Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Gaining Strength on June 08, 2009, 04:17:14 PM
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I have three weeks to break these binds. I now know the sources and I have several techniques to help me but the strength of the bind is astounding.
I am going to work out these issues here because it is too difficult to do it all alone and I know there are a few people here who will be supportive of me. The past two days have already slid by - no action. I refuse to allow the full three weeks to do the same.
The silent voices are the strongest. Those voices are voices of sabotage and they tell me that I do not deserve better, do not deserve a clean home, do not deserve books, do not deserve friends, do not deserve healthy foods, supplements, exercise, nice clothes and on and on. These voices have me going in circles. They shut me down. It is ridiculous how painful this whole experience is. It seems ludicrous and absurd but it is not. I know I can break this.
Part of what happens with this internalized criticism is a perfectionism that completely binds me. Right now, my counter is littered with empty bottle and half-empty bottle: an empty syrup bottle, an empty vanilla bottle, a half empty kefir bottle, empty orange juice bottles. They are there waiting to be cleaned and put into the recycling bin but the recycling bin is full. Today was recycling day but I did not get the bin to the curb. And the explanations go on and on, connecting to one thing after another but there is no "end" to reach, no starting point to begin from. It is so frustrating. I see it as a kind of reverse OCD. I don't have compulsive behaviors but compulsive paralysis. I am determined to break through this now. It is SO frustrating and humiliating.
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Dear GS
I SO understand the voices that tell me I am not worth anything. It is awful. Today, I thought that it would be easier to see my M as good and myself as bad. It would be so much easier than facing the truth of my life. Then, I could call her and have a family.
Then, I thought about people who love me. I would be hurting them by not loving myself.How would I feel if s/one I love hated themselves and wanted to destroy themselves. It would kill me.
Then, I felt a sense that I WAS worthwhile b/c God loved me but it was a real heart feeling. You and I are worth s/thing b/c God does not make junk. I feel it. I hope I can hang on to it. It feels really good.
Keep writing GS. I think everyone can relate whether or not they will admit it.
We, from N families , are probably more alike than different. You have a home here, GS. I wait to hear more. Love Ami
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Wow, GS.
This interests me a lot, just have a sense that it's a key thing for you:
there is no "end" to reach, no starting point to begin from
Maybe that is actually true.
For everyone.
In all times.
Maybe the tidy beginnings and tidy endpoints are all an illusion.
So...benchmarks might just be pauses, on thresholds, to say, Yes.
love,
Hops
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Thank you Ami. I helps beyond words to have a place to work this stuff out among people who might understand some of it. So few people anywhere understand the jumbled mess left by N parents.
Hops - when I first read your post I was taken aback - I have to have a beginning - somewhere to begin to undo this mess - to find my way out. But then I thought that your message held the true hope. It says, "stop looking for the beginning and just plunge in."
But my mind goes in loops. As soon as I start one thing it all loops around and connects to so much else and the beginning turns into the middle and becomes so jumbled that I have to stop. The one thing for certain is that I MUST find a way to stop the jumble. Somehow put blinders on - blinders on those old voices. But as I wrote before the biggest problem with the voices is that they are still unconscious so it is hard to overwrite them even though I know exactly what they say.
Bear with me as I go through the very same stuff I have poured out here for the past three years. For some reason, I simply must pour through it yet again.
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Of course we will be there for you when you express your grief and pain. It is not linear.You need a place where you can just "be". If s/one does not like it, it is their problem.
The Board is for self expression(having a voice). That is what you are doing.
Ami
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Dear ((GS))
I can see what Alice Miller means when she says healing is about really seeing just how rotten your N parents were.
As I see my M's face come in to focus, *I* feel more real. It is so ugly.
When I had some sense as a teen,I remember saying over and over,"My M is an idiot. I am OK. I was OK and I am. My feelings are human. My thoughts are human. I can chose my actions to be with character, as much as possible.
My teen self was right. She was an idiot. She is an idiot.I took what an idiot said and lived a life by her rules . I was her mirror image idiot.
Ami
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Oh my... sounds like you've simply HAD IT with this "fix" you're in. I can sort of relate to the feeling of pressure building up - a restlessness and impatience to be DONE WITH IT...
I know this feeling, too. But I think that's asking too much of myself, too fast. And for me: making "rules" about how healing works is just more of the same bad parenting that I am in the habit of imposing on myself, projected expectations, and refusal to accept that I simply don't "fit" into any pre-manufactured jello-mold of who I am "supposed to be"... what is "right & proper"... and conversely, what is shameful or humiliating.
After all, it's not like I had a complete and "good enough" parent, ya know? I'm bound to have quirks, bad habits, and things I struggle with. That's OK, for me. Sometimes I might make lightning fast huge leaps... sometimes, I find myself back down at the base of the "gravel mountain" looking the same old issues in the face, too. But I truly AM different than before starting my journey. So are you.
WHO SAYS that not getting the recycling out is grounds for humiliation? Nobody's perfect. And the world isn't going to come to an end, because you missed one week. In perspective, it's an inconvenience; a bother... and doesn't mean you aren't a responsible, caring individual. So... you didn't get it done. OH WELL. Life goes on. (And if that "transgression" is worth feeling humiliation for, I should be hiding in my closet, whipping myself over the size of the pet hair balls that roll around the floor, everytime the A/C comes on...)
Really, sweetie. Maybe laughing about all this, will help you find a way through. I know you get caught in these loops; I do too. But, really, some of the things we were criticized for, and made to feel lower than dirt by the 'rents for, are preposterous. It helps to realize that the things the parents thought were so earth-shatteringly important, just might not be - to a LOT of other people. We don't have to care about the same things, the same way. We really DO get to choose what's important for ourselves, each and every minute.
After all - the parents were abusive; how they POSSIBLY have a good sense of perspective and just what IS important? Maybe the recycling just wasn't that important to you, this week. Ya know? It's OK with me that you didn't "get there" and I don't think any less of you or stop caring about you, as a result of it.
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So much for my reaction and silliness....
here's something more serious.
Attachment theory.
Our sense of ourselves - who we are, what we are capable of, how we function... our relationship with ourselves...
develops out of our first relationship with Mama. If there were problems in that relationship (and duh - how could that be YOUR FAULT?) it can even affect how our brains (L/R) develop. Look up Allan N. Schore... he's got some amazing ideas about this.
It sounds like a life sentence - that our brains are hard-wired going back to infancy to react the way they do. But it's really not. It is possible to re-program yourself... but, of course, the older those rutted pathways of being, feeling, thinking and responding are... the longer it takes to re-program. Trying anything new - changing routine/habit for even just one day - and then repeating helps me figure out the relative importance of the "old" paths... and whether or not they really apply in the present. It takes many, many repetitions of the "new" before it feels natural; feels like "me".
I think this might be a way for me to "repair" my self.
Remember what I said about "rules"? Deadlines are also rules. When I'm feeling impatient with myself and wanting to "Git R Done"... and then feeling overwhelmed with all the things on my list... I just give myself a "me timeout". It can wait an hour, a day, a week, a month... while I figure out whether or not, I truly DO care about it, if it's just a "should" that I got conned into thinking was important or if something else is more important to me - RIGHT NOW.
Obviously, common sense would dictate some variation in the actual application of this self-prescription! :D
Bills do have deadlines, fires have to be put out, the dog does have to go out. But there is an amazing amount of flexibility in so many things that we've become accustomed to believing are "have tos". It feels really good sometimes to just tell that voice: NO, I DON'T have to. I'll do it later - when I WANT to.
Maybe your "paralysis" is an inner need that is asserting itself over the practical to-do list. Maybe it will tell you what it needs... and why that's more important than the recycling.
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Hey PR,
Repetez, s'il te plait.
I wonder if it's like reverse OCD. Or if there's perfectionism under the inability to start.
I am completely empathic to one-square-foot at a time...
Chores ARE endless.
Maintenance IS eternal.
Housework NEVER ends.
Organization REQUIRES ongoing attention.
Stasis IS entropy.
These are daunting truths for me too.
But it is not personal. I know that the need of life for these things to happen isn't about needing ME to do these things. Life doesn't care whether I do them or not. It's just that the life force generally requires humans to do these things in order for that bit of life (one human) to live its life effectively. I can opt in, or opt out, life doesn't care. But the kudzu is going to grow whether I give it a whack every day or not.
Sometimes I feel better, and float out of my paralysis, when I ask myself to think simple thoughts.
Not about my mother, or brother, or home. Just, simple:
I will make my bed and tidy my room now, with the History channel on to keep me entertained.
That will feel good, to leave for work knowing I leave a tidy room behind.
Okay.
I'm going to do that now.
love,
Hops
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I don't know, Hops; I don't know.
I'm sorting it out, too. One minute I'll feel like I have it all figured out - and the next, I know I don't. Somehow, the "shift" that's going on is that it's OK (for me), no matter which place I'm in.
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Gotcha, gotcha, PR...
I actually typed PR when I meant GS!
