good at math, science, and doesn't care about history or music. We separate ourselves based on our abilities and talents. In the teens, we start looking for social acceptance: there is a NEED to be an accepted member of a group - band, french club, or just a cliche of friends. The choice of the group is still based on predilection - likes, talents, etc. We are still very emotional beings; very sensitive to real/perceived slights and our status in the desired group... all the while, working on our individuality - look at me, see how I'm different! We're starting to recognize the need for the balance between physical, intellectual and emotional being.
If we suffer a trauma, or prolonged emotional wounding while still a child, there are distinct, very intense emotions surrounding that wound. Those emotions have energy that directs our thoughts - but aren't necessarily rational or accurate. It is who we see ourselves as; the wounds only; it's how we FEEL we really are. It's more REAL to us, than any external accomplishments; any feedback from other people about skills, talents, potential; anyone's affection for us. I'll even go so far, as to say, that if I felt any positive feelings they only increased the level of pain I experienced for years... because of a one-pointed emotional focus on the wounds that were left festering. I learned to avoid all chances for positive emotions; discounting compliments; denying feedback from others about my skills and worth; and preventing people from loving me...
... because I FELT that I was only the wound; ugly, seeping, festering, unhealed. And ONLY THAT.
Once I started to see that I was actually coerced to believe this about myself - brainwashed with inaccurate, untrue, ideas about myself from my mom - that I was MORE than those emotions that kept the wound from healing...
I started to get free. I wasn't chained to that false feeling about who I was anymore. The shackles disintegrated into dust. I can - and am - walking away from that old self-image. It's like waking up from a dream - it SEEMED real, all right! For YEARS... but it wasn't reality.
Yeah, those emotions are still hanging around. But, I pay them no more time or attention than I do negative political smear-campaign ads. Those emotions don't have the power to make me believe something contrary to the evidence - actual physical evidence - all around me, that I am something more; something else; than what those emotions want me to believe. Those emotions were based on an environment, a situation, that is long-past. The probability is that I won't be in that situation ever again.
No - my mother hasn't changed one little bit. If anything, she is gradually becoming worse with age. No, we're never going to have a real relationship... I no longer need anything from her - because it's always tainted with those yucky emotions and I now have the choice whether to "go there" or not. I choose to honor myself, by NOT going there and subjecting myself to continued abuse - whether it comes my mother's words/actions - or is just a pattern of thinking and feeling within myself. I can take solace, comfort and refuge in the OTHER parts of myself, the other feelings, and the on-going positive feedback that I get from interaction with others.
I hope this makes some sense. Parts of it might be useful for this precipice you seem to be standing on, GS... a tipping point...
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SUCH great realization, Amber...
circling back and just taking a look at the toxicity, and not letting it poison you.
BRAVO.
it's OBVIOUS that I'm not what those evil, whispering, gollum-lies say I am...
It IS obvious. Know what I've conjured up as an image of you?
Smart, elegant, wry, graceful, intent on detail, masterful in art and in writing.
And with a hubby who loves you and a love of the beach. A capacity for gladness.
xxoo
Hops
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Thanks a bunch, Hops... I'm still trying to feel myself all those things, and sometimes I'm just a jerk still - but it's a much nicer image than what I've drug around with me all these years.
Want to add one more thing to the list: non-smoker. I'm working Alan Carr's "Easyway" to quit - and I think this is right for me. There's a lot of preparation, you keep smoking while reading the book - and you get your mind straight about your own truth (and emotions sorted out) - and then just quit forever. His main premise is that we've been brainwashed into believing that we "need" smoking - pick a reason - and that it's completely not true. It's just marketing.
The "brainwashing" concept really connects with me & my experience of gaslighting... and I'm revisiting a lot of what happened and how I used smoking to punish myself. Very close to putting out the last cigarette.
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how I used smoking to punish myself.
I connect to this. I am seeing myself caught in a cycle of self-punishment, self-sabotage. I woke this morning after a dream typically bad that left (leaves) me is a dark place. The self-punishment kicks in and the mistakes begin to snowball and the self-hatred and anger get bigger and bigger.