We're all looking up through murk, but I like it that you say wherever you are is okay with you.
xo
(GS, only got my bed made. But then, a few other things too...)
xxoo
Hops
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You make good points about life , Hops.
I wanted it to be a certain way and I threw away my true perceptions so I could see the false as true.
I wanted my M to be normal and if *I* had to morph in to a mental case, I was willing to do it b/c I wanted a M who loved me.
That metaphor could be applied to most areas in my life.
I could not face how it was.
Ami
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GS - how's it going today?
Something I forgot to say yesterday... those "voices" that come up from the void of unconsciousness... I think you need to let them come. Get them out. Put them down on paper or put them here. Whatever those messages are, even if you can't find the exact words that were used. Don't let them linger in your mind... where they can invoke the feelings of old wounds and start up the "loop". Look at them with an awareness of "now". Evaluate the statements/messages as if they were coming from a complete stranger. See if the feelings you have are exactly the same as the old ones, coming from someone else.
I think these messages and the feelings they elicit are exactly the tools you need to unlock the mystery of the loops and find your way out. After all, you aren't required to always have the same feeling to the same words... not NOW. And even just the tiniest difference in you NOW - how you think about the "message" and how you feel - really is progess. A lot of itty-bitty successes are just as successful as one great big one.
It's always murkiest before the dawn for me. Yesterday, I was completely cranial-rectal. Naval-gazed into a foo-foo bird. I do apologize if I didn't make much sense yesterday. When I'm in the midst of a big flash of understanding or seeing, I don't communicate too coherently. I haven't yet learned to keep away from the keyboard until it all settles down into words that actually communicate what I mean.
Those of us who've experienced a lack of "good enough" parenting or worse at the hands of parents are left with a belief that we ourselves are somehow deficient, permanently shattered or lack effective skills to function with the rest of humanity. It's not true, of course. But despite all the evidence to the contrary - that belief persisted for me in the form of an idee fixe (or obsession) with trying to overcome my original wound(s). To make the outcome of that original struggle - DIFFERENT. It wasn't conscious, though - it was buried in my feelings about myself and my ability to see and match patterns.
When a present moment situation lined up with, reminded me of that old pattern.... out came the old feelings. And of course, I have messages like yours, too. And hello - for me, that WAS the loop. It all happened at the speed of light; all a blur. It was only in retrospective, cranial-rectal analysis that I could parse out the linear cause-effect. I've had to go through this parsing exercise a mind-numbingly number of times... all the while feeling helplessly trapped in a process that I felt was completely uncontrollable by me and intentional choice. It is truly a form of paralysis, as you describe it.
After I found Allan Schore's work on Attachment Theory... read it... had superficial a-ha connections... and let it germinate in my brain for a few months while I worked with some of his ideas, it came up again for me recently. And I found another paper... and a reference to yet a third work. It's the title of the third work that's flashing like a neon sign for me right now. Just the title is enough, right now. The title is: Repair of the Self.
I don't know if it's a how-to manual or not. Doesn't matter. What is important to me, is the idea that it's POSSIBLE to repair one's self. No matter what horrible things have been experienced or how deeply they are buried in hard-wired neural pathways... it IS POSSIBLE to repair, correct, change those pathways and therefore "fix" ourselves. Sort of negates the idea that we're hopelessly, helplessly "stuck" this way, doesn't it?
Where his work has shed some light on my predicament, has been in his neurological descriptions of dissociation. I didn't really understand that word "dissociation" in terms of brain-function and my sense of self. I didn't see at all how my relationship with my mother could be described in terms of brain function... and therefore, my sense of identity or self. Oh yes - and in my sense of self-efficacy, or effectiveness in life... at meeting my own needs; being aware of my own power to direct myself, choose goals, and take the steps necessary to execute the tasks to reach that goal.
That's why I recommended it yesterday. We're all different and those early experiences are all different - so my path through using that work, those ideas might be irrelevant for you. The one thing that will be helpful, though, is the idea that our minds - and therefore also our emotions - have a basis in bio-neurology and that how our minds develop is affected by that very early attachment scenario. Just like we became programmed to think/feel the way we do now... we can edit those neural pathways... those endless loops of action/reaction... and install new programming. And whether we're aware of it or not - I think we're always doing that anyway. So we know HOW - at a neuro-biological level... where there may not be any "words" to describe it.
Then, what Hops said is absolutely true... you just gotta dive in, right where you are. There's no one size fits all formula... accepted linear "practice" or 12-steps to success. The only benchmark is YOU and your relationship to YOU.
You get to decide what's important to you. You get to decide what matters, what you feel in certain situations - and whether the situation really calls for that intensity of feeling or not. You can cancel the loop that causes paralysis and feeling those awful feelings. And even one teeny-tiny, itty-bitty change in the direction you WANT to go in... is real progress, an achievement, and a cause to celebrate your own power over faulty programming. Sometimes it's the little things that matter the most, when you're trying to do big things.
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I really like this, PR--I think it's very powerful advice:
Evaluate the statements/messages as if they were coming from a complete stranger.
And I looooove this, thanks for it:
even one teeny-tiny, itty-bitty change in the direction you WANT to go in... is real progress, an achievement, and a cause to celebrate your own power over faulty programming.
That is being compassionate and generous to ourselves.
True, the world won't grind to a halt to make way for our parade. But that does not mean we can't stop on the porch on in whatever room we're in to hold ourselves lovingly for a moment, and quietly acknowledge the subtle step we just took.
I agree with you.
Those little steps are meaningful.
Even if it's one 6-inch square, we can let it speak its positive reality.
Without doing the Lady Justice thingie.
love
Hops
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My computer has been on the fritz for several days. I have just logged on after several days absence and have scanned the posts but not read them in depth. But I'm going to comment anyway -
It is difficult, even in this particular environment, to convey the individual struggle. It is difficult for many reasons but part of it is that I find that I operate on more than one level at a time - conscious, subconscious and unconscious and of course what is going on often is conflicting. I believe it is those conflicts that are the source of neurosis and denial.
My big battle of course is with what is going on with me on the sub and unconscious levels.
What I am trying to do in this thread is to get it out on paper, to bring up that which is repressed or hidden or submerged and unavailable to my rational mind. I am very comfortable and pleased with my rational thoughts. They give me comfort and even where they differ from the "nom", I embrace my differences - wholly. My rational thoughts are not troublesome to me at this time.
My struggle is in the other realm. When I expose the bits and pieces of the puzzle of my subconscious and unconscious that project themselves into my consciousness and I put them out here - it SEEMS easy to react to that rationally but really - until I get more of these pieces on the table it is more like the blind men and the elephant - it is easy to come to a conclusion but the conclusion doesn't take into account all the pieces and the subtleties that are still trapped below consciousness.
As i have struggled with this issue over the years I have come to see a number of things that have helped me. One of the first things that helped me was to understand at long last that what I experienced was indeed abuse - emotional abuse. Once I did hthat I began to understand more of how that abuse actually worked. Because there were some catch 22 aspects it has been difficult to figure this out. For example - when something went wrong, i.e. I needed my parents help, the response I got was that I deserved what I got. Just think about that - when ever I needed help and asked for it I was met with profound undermining and devastating belittlement - that if I had a problem - if someone was rude or cruel to me - if I made a mistake - if I didn't know something important about how to procede in life - it was because I deserved to be excluded, belittled, punished, without - and on and on. But more than that - I lived in a family had a way of functioning in which life was a set up. Everything I did was an opportunity to be belittled and humiliated and it was all done in the name of love. As a child and young adult my family lay in waiting to see me trip up or make a mistake so they could "prove" how I deserved everything that happened to me. If I did something well, it was cause to bring up every mistake as a way to say that I did not deserve a pat on the back because I had, in fact, failed and made errors in the past. If a question were asked, inquiring into my interests or activities, it was done as a set up to garner information to use against me in some form.
If something broke when I used it then I was the scourage of the earth. I something didn't get done - it was because of some bottomfeeding trait of mine. If I made an error it deserved punishing, If I put something in the dishwasher it was at the wrong tilt, if I didn't put it in the dishwasher it was an unspoken, behind the back, all knowing expectation of failure again fulfilled.
If I did something - I did it wrong. If I didn't do something - it was typical - failure - worthlessness. If I was excluded and became angry it was proof of why I wasn't worthy of being included.
All of this and more - lead to a damned if you do, damned if you don't - paralysis.
So what i am trying to do hear is to put words to the fears and anxieties that keep me bound in chains. Rational responses don't really turn the key to the locks - it's all too deep for that. It is, of course, completely irrational.
In one aspect I am really stuck at a very young psychological age because never in my entire life was there a human I could turn to for sympathy and compassion. Needing help always lead to humiliation and a kick of sand in my eyes. But the big trick here is that now as an adult, when I implicitly or explicitly ask for help I am expected to be asking as an adult but on a level I have no control over, I am actually asking on the level of a very little girl who needs her hand held and kind proddings. What I got were demands and hopes that I would go away and get the nelp I needed somewhere else if at all.
This is very, very difficult stuff and I am up against a clock. I am NOT functioning and I MUST. I am out of money and out of time. But what I need may be just the opposite of what someone else here needs but across the years I have learned that I have a good sense of what I need. For many years, I knew what I needed and often when I asked someone in the helping professionals they would tell me, "no that is not what you need - let me tell you." And often i did but they were wrong and I was right. Now what I need is to push forward and get through this stuff. For me - pushing myself is nothing like a replay of my experience with my parents - my parents never pushed me nor did they expect good things from me ( and finally I understand and admit that they did not WANT success from me - it was FAR too threatening.) Getting good things, having good things, making accomplishments is completely out of my experience with my parents. Pushing myself can be a good thing - it is the resistance that is the parent induced, anti-me response that i am determined to overcome.
Would I like support and encouragement for that - absolutely. Is there anyone I can turn to for that - not that I know of. If there were any people or any place where I could find help it would be here. You are the only people that might possibly understand but even here our experiences are different enough that I may not find help - even here. But at least I can come here and share. I simply need a place where I can share what I am doing and why. It may not be what anyone else would do nor why anyone else would do it but maybe you can cheer me on anyway. Probing questions can definitely be good but looking through my FOO experience lenses, probing questions look like ammunition gathering tactics rather than the thought provoking tool they may be meant to be.
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Hey GS,
I don't know if I understand completely but I have maybe a glimmer.
Sometimes when I have an acute need (from my own problems) and somebody doesn't grasp it, it's like a razor.
My current housemate, to whom I've expressed a near-desperate desire not to be engaged by in "chat" in the mornings when I'm trying to focus and get ready to go out the door (a huge challenge)...has tried to modify her intrusiveness. But I'm SO sensitized to her past sallys (what I experienced as aggressive, though she didn't mean it that way) that when she so much as says HELLO! in the morning I tense all over...
It's like, if I yield a fraction in her direction I know she will begin to direct me, ask me questions, subtly start "helpfully" telling me what to do, and I'll become completely derailed from my very tenous grasp on making order for myself.
It can practically wreck my day. And I hate that.
It's horribly fragile, sometimes, my one-inch step forward.
Is it anything like that...well, don't answer that.
But do say exactly how we can help push.
If you can, when you like, if it's helpful.
love,
Hops
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Thank you so much Hops.
I feel such an affinity and deep caring for so many here. I am truly not feeling animosity or even hurt. I don't feel fully understood but not in a way other than from people "trying" to understand which is VASTLY different from my childhood experience of intentional "gotcha" setup - MISunderstanding.
I am still acting out of that experience that I endured from, say, ages 5 to 10. The problem is that at that period I did see myself as they saw me. Had I understood that THEY were the problem and not me - then I would have just been biding my time in survival so that i could flourish when I finally got out. But I thought they had it. I thought I really was wrong, bad, incapable, a bad seed, worthless, undeserving, a moral failure. And it is this jumble of a message that I am certain that keeps me where I am.
Could I put words to this all then I could counter it. BUT I CAN'T and I MUST counter it any way.
These wounds are deep and they are child wounds and I am a child in dealing with them.
I have been reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. It speaks to me so loudly. In one tiny section he makes the point that people who succeed had people in their corner. He looks at a group of geniuses who were studied by a man names Ter------ (something) and he called his subjects the Termites. He followed his genius through the academic careers and into their careers afterward. They were no more successful as a group than a group of non-geniuses. IN fact, when the geniuses were grouped according to their career success the common thread with those in Group 3 (the lowest functioning) was that they came from families which did not encourage then or stand behind them - they had noone there for them. That was me. No one.
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OK...I'll be around off/on all day. I actually woke up thinking about you this morning and that I needed to see if there was anything I could do for you... at least, check in and see how you're doing.
I'll try my best to not take any reaction, personally. I will read twice before responding. What you are attempting can be quite emotional and upsetting... but I hear your need to get on with it. It takes a lot of guts to do this on the board, if that's what I understood from the below. Bravo!!
I simply need a place where I can share what I am doing and why. It may not be what anyone else would do nor why anyone else would do it but maybe you can cheer me on anyway. Probing questions can definitely be good but looking through my FOO experience lenses, probing questions look like ammunition gathering tactics rather than the thought provoking tool they may be meant to be.
Is this the best way for us to help? To listen... commiserate... comfort? Does "little girl" need a different kind of help than you - the rational adult - does? What kind of help? I ask because you said:
I am still acting out of that experience that I endured from, say, ages 5 to 10. The problem is that at that period I did see myself as they saw me. Had I understood that THEY were the problem and not me - then I would have just been biding my time in survival so that i could flourish when I finally got out. But I thought they had it.
I gotta ask, 'coz I don't understand: what do you mean you thought "they had it"?
I do know what you mean about getting the worries/anxieties out from they've been buried, and into your conscious mind, so that you can work on them. That will entail a conversation between you and "little girl"... and she may not want to say "in so many words". She might communicate very clearly in other ways. And she may be "squirmy" and uncomfortable about the whole subject...
Have you simply asked "little girl" what she wants? That might be a good starting point for your conversation with her.
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Wow - PR, I have received from you and Hops actually more than i could ask. Though I am not articulating what I need both of you haved opened your hearts and your minds to try to understand. I have never had ANYONE do that before and you caring is salve to my woundedness. Thank you would wake up thinking about me means that your caring has already surpassed that of either of my parents and my brothers and my former husband and my late husband. None of those who have been the "closest" to me have EVER woken up thinking about me - Ever.
I feel very selfish, self-centered. When I read back over yesterday's postings I notice that at no point did I commnt to Hops how sorry I am for her struggles with her housemate. That is a profound struggle you are experiencing Hops - on a number of levels - one being that you even MUST deal with a housemate and another that your woundings are being awakened regularly in such a way and thirdly, of course, that you have such woundings at all. For all of this, I ache with you. And I celebrate that you see it, are aware of it and can bring that wound into the light and dress it and give it tender care. Love and healing to you Hops.
PR - I so hope that you won't take anything personally. From the depths of my heart - nothing I write intends to hurt you in anyway. This self-centered place of 2 year old wounding is not a very compassionate place - it is a narcissistic place - me, me, me, me. Not pretty - on any level. It is rageful - a lion caught in a trap who does not differentiate from the trapper and the one who would be my liberator.
Is this the best way for us to help?
Wow - I have never been asked that question before. I don't even know how to answer. I am so humbled. Touched to the depths - t the core - to the tears to you would ask. yes - I think that is it - a pat on the back for the little girl. She just wants to hear, "good job," "you are on your way" "Keep going". The grown me needs no help whatsoever - learned to be self-sufficient - totally but the little girl is frozen in age - never progressed. She is left out in the rain and not missed and is hurt and angry. When she gets let in - they just complain about the puddle she's making rather than pull her in and hug her and bring towels and comiserate that she was left out and not noticed. I'm just a two year old stamping my feet - crying and hurt and angry. Having a two year old fit or 5 year old fit or something not becoming my age.
"thought they had it" means that I thought that when they said or implied that I was wrong or inadequate or whatever that THEY were right. It never occurred to me that they were mean and that I was inadequate because I was a child who was supposed to be loved and taught. I assumed that I should already "know" and the very fact that i didn't was proof that I was inadequate and lacking and undeserving. The more I didn't know and the more that I needed proved everything they already said and proved that I didn't deserved to be loved and included.
This is such a raw nerve that I want to scream and rage as i type. I am so angry and so hurt and feel so inadequate. Every bit of it floods back but then every bit of it has never been very far away. The "going back through" is so miserably wretched. It feels as if it will kill me even though i know it is the only way out.
I do know what you mean about getting the worries/anxieties out from they've been buried, and into your conscious mind, so that you can work on them. That will entail a conversation between you and "little girl"... and she may not want to say "in so many words". She might communicate very clearly in other ways. And she may be "squirmy" and uncomfortable about the whole subject...
Have you simply asked "little girl" what she wants? That might be a good starting point for your conversation with her.
This is what I have watched you do here for some time. It is a marvel to watch. You do it with such beauty and poetry. I am not expecting perfection but I am needing functionality. For the past year or so I have finally quit asking why I haven't been functioning like other adults - finally, after years of excoriating self-flagellation I have that answer but I also have done a lot of healling and I need to push this through to a level of functioning to at least be able to provide for myself financially. To hell with the rest. - To set a goal like "clean the dishes" and do it. to not be frozen out. To not have a supressed anxiety level that is everything about these subconscious voices that are laughing and belittling and ridiculing behind my back!!!!
My mother still belittles me behind my back and when/if I call her on it she has no idea what I am talking about. And i rage and then fall into the trap because as I rage i prove them right - look at her - that is what we have all had to deal with forever. Trapped - no way out.
{this last part is the work - I see what is going on - catch 22 = rage; rage = proof of unworthiness; unworthiness = trapped - cant get out b/c don't deserve better.} craziness looping in on itself
I stand before the sink and stomp and crumple or go become zombie and go to computer to zone out and not feel.