In the dream a childhood, school friend was having a celebration. When I got to the event she had died. Many people are in a dark cloak and the building is large and circular. I walk to the center and begin to look for a particular person (perhaps her sister) I walk the inner circle which is crowded and don't find her so I walk the center circle (the building has 3 concentric cicular spaces) which again is crowded. I see a couple of people I knew from childhood and we speak. When I have completed the 2nd circle I feel out of place and disconnected from what is going on around me - the mourning and raising of funds. By the time I leave I learn that they have in a matter of hours raised $1.2 million for her. Not sure why. In the last scene I am walking down the street, alone and lonely and dejected. That is how I wake up - in that place of being alone, lonely and dejected/rejected.
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(((GS))) What an awful dream.
Lighter
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I wonder who you were really looking for?
I wonder if the emotions of the dream relate to the old GS - the one suffered so long and developed self-sabotage (like me) as a response to continued abuse? The one who is gradually fading into history?
And if the one you're seeking now: is the real you - sans learned, faulty responses that you needed THEN, to keep yourself safe? In the center of the circle...
I had a dream this morning, too. Not as dark and gloomy as yours; but still disturbing.
Hang in there! You're not alone - I'm standing right next to you - and I don't reject you at all. I think you're making lots of progress, and even though it feels dark & gloomy this morning... you'll soon leave this behind.
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PR - thank you. I am in a darker place today after several days of pushing forward. As I read your post I sensed that this darkness in that dream is the place that I have been, something of a description of my life and where I am. In that dream There was no connection for me, noone was interested in speaking to me or including me. That is definitely where my being in 3D life seems to be.
I have consciously begun to focus on being in a positive place. Switching my focus from what I don't have (connections, friendship, belonging) to what I want or believe is mine by divine right (belonging, value, inclusion) perhaps meets with resistance such as this dream and the yuck I am experiencing today. I must summon the strength to push through. Having overcome the paralysis of shame I am in a better place to overcome this at this time. I chose to put the full force of my whole being into this focus.
Perhaps the dream is telling me that I have been trying to go back and get on track in my life where I could have gotten on as a child if I had understood the mechanisms that pushed me off. But I cannot go back, I can only go forward and I am afraid I have an attachment to getting included by all those who pushed me out. That is clearly a wrong headed approach.
It is as tough that if I can make a friendship here I can take it back and use it as capital to get included in that place where I grew up - a sort of barter. I honestly can no longer understand why I am so systematically left out of this world. It is so extremely painful and to watch it spill over onto my child is unbearable torment. I see it in the sports where the fathers are the coaches. My son is left out in right field and next to last in the batting order even though he is now batting better than all but 2. He is on the sidelines 3 times in football when no others are and 2 of the 7 boys are only on the sidelines once each game. It is happening over and over and over in his life and my pain is so huge because of it.
The only thing I know to do is to continue to work on this healing, continue to trade this pain and hurt in for hope and love. It sems all so crazy.
I have something to offer and feel so rejected where ever I go. I must resist the desparation that can come from that.
By reaching out to me you have helped me focus. I am setting up an intention to draw true friendship where I am valued and encouraged. It is time to leave the old behind. A lifetime of going back trying to clean up the past, make up the errors, get it right, get included. I am somehow holding onto the old pain - just the way I have held onto my HOPE for relationship with my mother. The message is to go NC (at least emotionally) with my past. It will not be there for me. I have no vision for the future but was reading something Tues about stepping forward and I will hear the voice whispering in my ear from behind confirming my steps. This engenders enormous fear. I am filled with fear today. I chose to receive healing love to replace that fear. I feel the full force of the abandonment and rejection that I believed my mother and father would pave the way to repair.
I must let go of what I thought they had promised me. I had no idea about any of this until I began writing this post. The pain and sorrow andloss is now pouring out of my mind and body. It is much bigger than I could imagine. I feel so lost and abandoned and hated. - less than human. All of that doesn't connect with the human that I know that I am. I have so much to give and so enjoy friendships and relationships and give and take and socializing. There is such a HUGE disconnect and I so long for that fissure to close.
I am thankful to be in touch with that inordinate sorrow and pain. Thank you again for reaching out.
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GS...
I find myself over and over thinking about people's dreams in the context of one way of interpreting them that a professor of writing told us in grad school. Consider YOURSELF every single element, physical, natural, animal, and human, in the dream. Consider what part of you is:
the inner circle that feels empty
the 2nd circle that includes greetings to childhood
the dark cloak
the mourning
the financial rescue, the $$$
I find it empowering always to consider even "bad dreams" in this light, because they instantly turn into awareness tools.
(Same professor also said, there's no such thing as a nightmare -- dreams are a safety valve for your subconscious, among other things...)
xo
Hops
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Something occurs to me...
you said:
It is time to leave the old behind. A lifetime of going back trying to clean up the past, make up the errors, get it right, get included. I am somehow holding onto the old pain - just the way I have held onto my HOPE for relationship with my mother.
Well - the past can't be undone, dear. Remember, there's no right/wrong way to be. You just ARE, what you are. Don't beat yourself up for not being where you want to be yet. That's like me kicking myself for still smoking - only makes it harder.
There's not a thing in the world wrong with you, so if you're feeling rejected by people in the Now; maybe you've approached the wrong people. There are lots & lots of people out there who take themselves so seriously - so self-important - that even simple friendliness offered by a "stranger" or acquaintance is an affront to them. Myself - I don't want to hang out with those kinds of people. My friends have been from all over the socio-economic scale; from all different "worlds"; what mattered was whether they were fun, interesting, and tolerant of "weirdos" - meaning myself and others. It's made for a motley crew of people in my life - sure! But, I don't need to impress anyone with "who I know". I just like them, for who they are.
Groups remind me of herd instinct; lemmings. And I still resist all attempts to identify with one - even my tai chi family. So, I guess I simply connect with people - it's not even my own group because they don't know each other - people who've enriched my life with who they are: like you have. This strategy does avoid the whole problem of being included, I guess. And I probably developed it for precisely the same feelings you're having, as a young teen. I saw groups as limiting; restricting; having too many "rules" about behavior and clothing and activities. So I knew people from many, many different groups. Maybe that's why you were walking away from the circle building?
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Hops - thanks. I have known that in the past but forgotten to apply it. I am learning some things by applying to that dream.
PR - I absolutely know that I can't go back but I didn't realize that I was still trying to do that until I wrote that. I am finding that this extreme "bouts" of pain are coming like spikes of fever and feel certain it is the way this dark repressed pain is working itself out of my depths.
I don't so much want to be included by people but I want to be treated fairly/equally and that is always a shock to me that people are so upfront partial to and treat people in such manner.
Anyway - all this stuff is for me part of the process. The pain comes out in fits and is absolutely excruciating. I am not completely debilitated but I am purging.
And I am needing to connect and am so thankful for this place where I truly feel I have friends.
For the first time in my life I am able to both identify that my reaction to exclusion is hurt and anger and taking offense and THEN use a process to let that pain and hurt and offense go, not take it in, not repress it. THAT is a START. But I must also release all of that old pain, hurt and offense. AND in the meanwhile transform my expectations to look for and receive acceptance in a different way from what I have experienced in the past.
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GS: again, I relate totally to your feelings of isolation and being left out or left behind. I've had that all my life, and even my dreams, as you bring up here, revolve around that theme. I'm on the outside, looking in. Everyone else knows what's going on, I don't. I try and try to get somewhere but there's a new obstacle at every turn. Many dreams take place on boats, in storms, on the verge of sinking, washing ashore, tipping over. Just wanted to weigh in and say: I'm with you on going NC with my past during daylight hours, because that gives me the freedom to focus solely on what's ahead. Sure, it's impossible to leave the past entirely in the dust. I don't really want to do that anyway; there were good times as well as bad, and holding these up against each other is what gives me a barometer for the here and now. But you don't have to live in past pain forever. You have the right to leave it behind, however you can. Hang in there. I do understand where you are coming from.
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This stuff is so cyclical. I am definitely on an upswing but there are days when I do feel that past pain like today. When I feel it it is severe. But it lasts only a few hours as opposed to several weeks. Even still, in the depths of it I have absolutely no perspective that this is going to be short.
It is a though I have a huge store house of stuff to be processed and some of it comes up at random times, like today. For the rest of the day I am able to keep processing it and connect the pain to the original source even though the triggers are from current stuff. I find that absolutely fascinating that today stuff triggers the original wound and I can now make those connnections.
But the worst part is that on the way from current to past there is the stop in self-sabotage. That is the stage that I am looking forward to bypassing. That is the healing that is my goal. That strangely enough is where I have seen significant healing and yet have so far to go. It all seems so paradoxical and twisted but I am on a path and making progress and must keep my eyes on that.
Gjazz - thank you for sharing about your dream themes. The magic and power of this place is to find fellow travelers who share the commonalities. It is encouraging and helps me feel not so terribly alone. Thank you.