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Well OF COURSE you're angry...
when you've been tricked or set up (in general) - once the trick is revealed, most people are at least indignant at the bait & switch. And when it's the people who are SUPPOSED to care about you (we are taught) who are doing this repeatedly, apparently without concern or awareness of it's impact on you... well, that anger must be overwhelming. Little girl might not be able to express that anger - she might be afraid of what ELSE would happen if she did... or there might be other emotions involved, too - blended up like a smoothie with the anger... and so she collapses into herself in paralysis, rather than risk the OR ELSE. It was safer back then.
You said rage = proof of unworthiness. I humbly disagree. In my opinion, rage is the instinctive "self" survival instinct... not physical self - psychic self. It is proof that I care about my self and how I feel; how I'm being treated. I suspect it's what I had to resort to, to even get noticed sometimes. In the scenario, where your parents are judging your rage as proof of unworthiness... Little girl doesn't have to agree with them. Parents don't know EVERYTHING, even if they think they do. And even the best parents make mistakes. And if there was a sane, caring adult in LG's life... I'll bet they would've told her just that, too. But I see this paralysis you talk about, as all about YOU - not about THEM... or what they did/didn't do. Now, it's up to you to help LG...
So... subjectively - to you/LG personally, emotionally - this is a swirly, downward spiral, painful awful mess. But, if we can step an inch or so away from subjective, long enough to look at objective:
You know your parents were wrong. Not just bad parents... but believing you had no right to your emotions is factually incorrect.
Being angry at being tricked and mistreated is as natural a reflex in humans as gasping for air, if released from being held underwater too long. "Little girl" needs someone to tell her this - just like Twiggy needed to know I'd let her be angry as long as she liked, as long as she told me what she was angry about (that took a dozen journals) and let me decide what to do about the anger in my current life. Maybe it's like a "chink"... a weak point in the loop - and a way out. Validation for LG and freedom for her anger.
And well - it's OK that "little girl" didn't know this about anger: that it's NOT always "bad" or shameful to be angry. The parents who should've taught her about anger, along with the other nicer ways to feel, apparently didn't. (just the facts, ma'am.) It's NOT HER FAULT that she didn't know this. As Lily Tomlin used to say: and that's the sssstruth!
You might be able to negotiate a deal with LG: she can be angry (only in such a way as) as long as, she lets you get on with what you need to do. Let her know this is important to your ability to keep taking care of HER. Because you're responsible for taking care of LG now. She's precious - angry as a spitting wildcat, sure - but STILL precious, to you. She needs to loosen her grip on you just enough, that you can attend to the important things in your life right now. And she might make you promise to set aside a regular time/amount of time for her, too....
OH... and if it helps... I'll be willing to listen to and talk to LG, too.
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Dear (((GS)))
I don't know if this fits in here but I was doing Yoga exercises for depression. They were saying that the cure for depression is to get in touch with your real identity.So the opposite, not being in touch with your identity would create depression.
For me,and it seems you, our child self was deeply rejected. For me, I have rejected my own thoughts and feelings. That is what I mean when I see I think I am "bad".
However, I am seeing from my relationships with people who have healthy self esteem that THEY do not reject thoughts and feelings as bad,only actions get the labels.
For me, my deepest struggle is to throw off the overlay from my NM of 'Who do you think you?" and "What are you so big about?"
I think you and I have human everything but were made to feel less than human.
Love to you, Ami
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First I must say thank you to you PR and to you Ami for responding here. Your time and your responses and your caring are food for my soul and succor for my wounds.
PR - thank you for this point
You said rage = proof of unworthiness. I humbly disagree. In my opinion, rage is the instinctive "self" survival instinct... not physical self - psychic self.
I do agree with you. When I wrote that, I wrote what I think the unconscious is voicing rather than what I believe. Those are the words of what that little girl experienced. My parents and brothers would, to this day, deny (even to themselves) that their behavior aligned with the words "rage = proof of unworthiness." It took me many, many years of therapy and internal work to understand that that is part of the identity that I took on and suppressed but none-the-less operate out of.
Anger could be good, perhaps even would be good, if I channel it push forward rather than allow it to anchor me in an impotent rage fest. Sometime ago I got stuck in the helpless, powerless rage position that is weak. So clearly this is an important area that can be shifted from powerlessness to empowering. Bringing it out of the unconscious, into the conscious could allow me to make that shift.
where your parents are judging your rage as proof of unworthiness... Little girl doesn't have to agree with them. And if there was a sane, caring adult in LG's life... I'll bet they would've told her just that, too. But I see this paralysis you talk about, as all about YOU - not about THEM...
I get it. This is exactly where I must make the shift. In the techniques I have developed what I see is that I must identify this unconscious thing as their voice about "unworthiness" etc and say to it exactly what you are saying. I no longer will agree with that voice that I took in so long ago. That is the process that I see. That is the shift, the way out.
"Little girl" needs someone to tell her this - just like Twiggy needed to know I'd let her be angry as long as she liked, as long as she told me what she was angry about (that took a dozen journals) and let me decide what to do about the anger in my current life. Maybe it's like a "chink"... a weak point in the loop - and a way out. Validation for LG and freedom for her anger.
Yes - Yes - Yes.
This is what I have read in so many of your posts. This is what I connected with and wanted for myself. This is where I am and I do know that the "chink" is right before me - before my very eyes and I must and do believe that my eyes are coming in focus to see it. As I have written many times here - there is nothing new in my understanding now. And I am not just rehashing - though it looks like it and at times feels like it. But this repetition is the groping, the feeling for the chink BECAUSE I know it is there and because I know I am near. BEFORE the rehashing was more of a continued railing in pain - the pain is still there but now this repetition is part of the healing rather than being stuck.
You might be able to negotiate a deal with LG: she can be angry (only in such a way as) as long as, she lets you get on with what you need to do. Let her know this is important to your ability to keep taking care of HER. Because you're responsible for taking care of LG now. She's precious - angry as a spitting wildcat, sure - but STILL precious, to you. She needs to loosen her grip on you just enough, that you can attend to the important things in your life right now. And she might make you promise to set aside a regular time/amount of time for her, too....
This is where you give me something that I have not artidulated for myself. I get this.
I did know that I needed to create some space around the dysfunction, the paralysis but just the way you have worded this gives me the image of that that means. SHE, LG is holding the grip on me. It is NOT my FOO. I CAN negotiate with LG. I CANNOT and never could negotiate with FOO. LG wants me to be free, to succeed and I want her to be free to succeed. We have the same hopes and desires for each other. Unlike FOO, I do not, did not have to fight LG. LG gets me, agrees with me and hears me. I AM NOT voiceless to LG.
LG gives me space and I can help LG. It is a two-way street.
I pray that I can take this and move forward with it. All I can say is thank you.
"Well OF COURSE you're angry... "
Yes and LG can let me be angry and I can let her be angry and we can help one another. We are NOT one another's enemy but we have been acting as though we were. We must make peace. We must work with one accord. Wow that is something indescribable. Something right there that I could not yet see. indescribable.
Ami - when I read your post I thought, "You know, I'm not really depressed but I connect with what Ami is writing here." Then I thought that "depressed" is relative. I am not clinically depressed but on a different place on the continuum I suspect that I am certainly depressed. If not me then perhaps LG. And then I saw something big - "only actions get the labels" translates for me "only the INactions get the labels." I'm setting myself up to get the labels. The unconscious dictates that I deserve the labels and the inaction does that for me - that's my payoff. It is my comfort level. It is yucky but the yuck is comfort for me. Got to make that shift - my life truly depends on it.
Again - thank you both for dialogueing with me. Just to have your attention is a gift beyond words. It is the attention that LG NEVER had and it is life-giving.
ABOUT my life right now.
My little one is at camp through the end of June. This is the first time in 8 years that I have been responsible to and for noone but myself - actually longer. But the first time in his life. This is a brief window in which to focus 100% on LG and me and push, push, push. If I push too hard I can get into bed and pull the covers up. Not that I need to but I do not have to worry about pushing too hard and still having to provide and care for another.
One other very remarkable thing that is difficult to describe. A person I have long known from a distance contacted me in recent weeks. There is a long story behind this but the short of it is that she wants to work on a project together. She has very good background in personnel/psychology/staffing and we share some interests. It is one of those rare colliisions where we may be mutually effective towards similar life-long goals. Even if not - there are some interesting things coalescing. We have a way of thinking about things similarly and share similar interests. That sounds sort of mundane. But I have lived a life of thining about things and being interested in things in a different way from most people. It has been part of what makes me feels so left out and ostracized.
We had a conversation today that lasted for several hours and there was still much to discuss. She is feeding me books that are speaking to me in a profound way. For example - Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. That very book may be part of something that changes my life. I connected to it and could understand part of what happened to me in my life. Should nothing else come of this - that alone would be a great benefit.
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Dear GS
You really got what I was saying about the labels. They are NOT us. They have no reality. They were from N's rantings and splitting off THEIR "bad" on us. Ami
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LG is angry.