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I've had--or I should say I'm HAVING--a very hard time getting over self-sabotage. I have to make a conscious effort to repeat over and over that when I hurt myself I'm honoring my opponent. But it's so unconscious, such a habit and a coping mechanism, so yes, I hear you. When I take a downturn it's severe, like yours, and I isolate myself, which makes things worse in the long run. I've been doing that for a few weeks now--berating myself, refusing to see people, staying in, barely hitting the grocery store. Over the past week I've tried to make sure I either bike or swim every day--exercise does help, simplistic though that sounds. But it's not enough, it all comes back, over and over. With luck, a little less forcefully each time.
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You've hit the nail on the head for my Gjazz - the self-sabotage is unconscious and I can only see it in hind-sight. Though I have learned over my life that IF I can see it in hindsight and I work through it THEN the more I do this over and over again then suddenly one time I am able to catch myself right in the process of doing it. THEN I can do THAT more and more and make real progress.
I had a kind of break through last night - unable to sleep well at all. Angry about something that I had no power to do anything about. Over and over through out the night I tried to let go of my anger - forgive the guy - over and over - endlessly - wanting to let go of that feeling of powerlessness. Suddenly I got it - there are two types of anger - a powerless one - rage and an empowering one (for lack of a better term) righteous anger. I have been living in the powerless one - rage. When I finally broke through my rage towards that man I felt the empowerment and then what I felt was a sense of "drive". I could hardly wait to get up - I had so much to do.
For the first time in years - since my husband died - I have a sense of power, of drive. I have never lost my sense of determination but it was completely rendered impotent because of the powerlessness that I experienced. The sheer stress and trauma that I experienced due to one thing after another and absolutely noone to help or care rendered me helpless and enraged and the combo was completely paralyzing.
The next steps will be an interesting journey out. I am sure it will be up and down but I know that the main trajectory will be up and out.
My rage has kept me frozen. I will continue to keep seeking out people and incidents that enrage me b/c they point back to original woundings that have held the key to my freedom. I will not allow my rage to hold me hostage to those beasts any longer.
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there are two types of anger - a powerless one - rage and an empowering one (for lack of a better term) righteous anger. I have been living in the powerless one - rage. When I finally broke through my rage towards that man I felt the empowerment and then what I felt was a sense of "drive". I could hardly wait to get up - I had so much to do.
W
O
W
!!!
xxoo
Hops
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Excellent, GS! Yes, I think you have it there--rage may even be justified, but if you hold it near to your heart it's not empowering in the long run, it takes over and subsumes progress in a positive direction. Way to go. I see my NF as someone who has embraced his own rage his entire life. It's the one emotion he feels strongly. And it destroyed any chance he might have had to be truly happy at some point. I do feel compassion because I've been there--I had an abusive parent (him) as did he (his father). But he never found the strength, as you have, to summit that peak and head down the other side. Congratulations.
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More dreams - one scenario after another in which I am rejected, abandoned and sabotaged. Each scenario brings pain or rage followed by an attempt to resolve/heal the issue.
I chose to believe that these buried splinters are coming to the surface in droves because the time is right for the healing. I hope to write more about this later.
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"rejected, abandoned and sabotaged"
HI GS!
The way to heal this, in my opinion, is to be amongst those who accept you, who will communicate fully with you and will make sure you do not self-sabotage in your life. Do you have someone close to provide this refuge?
Dandylife
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Yes Dandylife I agree and I do. Many of them are here. Boy have you all helped me tremedously.
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GS,
I have not read the whole thread but would like to add that what I have learned is that without compassion for myself I cannot progress. I do not mean making excuses for things I have done which have hurt others but a fundmental loving and comapssion for my weakeness, mistakes, fraility. When I go on one of my anger rants I try to bring myself into awareness that the anger is mine. It has been swirling around in me for years and years and poisoned much of my life. It stole my energy and sense of agency and sucked me into dark places which manifested in inertia and isolation. I have found to soothe myself, as I would an angry child: acknowledging my anger and witnessing it as an observer rather than being part of it has released energy from that anger. I do think it is the scared, lonely hurt child that is angry and needs to be cared for.
I am with Hops on the dreams. I think each part of the dream represents a projection of ourselves. I did a workshop once where the teacher asked us to speak from each element of the dream e.g. I am the darkness I want to say to GS etc - very enlightening. One of the most useful tools I use to add to my life has been awareness. I find especially when I find myself either doing something I am not particularily interested in or with people I find difficult I bring myself to the NOW and it creates change.
Thinking of you,
axa
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I think dreams can lead to real insights. But just wanted to say (not that I'm telling anyone here something they don't already know) that if you are taking anything, prescription drugs, nonprescription drugs, alcohol, etc., that can have a major effect on them. Anyone ever taken Claritin before going to bed? I have terrible allergies and sometimes don't take the pill just to avoid the dreams it causes. Bizarre, often violent. Last night I was forced to take one (it was that or not breathe) and had a dream in which I was in a hotel, at some party or something, and ended up nearly embarking on an affair with the guy who plays Borat. I've never seen his movies, never read anything he's written, never paid the slightest attention to the guy who plays Borat, and yet, there we were, quite intimate. And these dreams are VIVID. Very real, physical. Borat! Oh boy.
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I'm laughing out loud, waking myself up...happened again this morning.
If I were to try to tell the dream, it would be in spurts and not at all funny, but then I drop back to sleep, continue the dream and wake myself up agaiin, still laughing.....and again if I don't force myself fully awake to put a stop to it....then chuckle all the way to the kitchen.
I am just cracking up, all alone in bed (I wonder if my neighbour can hear me?)
This has been happening on and off for a few months.
Hmmm? Happen to anyone else ever?
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Well, you know Borat was a really nice guy. And good looking, once he was out of that body-thong thing. And quite virile I might add. But we didn't consummate our fledgling relationship, alas. He decided he had to be true to his fiancee, "Alison," who called him on his cell while I was sitting on his lap (yes, clothed, people). I didn't wake up actually laughing, but pretty close.
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I want to share something that I am experiencing today. It is built on that insight I had about the two types of anger: helplessness rage and "driven" anger.
I had one of my most productive sessions with my therapist today. I briefly mentioned the four dreams to him and the words associated with 3 of them: sabotage; abandonment/rejection; and over-responsibility (responsible for Other people or things out of my control) and the image of MY house that was brilliantly white and in which stood my father and a servant.
My T's wise counsel was that as a child I used "resistance" against my father as a protection and that mechanism has turned against me. Instantaneously I saw it - I resist my father's Judgment and Any Servant like activities - cooking, house cleaning and others.
I felt such rage at the judgment - indescribable rage and as I drove away I worked to harness that rage and transform it from "helpless" rage to activating, driven anger. Only time will tell as my day is a busy one and no time to try it out.
I went from therapist to a prayer group and there came upon a verse from the bible that gave me yet another tool - In Corinthians Paul is writing to the people of Corinth and telling them that he will not listen and take on their judgment of him but that the only judge that matters to him is God.
SO - after a difficult day of paralysis yesterday, today I am moving forward and making yet another enormous leap. I now know that another layer of this paralysis is "resistance" to my father's judgment/condemnation/sabotage which is complicated because all the while I was also loving him and longing for a connection and to please him, completely unconscious of the dark side of his projected shadow self onto me. I now know that a HUGE portion of this paralysis has to do with having been pushed into a servant role (which in and of itself is not negative but in the context of my family it is and that is what is critical to me at this jucture) which was a lesser than and unvalued role in my father's mind.
NOW I can experience the rage and channel it into standing up against the judgment that I have been trapped into resisting. I have more sorting out to do with this information but I am certain that this will cause another significant shift - and of course more "stuff" will be revealed to be sorted out still.
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I have much to do and cannot afford to linger here today as I want to do. But I recognize that common fear that I will not be able to accomplish what I must do - the fear of failure. I believe that fear is slowly losing power. After so many years, I am getting strength to face down these paralyzing fears. Thank God for that strength.
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I don't think I am going to be understood about this but I am need to write about it here anyway. I have a profound need to share it and feel a degree of safety and protection here.
I am connecting with some experiences from my earliest memories - about age 2. But this synthesis of these memories continued through out my life. There are two prongs of this pain: 1) is the pain/hurt/wound from my father's utter lack of love and 2) my inability to relate that to anyone else, to convey to another human being how wrong it was, how much it hurt, and why it still matters. The 2nd issue is just as pain inducing as the first at this time. IOW, I really must deal with this 2nd issue and cut through that pain in order to get to the 1st.