I was invited to have dinner with my oldest brother and his wife and our mother some time ago. I understood the invitation was for 6:30. I was feeling some angst about the event but repressed it. Then on my way to dinner LG claimed the angst and irritation. It belonged to her. It was old stuff. That was a great feeling.
I walk in to the restaurant feeling a gentle comfort. A separation between what is mine and what belongs to LG. It felt great. I thought I was on to something and moving into something significant. Perhaps I was, am.
Noone was there. I went back out to my car. Called my brother. Dinner was for 7:00 and they were running late. I turned the ignition, called my mother and said I would not be joining them for dinner. Lg was having a tantrum and there was no turning back - cutting of my nose to spite my face.
I was hungry and would have had humans to share a meal with for the first time in a week. I would have had a chance for adult conversation. I would have had a chance to see my brother and sister-in-law. I would have had a somewhat decent - so-so meal. I would not have looked like a bratty, tantrumy human who is set off by g*d only knows what this time. I blew it.
What was LG so mad about?
LG is furious that once again she is a tag along. My mother made the invitations and made the arrangements. This is the first time I can think of in which I have been invited to have dinner with my brother and sister-in-law. This is also the first time I have been without my son for more than a few days in his entire life. My mother asked my brother to select the restaurant -( LG would like to get to select the restaurant just once.) Petty - yes - it is LG because LG NEVER had the option to make a choice. Top it off - there are 5 restaurants that I go to. All of them because they are restaurants where children are the norm and where there is something for my very picking little boy to eat. Out of the hundreds of restaurants in town - the one selected on one of the few nights in my life that I am free to eat dinner with adults only is at one of the few restaurants where my son will eat. They have pizzas and salads and pasta - I can cook better for myself. LG is angry - bratty angry.
And what is LG angriest about - that she ALWAYS considers others - where they are - what their needs are - what might be an extenuating circumstance for them. But LG's family NEVER considers the same for her - par for the course.
Double-bind? LG is angry - AGAIN. FOO is tired of LG being angry and storming off. LG has sabotaged herself yet again. Any progress made towards having a semi-relationship with brother and sister-in-law just smashed. That's too bad and LG and I are sad and angry. LG and I want to undo what has been done but it is too late. LG and I would like to be able to say why we are angry and have FOO care - not going to happen. This is a lonely, lonely place to be.
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Well, you're not totally alone. I may be late, but I'm here... if hubby will just stop trying to monopolize my attention!!
Look - old ways of thinking are at work again; LG's old comfort/safety zone. Look at what you wrote...
I think that what happened wasn't the catastrophe you described; and I completely disagree with you about LG being bratty. She's justifiable upset; it's another score for the other team, ya know? I'll bet she does want to pick the restaurant; I'll bet she doesn't like being setup yet again... dangling at the whim of people who didn't care enough to confirm the time and any changes with you.
If LG were your son - and it was him instead of LG - wouldn't you support him? Validate that anger? Agree with her that she was treated callously? Stand up with her, with dignity and say - "we don't have to allow them to treat us like this and ruin our good time". And find a way to soothe that anger - by giving her a "special treat"? When I was 10 - my neighbor Ruth gave me the one & only birthday party I ever had. My parents thought that inviting a bunch of kids to a party for ME, was just a waste of time and an annoyance. You need to be a Ruth, to LG.
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My questionable advice aside - you ARE "there". It takes a good long while and a lot of practice to take the glimmer of the chink you see - the way out of the loop - and actually make it real - put it to use in real life. But that's not to say that you're far, far away from it, you know? YOU ARE THERE... so now, it's just practice makes perfect. Putting into use, what you know LG needs... to heal, to finally recover from the old wounds, to grow and mature, and to be a precious, treasured part of you. She needs the caring adult, loving parent that you ARE.
And this project that looks promising - if this is new territory for you, so much the better! New "adventures" allow you many opportunities to try out, experiment with, new ways of thinking... feeling... and acting. You're ready for it! LG will want to persist in the old patterns... the old comfort zone... but as her new parent; long-sought and longed for - you can help her see that anxiety and fear are just the negative perspective on excitement, taking a chance, diving right in... to something new.
One caution: when you are learning something new - and this way of interacting with LG is new - you are going to make mistakes; miss things you later think you should've seen. It's really EASY for the old ways of labelling things to start up again... because you've had a LOT more practice at that. You've got to be kind, patient, encouraging when those mistakes happen. Pick LG up, brush off her knees, give her a hug and a kiss and tell her to try again next time. Persist in your questioning the old labels... put your excellent mind to work at seeing more than one way to interpret situations and those mistakes.
Don't beat yourself up for not getting it right the first time. (That's what THEY would do, right? Make you feel bad for being a beginner at something??) I'm STILL learning more and more about this works in "real life" - and not just in theory. I'm STILL making mistakes and vowing to "never do that again!" I'm trying to learn how to really laugh WITH myself, when I make mistakes like this. And you know what???
So is EVERYBODY else. That's just a part of being alive, human, and interacting with others. That's where you can find all of sudden - hey! we've got a connection! with someone else.
:D
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Thank you PR.
Yes I would have been there for my little boy. I do understand what you are talking about. I am going to spend some time with LG today. She is very lonely and feelng ostracized and setup.
Suddenly my mind flashes in 2 different directions:
one is back to the long pages of posting you did about Twiggy. I see that LG needs much of my time. She has been trying to get my attention for a long, long time and I have been working very, very hard at repressing her.
the other is this process done with me by a lovely young American living in NZ whom I met in an EFT forum. She guides me through a holographic memory to interact with LG. It is time to do that again.
I have so much to catch up on. Thank you - you have opened a large portal for me.
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Dear GS
Your relationship with LG has started me on a road to accept my LG more.I rejected most of the LG qualities such as self centeredness, needing attention,pettiness, being judgemental. I had them but I put them in the bad category and myself with it.
Lately, I have been feeling what I feel and it is strange.
I still think *I* am bad when I have negative feelings to s/one else. How did that get set up, I wonder?
I guess my M programmed me not to think or discern so I wouldn't see her. Ami
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I hear you Ami.
I was thinking about this this morning. I have repressed LG for so long and tried to move on. But she is SO angry and I have been dragging LG and her bubbling rage right along with me just pushing it down, pushing down her anger and pushing down all those repressed voices of FOO which I took on as my own. So I have been a walking nightmare of early FOO experience moving unsuccessfully through life.
Now I have to go back and reintegrate LG and excise the FOO.
The FOO voices have won for so long. Now I feel as though I am splitting conjoined twins where one is toxic and the other's life depends on it. I am thankful for your support. This is a place where one person's healing surgery can lend healing concepts to one-another. The pain of this process - whereever we are in it - is indescribable.
Here I am receiving help and encouragement which I have never experienced before in my life. PR, your words, that LG is justifiably upset, act like a surgical knife, cutting a wedge between LG and FOO voice. I have FOO voiced LG my entire life. That is the paralysis. LG needs help. FOO denied her help. FOO hated her. I sided with FOO. Still hoping FOO will accept me. Wrong option. I need to side with LG.
I was thinking about this earlier. LG gave up everything to try to connect to, belong with FOO. I sided with the oppressors waiting for crumbs from the table, meanwhile seething and fuming inside. I believed that FOO was my best hope - never believing in myself never realizing that cutting those ties and becoming my own person would have allowed me to flourish. Locked in the FOO double-bind - I saw cutting the ties as proof of their disdain for me. The price seemed too great - but - it was the price of staying that was too great.
LG had fabulous ideas and interests. She is not dead - just frozen. But that is the good news b/c I can redirect LG away from FOO. I know I can do this because as a teen I saw my mother's incompetence and just bided my time to get out of her house. It was my father and the extended family that could not let go of - it was a psychic suicide.
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Dear ((GS)))
I think you are making the error of thinking you had a choice about absorbing the FOO role for yourself. It was pure survival. Ami
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Ami - I think you are right. I have to look back and see whose voice I am writing that in. Thank you.
LG is still mad about the dinner thing last night. She wants to talk about it and she wants to do it here where she might get some support.
As an aside - she and I are having a stuggle here. LG doesn't want to open herself up to criticism she only wants support. That is not a realistic request - except if LG were in the hospital b/c of a physical wound NOONE would expect her to be subject to prodding and poking. People with physical wounds are given a space for healing. Why doesn't that extend to people who are suffering deep emotional/psychological wounds? It does for those who are lucky enough to have someone who stands at bat for them. For those with no help, no harbour opening up (necessary for healing) is something of a mine field.
LG and I are tired of being prickly and of having thin skin. I want to "lighten up" and have a sense of humor return. I want to be a duck so that jabs and thoughtless comments roll off like water. I have been working on this for some time but don't feel as though I have made much progress. Perhaps I have made more than it seems.
I am finding yet again that opening the doors to a new healing process also opens the floodgates to the full force of emotions. It is a very unpleasant, miserable experience.
Back to LG and dinner last night. Here is a succession of things that makes her mad. It ends in a double-bind issue that is as old as she and I are - complaining and reacting get a "There she goes again" while all she longs for is "I'm sorry. I see you are hurting. Can we do something different to take the pain away?"
Today I had a chat with a cousin on FaceBook.
SHE asked how I was doing without my son at home. SHE knew it would be difficult.
But my brother and sister-in-law who have been mourning the empty nest syndrome for the 2 years of their son's college time. They are controlling some of his summer because they hate being without him. HE is 20. THEY are a couple.
These words are mine but the anger and hurt is LGs. If I had ANY idea that someone I was having dinner with was having a hard time I would do what ever I could to make it better. LG and I are having such a hard time about this because our hurt and angry response put us in that "cutting off our nose to spite our face" reaction that is so strong that rational thought does not overcome the emotions. And I get it - LG (me) never had anyone REALLY care - just a word, just a thought, just an effort.
"i'm sorry." "I see you are hurting." "I see you are lonely." "I see you feel shut out, disempowered, judged, unwanted ...." "Let me help." "You don't have to do this alone." "We are family." blah, blah, blah.
I can't tell you how jealous LG and I are over people who get or have what we LONG for. That jealousy and resentment are poisons that are eating me up from the inside out. But I am seeing now that if LG gets the love and encouragement and autonomy that she needs then those poisons will dissipate.
I am whining and crying like the 10 year old that LG is. I am crying to you, my family because I know (she writes with trepidation) that you care. That is the way out. LG must be loved and cared for and supported on her own venture.
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For me, GS, I think I need at least one other person to see the real me under all the distortions.
I need to be seen. I need s/one to say"I understand". It is not you who is this crazy creature . You are under all the pain. It has to be blown away and then you willl be there.
Ami
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I am still struggling with Friday night's dinner. My struggle is not about the events but about the lack of empathy, the invisibility, the set-up to rejection. I went to the restaurant in good faith with this other stuff simmering in the background, needling me. It was the old, old stuff, subconscious at best. I looked throughout the restaurant and saw noone so I went to my car to get my cell phone and call. Everyone was running late. I had an option to go back in and request a table but all of the old stuff bubbled forward and felt like a thousand needles prickling my soul. It was too much. I turned the ignition and headed home. Too late to reverse that flood of feeling. I had to retreat. The damage was already done. The damage of being rejected. The "here she goes again" attitude rather than "she clearly is having a hard time. I wish we had been more sensitive to what she is going through."
My behavior was juvenile - precisely because LG rose to the forefront. That same LG that I have been repressing. She won't be repressed anymore. She has something to say and I have to listen now.
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I have been invited to lunch. LG is not happy. She is pouting. I am writing here because nowhere else can I let LG be herself. LG's hurt is huge and even she is reacting to or stuck in emotional reaction that comes from her younger self, whom I will call BG. BG needed care but her mother just hated for BG to be needy and father simply pulled down an iron curtain in response to need. I hate being 2 but I don't mind caring for BG nor LG. I actually think I might be good at it. I see the tremendous healing aspects of this approach. I hurt and so does LG and BG. I have been pushing down and pushing down their hurt because it gets me rejected and belittled. It all makes so much sense. It is time for me to allow their hurt to come to the surface and to be loved and cared for, EVEN IF they have an infantile or juvenile tantrum.
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I had an insight, GS, that I think will really help. Let me know.
I can see how I have been gaslighted. I never could see it before. It is so subtle.
My M, F and H ALL gaslight me so *I* will think *I* am crazy.
My friend Maria saw it but I could not.
I really thought she was wrong.
I am flabbergasted that I am so worthless to all of them that they do not care one bit for my emotional well being.
My point is that I think the problem with our trusting and respecting the needs of LG and BG is b/c we can't really see how we were (and are) gaslighted AND we gaslight ourselves ALL the time. Throw away what does not fit, GS. Ami
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Well... funny you mention physical wounds vs emotional ones, GS. I just had an idea. Been working with creating some meaning for myself in the concept: Repair of the Self... and realized that the last couple of years have been an "emotional convalescence" for me.
It's possible to have that convalescence in the midst of ordinary life. But I so craved the open-ended, unstructured time without other obligations to dive right into taking that convalescence to the next step: rehab. You also have that opportunity for a few weeks, to devote yourself to your own emotional convalescence. Think of it as spiritual retreat! :D You'll gain from it what you are able to gain from it, at the moment... and the effects may surface later in positive, unexpected ways.
LG DOES need massive amounts of plain old support, comforting, and understanding - the building blocks of validation - if she's anything like Twiggy was. I sort of summed it all up under the heading of needing reassurance; for so many things... that I wasn't crazy, wasn't unreasonable, and that my anger was natural (among other things). And yes, the process of you being there for her means revisiting those original emotions - yet again. But this time is different. It truly DOES help to ask for - and see how easy it is to receive - that validation from others for LG, too.
You're no longer in the discovery phase; you know the emotions now. You know how the emotions came to be. Now, you're in the process of relating to LG... creating a working relationship for convalesence. You need to trust each other and you need to establish who's doing the parenting in this new relationship. As with all parent-child relationships, sometimes we have to ask things of the child that they don't want to do. This was a delicate stage for me/Twiggy. I had to be very, very patient. I had to explain the "why" behind what I was asking of her - over & over & over. I had to assure her that I still cared about her very much, even when we disagreed. It's the process of establishing trust, I guess - trusting myself.
But the fact is, I couldn't let Twiggy make decisions for me. Not until both she and our relationship "matured" over time. We've had to compromise... I've had to back off being impatient with her on the truly difficult bits... I've had to indulge her in simple wants - and the more complex, over-arching one that she asked for so long ago: to be like she was "before". I've had to act for Twiggy like the parent I needed, but didn't have: creating healthy habits, setting boundaries on behavior, asking her to comply with decisions I've made that are in her best interest... even when she tells me vigorously: "I don't want to". And I make SURE that I reward her for her cooperation and progress in healing. These are usually little things; it really doesn't take much to make me happy.
All that came later, though. I spent some months simply holding and rocking Twiggy. Telling her over and over, that yes, I understood and it would all be OK; it would all be all right. And like a child... she quieted down long enough for me to "think" more than I "felt" about the whole situation: I was able to process all of T's emotions as the adult me. And then I went back to work with T, encouraging her and helping her to process them, too. That is one of the ways T was able to "grow up" some. Other things were letting her pursue some of the things she gave up in order to survive. And those weren't necessarily emotional things - some were quite specific and concrete. (I am STILL looking for "ruby red slippers" in my size for her; but she's given up wanting a pony and moved on to other things.)
It is time for me to allow their hurt to come to the surface and to be loved and cared for, EVEN IF they have an infantile or juvenile tantrum.
I'd say ESPECIALLY if there's a tantrum. There is usually a reason for it - and it's not always what appears on the surface, or what the first impression is. In any case: if we care about a child, we care about the child regardless of their emotions and allow them to express those emotions (with some modifications necessary, sometimes). We teach them ways to prevent the situation that made them angry (processing) and how to do things differently (than they are now) after they are angry. We teach them to apologize when they are wrong... and to expect that apology, when they've been wronged - and what to do when the apology isn't there; isn't seen to be important. In other words: how to be angry without following all the rutted pathways of the old "loop".
It was so important for Twiggy to know that I wasn't going to punish her - by making her feel "bad" (blame/shame) - when she got angry. Together, we worked through those situations - usually a present moment that triggered an original wound - and then we looked at scale, perspective, relative importance of the present moment (compared to original ouchy) and tried to find alternatives to simply giving up... and then being angry out of all proportion to the situation. Working on this gave Twiggy agency: the ability to DO something FINALLY... and help me help her, fix herself.
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LG is coming through. Differentiating between N parents and LG. Things starting to happen. Been using I/M (intention/manifestation) visualization. Shifts happening. Cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. Getting invitations for dinner and coffee and lunch. Phone ringing - for first time in EIGHT YEARS!!!!!
Feeling great hope. Excitement is bubbling and propelling forward. paralysis lifting if only for a respite.
Feels good. Now I have so much to do. Been stuck for soooooo long.
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HURRAY!
SPLENDID!
GOOD WORK!
I'm so happy for you, sweetie! Go enjoy!
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I am so angry. LG is showing me some things that make me so angry.
Part of what makes me angry is the times I tried to explain to people what happened and they turned it around to blame me or put the responsibility for my parent's behavior on me. It happens over and over and over. I know I am not alone.
This repeated experience has an amazing hush effect on me. It has a profound power to push my pain and frustration into repression. I know I am doing it to myself but I also know the power is real. I am working on this one at the same time I am working on money issues that have their massive roots in the N parent experience.
I have noticed a commonality - wealthy N parents love to use money to control.
That manipulation is .....
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Dear GS
You are not trusting yourself, which you know. I do this MOST of the time. I am so tired and frustrated. I understand how you feel and I am sorry . Ami
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LG is so angry at those people who continue to tell me thinking my father is mean makes him mean. NO. LG and I think he is mean because he behaves mean. LG doesn't want anyone to think THEY know when they have not lived it. I am tired of people expecting me to deal with this issue as an adult. I can't - not yet. I am still LG and BG when it comes to this issue and LG and BG need guardian angels who will listen to them, affirm their experiences and confirm, affirm that the N father and N mother treated their BG and LG in a dispicable damaging way.