I AM, not I was but I AM that 2 year old and that 4 year old who longed, yearned to be held, loved, adored by my father, who would have done anything, include supress, repress the very being who I was, in order to be close to, to be in with that larger than life human being. I AM that 2 year old, that 4 year old who is longing to conform to , match up to, distort my soul in order to fit some twisted concept that he demanded - an impossible, inhuman form that kept shifting, changing, that was designed specifically to exclude me. The "____" that I tried to fit in order to be accepted was just like guessing the number of jelly beans in the jar so I could vote - the number always shifted specifically to make sure that NOONE subject to the test COULD vote. THAT is what my father did to me. Set me up, Sabotaged me - to shut me out - all the while pretending - (only) on the surface - that I had a chance of being loved - if ONLY I would just ... ... ... ... ...
Joke is on me - I am still trying to guess what those dots mean - nevermind that the train has left the track - HELLO!!! YooHOo - GS - you missed the whole thing - you got fooled - you're a patsy - jokes on you - look over there - see all those folks - they are having a good laugh at your expense. I feel the horror and shame and rush of adrenaline. I go back to the dots - what else can I do - I am standing naked before the world with no where to hide and my very own family, my very own mother, my very own father is there leading the hoots and howls, doubled over laughing. Jokes on me - I loved them and I was born and I needed love. Jokes on me.
Pull up your boot straps you say. I can't. I don't have any boots.
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figured this out - posting really for myself - probably won't make sense to anyone else.
The pain is horrible - but I see now that I did not do this to myself. I will
be frozen only as long as I accept the humiliation. But the shame does not
belong to me - it belongs to my family and to all those who laughed and thought
it was funny. All of them are projecting their shame out onto me but there is
ONE in the crowd who is not and that one is enough. I can let go of the shame
and move on.
Hold the image of the one . The one is the portal to another land of being, the land where I do belong and am cherished and it is a wonderful, opulent land far surpassing what I fear leaving behind here, what I hate being shut out of. That is the fear - that I was shut out of the only good one. That is why I have not been able to let go.
Not so - but I cannot have the good one until I let go of the horrific one. So obvious and yet not at all.
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Hi GS,
this is really important stuff. IMO, don't think we can heal until we go thru what you're going thru, so BRAVO!!!!
I'm reading a book which I really like & think it could help (get it at Amazon):
Why Can't I Ever Be Good Enough? Escaping the Limits of Your Childhood Roles (Paperback)
by Joan Rubin-Deutsch
Here's part of a review:
This is a truly amazing and wonderful book! Rubin-Deutsch writes that "you can be the person YOU choose to be . . ." and offers a step-by-step guide to discovery and realization. She makes it easy to grasp the often unconscious patterns we form as children in response to our parents and families by using the idea of contracts-and then shows how to "re-write" these contracts from a healthy and adult point of view. The book contains clear explanations of the concepts, with examples, and is also a workbook with exercises to complete. It is definitely not something to rush through, but requires some serious thought in order to really achieve personal growth.
You wrote:
I AM that 2 year old, that 4 year old who is longing to conform to , match up to, distort my soul in order to fit some twisted concept that he demanded - an impossible, inhuman form that kept shifting, changing, that was designed specifically to exclude me. The "____" that I tried to fit in order to be accepted was just like guessing the number of jelly beans in the jar so I could vote - the number always shifted specifically to make sure that NOONE subject to the test COULD vote. THAT is what my father did to me. Set me up, Sabotaged me - to shut me out - all the while pretending - (only) on the surface - that I had a chance of being loved - if ONLY I would just ... ... ... ... ...
GS, as per this book, you are describing a 'contract' you made with your father. Now that you recognize the terms & conditions of that contract, you now must break that contract. Please get the book. It cost about $10. $10 to give you peace of mind and a new life: PRICELESS!!!!!!!
love,
ann
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Another word for contract is conditions.... and they usually include an expectation of result for meeting or not meeting the conditions. We all know the unfulfilled, conditional promises: do this & I'll love you. I can't imagine how awful, how horrible it must have been, GS... to fulfill the conditions only to be told the conditions have changed... and then, be laughed at.
I've said it before: these people are monsters. NOT parents... even though biologically responsible for your existence.
I can tell you that I wouldn't have laughed with them. I'd have been horrified for you, then angry with them for being so cruel. I know the pain of that kind of betrayal. It wasn't just you that was laughed at. Made fun of. Dismissed. You don't need to pretend they were "parents", in the usual sense.