I think it is difficult for LG and me to deal with the issues until we both feel as though we have a voice about the way we have been/are treated by N parents and FOO.
Of course I not talking about the angels here at VESMB. It is precisely because those of you here will listen that I can even find the strength to share without fear of recrimination. That is helpful beyond description. I know I can come here and reveal my pains that others dismiss and slough off. It helps to be allowed and supported even to voice my childs voice - because parts of me are stuck in that LG's hurt. Sharing, revealing, unburdening allows it all to lift that repressed hurt and anger - a bit at a time.
It is a funny process - unearthing the resentment and hurt and anger, lifting the repression even a tad actually leads to an explosion in the degree of hurt and anger and resentment. But I know it is necessary. It is the repressed stuff - not new and I am SO tempted to repress it again. It feels horrible and so helpless. That helplessness IS the wound. It feels wretched to lift the repression. I wish it were not the way out.
Thank you for letting me share this. I really must. It is a gift beyond preportion to reveal my pain without being told to change my attitude.
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Ami - tell me what you mean that I am not trusting myself. You may be right but I don't see it.
What I think you are seeing is actually that I am writing sometimes from LG's perspective and sometime from my adult perspective without differentiating.
I think that LG and BG needed someone to help them see that N ps were wrong and their behavior horrendously destructive. Grown me sees that but LG and BG needs that mamma angel to tell them and to hold them and soothe them and give them the strength and courage and backing to choose to abandon the false promises the N ps heldout to keep me captive in N family. Momma angel must help me to see that going it on my own as a young teen will actually be better than sacrificing the core of my soul to be a dutiful daughter and live according to the values that most of our society hold. It was not the case that being a dutiful, obedient, respectful daughter would be its own reward - it was a death sentence. It was not the case that leaving that hell hole that looked enviable from the outside, would be a road to destruction and ruin. It would have been a road out and psychologically it still is the road out. It is the only choice for LG.
Having this new friendship - really two - is what I believe is allowing the change that I experienced yesterday. Today I am not moving well but that is ok, I will soon have another moving, motivated day and each one will build on the other. Having people who want to be with me, share a meal with me, introduce me to their friends is unbelievable. It makes me human again. It changes everything.
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I mean that we lose an essential connection to our feelings and thoughts when we have N parents. We will do anything ,even die ,to avoid seeing how they did not value us.
I think that your struggle,as mine is, is in still believing,down deep, that they may be right and we may be wrong and bad after all. I heard this from you somewhere and was reacting to it. If I am wrong,compost .It is true for me,unfortunately. Ami
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I mean that we lose an essential connection to our feelings and thoughts when we have N parents. We will do anything ,even die ,to avoid seeing how they did not value us.
Yeah, yeah - that is definitely what LG slipped into. That is the fork in the road. I want to go back in time and take the other road. I chose "family" with all the self-annihilation that required. I thought it was the moral imperitive. They said it was. Society says it is. The bible says it is - Honor thy father and mother that it may go well with you. (I still can't come to terms with this one.)
But the life giving road for LG, for me is to ditch family (with sorrow and grieving) and to take the road to self-determination and self-sufficiency. That is the only life giving choice. Would that I had taken it as a child but I could not see it. But I see it now and it is NOT too late.
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I have a dialogue going on on another forum. They don't understand anything about N parents. I started a thread about needing money and thinking about borrowing from my mean N father. I have gotten back some good responses. But there is one person who basically says that it is my attitude about my father that keeps me from receiving from him and that if I saw him as giving and generous person then he would give to me.
She wrote this implying that "me" is my father.
On the other hand, if you were to view me with compassion (not pity) and see me as someone who was really brilliant at building internal and external resources, and you were to come to me with gratitude and confidence and ask me for some help in building internal or external resources, I would be delighted to share myself with you. I might even be open to your suggestion about a business arrangement, if you were clever enough to think about and communicate to me how you think it might benefit ME, and not only yourself.
as though seeing my father as something that he is not would magically make him so. Needless to say this pricked my Voiceless button. "Hello - you are not L-I-S-T-E-N-I-N-G to me." Consequently this person evokes from me some of the same responses that my father does. Which has a value for me in this process but was certainly not the one I was looking for.
She goes on to write:
And one really easy thing to change is your attitudes and beliefs -- it's an easy, effective way to transform who another person is for you, and thereby change your whole way of being with that person. And vice-versa! When you change who you're being with a person, you can transform who that person is for you.
And if you'd like to generate courage, abundance, and to receive resources from your dad, my point is that it would make sense to be those things for your dad -- be a source for him of courage, abundance, and resources. Be what you want to see. It looks like it boils down to: if you want him to believe in you, try believing in him.
"Easy" - maybe effective but in what world is it "easy". There is some value in her point - that changing my attitude would be valuable - but not in the way she thinks. Changing my attitude so that I am released from him and from the outcome of asking for his help would be the IT.
I do get her point about being generous, et. al. for him if I want those things from him. I hold that philosophy. It is the essence of the Prayer Attributed to St. Francis that I have long believed. But she misses the point. I am not looking for courage from him nor for him to believe in me. And I argue that something in this argument is flawed because I believe in him for 30 years - strongly - It did NOT yeild a reciprocal response.
Why am I posting this here? Because THIS is the aspect that I am working through on a parallel track with some of LGs issues. It is how "society" or "others" respond to my points about my experience with my father. Oh it is not about him - it is about YOU. This is a HUGE issue for me.
Another person even wrote that he is only NPD or OCD if I think he is - but if I don't see him as these things then he is not, therefore his NPD and OCD behavior is only because I call it that. HuH???? I think his behavior preceded my recognition of NPD by oh 20 ro 30 years. This is the stuff that really gets me. Makes me MAD.
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Look what someone else gave me -
Many parents give everything to help their children, though they have far less than he does. I wish you the best in dealing with that loss and pain.
He/she got it. Boy did I need that. That's what I am talking about. Just to get someone else to acknowledge that what a normal parent does is to give their everything - heart, soul and being - to help their children. Now those words are a gift.
Believe it or not that same person also wrote this at first
I'm sorry your parents aren't generous.
But, if they were to loan you money - would you be able to pay it back?
Is there anything you've done to earn the money? Is there anything you can offer them in exchange?
If not, then the money isn't yours, and never will be, whether you manifest, visualize, intend, etc. Money comes from work. Find a way to get by that doesn't include relying on people who are unreliable, then outgrow the need.
What a difference! No my parents don't OWE me any money - they do OWE me love and dedication and honor. THEY chose to give me life - I didn't. They owe me compassion and support. That is what I believe humans who give birth owe their offspring.
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Whew - I feel so much better. Like I made some kind of progress. Who knows. Thanks for letting me get this out.
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No, GS - some people simply won't get it about your parents; they are not accepting the fact of emotional abuse - for whatever reason. In their world, sometimes children misunderstand the intentions of their parents... it simply does not compute for those people that a parent could be neglectful, mean, abusive, belitting... and create the kind of situation that you must now deal with...
in ours, there's no mistaking what it really going on. I have found, though - that there are more people than I would've expected who DO understand this. But there is usually an established relationship, before that's revealed.
For LG: just because people want to blame you instead of your parents, doesn't mean they're RIGHT. They weren't there; they don't know. You don't have to let them stick blame or responsibility to you - because they're simply don't understand. They don't HAVE to believe you, for something to be TRUE.
You wrote:
What a difference! No my parents don't OWE me any money - they do OWE me love and dedication and honor. THEY chose to give me life - I didn't. They owe me compassion and support. That is what I believe humans who give birth owe their offspring.
I wonder... and only you can find out... if perhaps LG saw money as a symbol for that love, dedication and honor? If, in your parent's world, money was so all-important... that it was on the same level as less materialistic values? And that perhaps, the parents EXPRESSED those emotional/ethical values through money?
Also - people with "difficulties", who are parents - simply CAN'T provide what you believe normal parents give freely. It sounds like you're presenting an I.O.U. to your parents - for a commodity that they simply don't have... rather, LG is. You are right... she has to "run away" from that FOO situation... and with the help of Momma Angel, learn to fend for herself.
It appears that there is great progress on that front - even though the "old stuff" leaves a residual "slime" that will eventually fade away... if you keep adding the new, good stuff that will push it out, neutralize it, compost it into organically rich, nutritious soil to grow something beautiful. It's great to see you blossoming like this, GS....
Really! I mean it! It makes me smile and feel happy for you.
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I wonder... and only you can find out... if perhaps LG saw money as a symbol for that love, dedication and honor? If, in your parent's world, money was so all-important... that it was on the same level as less materialistic values? And that perhaps, the parents EXPRESSED those emotional/ethical values through money?
Also - people with "difficulties", who are parents - simply CAN'T provide what you believe normal parents give freely. It sounds like you're presenting an I.O.U. to your parents - for a commodity that they simply don't have... rather, LG is. You are right... she has to "run away" from that FOO situation... and with the help of Momma Angel, learn to fend for herself.
Yes, yes, yes and YES.
Yes - money is the currency - (lol)
Yes - I am presenting and I.O.U. - I'm lying in the dessert sand beside the oasis begging them to give me a drink. Unwilling to acknowledge that I can get the drink for myself.
As always - thank you for the gift of your time and your words. I drink them in.
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You're welcome! I am still doing my happy dance for you... your progress since your "break" started, is AMAZING. I'm imagining you with multi-colored threads fraying and dancing around you, like a rainbow halo... and now you can begin to walk away from the old ropes, chains, binding you.
Did you find that unbroken stretches of time - just time devoted to yourself - was useful? I wondered, because it's been great for me. It's not always a "picnic", that said. Some days, I deal with the "down & dirty" and I don't always make FORWARD progress. I've also been pushing through a persistent layer of "crap" and yesterday found the brick wall behind it. My idea of "rehab" met with typical teen-Twiggy resistance, yesterday. Know why now... but the question is: what to do about it?
Ah well, I'll think on that today and start my own thread if something useful comes up.
I hope and LG can think of an appropriate reward that you can both enjoy. You both deserve it!
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Yes PR, the time to myself has been a god-send. There is a play off going on within and having responsibility to noone else for a stretch helps me deal with it.
I am going to try to articulate what I mean. It would be a tremendous help.
When I select an issue to work on or it selects me there is an immense resistance that builds up. The resistance is part of all issues with me as well plus it ties into having had no support or backing through out my life. Not from my parents nor my syblings nor my husband and ultimately not from my friends. To have no where to go in my memory to tap into that feeling of undieing support and encouragement has meant that I had to find all of the energy and determination on my own but it also means that I am very susceptible to the first winds of discouragement.
I ended up in a life in which I sat on the accelerator even though I was stuck in a muddy ditch. The harder I tried the deeper I became stuck and all those closest laughed and reveled in my misfortune. working to get the car out might result in falling in mud and more laughter and humiliation.
I got caught at a young age of believing, "if only I get this fixed then I will be included." but that actually was a hampster wheel of its own.
Now I see that the way out is by providing for myself. The cleaning and ordering is not so someone else will admire me or include me but so that I can enjoy my own environment. It is for me. But the entire mindset of doing something merely for myself is truly so foreign - I have been so mired in doing things to "prove" to someone, anyone that I deserved this and than and anything.
It's me who felt I didn't, don't deserve. That is such a sad realization. But it is only possible as I bring these repressed voices to the surface. Along with the voices comes the pain that was experienced so early on. And that is the rub because each time I make progress in adjusting these very old thoughts/feelings I am immediately pummelled by another from another direction and I am smacked down to the ground again, dazed, unaware of what happened. And then I begin to feel hopeless and undeserving all over again.
So the healing process actually exposes me to more knock downs. It is killing me. But now that I know to expect it I might be able to rebound. For the almost years I have been here I have been hoping to reach a clearing where life was wide open and I could run through it. That may happen but first I have many more booby traps to fall into. I actually don't think that will be such a problem anymore.
I now realize that it is a minefield. Until now I thought each stumble was taking me right back to the beginning - an indication that I had made no progress. Today I see that each minefield I get through is like another level of strengthening and that falling again is not going backwards just more work ahead. I can handle more work ahead when I know I have made progress. That is where I am today.
Quite frankly I do need to be around other humans who understand. I could not do this without those of you here who understand and who let me know you do. It gives me the courage to move forward. You help me develop a perspective to actually see that I AM moving forward.
Even though I have not been stalled just the fact that I believed that I was actually slowed my progress. I think I have reached a point in which I understand something very different today. It is as though I have reached a critical point in understanding. Rather than being worn down by the struggle I am finding that I am actually being strengthened and do believe this strengthening will continue. It actually feeds itself.
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As soon as I saved the above I realized something else.
I think I have been a little afraid of getting "better" because I would lose the help I have here. I have this very vague flash of a memory "ok now you don't need my help anymore" followed by abandonment.
tie that in with IOU
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The cleaning and ordering is not so someone else will admire me or include me but so that I can enjoy my own environment.
Wow, GS.
Thank you for this.
You have no idea.
I did not realize that this was also part of why I find it difficult.
You are literally giving yourself permission to EXIST, as a person who deserves to enjoy her own environment!
I would like to borrow this thought for myself.
And I wouldn't dream of abandoning someone who's found her way out of this type of paralysis!
It would be something to be inspired and awed by.
xo
Hops
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Thank YOU Hops. So glad something here is of value to you.
The thought is yours.
And it feels so good to read that you would not abandon someone finding her way out.
For 3 days in a row I have felt stronger and stronger. It is good at any time for me but especially so because the last three days have also been very difficult, filled with a series of things that at another time would have each knocked me low.
I'm tired but I will keep up the same practices that have been helping. It has been a "slowly but surely" battle. Step by microscopic step is amassing some gently, noticeable changes. I am getting stronger.
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The wave is up and down. I am stunned by the book PR llinks to in her new thread.
I am thinking about a thread on another forum which is focused on Personal Empowerment. In one thread about getting financial help from family a subdialogue has popped up in which the participants write about adults seeking money from family as being childlike, unworthy, irresponsible and on and on. One of these same people responded to one poster who declined her advice by saying that rich people receive and poor people lose - meaning that the person who declined her advice was poor because she didn't take her [implied - valuable] advice.[Read - you disagree with me and you lose.]
Naturally - that whole sub-dialogue caught me like a web. I am suspecting that that person had a difficult family life and by her own strength got beyond it and she had no tolerance for others who do not come through in a similar method. I on the other hand am really needing "community" response and help and encouragement. I think her boot-strapping - my way or bust philosophy strikes me where my wounds are.
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I am exhausted and extremely lonely. I have something I must do as a stop gap measure to staunch the bleeding on the financial front. Everywhere I turn I am being stampeded by bill collectors and about to have utilities turned off. At the same time I am close to getting my businesses going but I needed this week and my little boy came home sick from camp a week early.
It is all taking an extreme toll on me. But I recognize that the only way out is to persevere. I need some help. Someone to listen. Someone to care. Just a little encouragement goes a long way.
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Life doesn't always turn out the way we plan it, GS... I'm sorry your precious time is being cut short. I know how important it is; and how rare. Single parenthood doesn't offer much "me" time. But, it's not an impassable roadblock - just a bump on the road. You can take this adjustment to your plans and keep on going!
The amount of major, major progress you have already made provides the momentum, for you to sail right over this bump... even though it's a disappointment to lose your time, you probably missed your little boy. And if he sleeps while sick, you'll still have some extra time. The utilities... perhaps you can negotiate something. Buy yourself some time, if nothing else, to get your business up and running. Surely, with a child in the house, there is either someone in the community who can help or the company itself, will make an exception.... work out something affordable. It doesn't hurt to ask.
We have a local church group who helps people with utility bills, in addition to providing low, low cost food and clothing. It doesn't hurt to ask. In this economy - there are many, many people who need financial help - and it's surprising who they are. It's no fault of their own, either... it doesn't hurt to ask. My own kids are only hanging on by their fingernails...
Perhaps you've got a local small business agency, who could assist with you with a short-term loan... if your business is home-based, I believe these kinds of loans are available from stimulus money. Look for micro-loans.
I don't know that any of these ideas will provide an immediate solution, but I think if you begin to put some focus on it - some energy - something will turn up... a lead, a possibility... a solution. A deep breath, face the reality head-on, and a plan of action... you already know how to do that! I know you can... this isn't a disaster... just an obstacle, a delay, an unexpected fork in the path.
You're not alone! We're here... and no matter how it turns out, we'll still BE here for you.
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GS, what an awful feeling...fending off utilities shutoff. I can imagine how horrible that is.
I have a thought, perhaps useless, but fwiw:
I've been watching with deep sympathy and no few flashes of recognition the show on TLC about OCD called "Obession" (it follows "Intervention", another one I find well done, that's about various addictions).
When "Obession" dealt with a sweet man who was a hoarder (he greatly improved with therapy and it was moving to see)...I found myself wondering if in some way the "paralysis" or INaction around household order and functioning is perhaps emotionally very close to compulsive ACTION.
Like, I can put as much energy into NOT doing as others do into compulsive DOING. (Handwashing, collecting, etc.).
I just realized when I was lying in my VERY messy bedroom watching this little man try to express how much emotion he felt about his impassable piles of clutter...well, my emotion is fear (of the consequences), frustration (why don't I GET in gear?), all that...and this man's is love (of his mother's memory, which triggered collecting), fear (of letting go of her, and of his future eviction--and even illness--if he doesn't get well).
It just "felt" familiar, what he was going through, although I am not a hoarder (no urges to purchase stuff). And it's not so extreme in my case.
WHAT BOTH HIS AND MY SITUATIONS HAVE AT THEIR BASE IS ANXIETY. And a response to the anxiety in my case (maybe yours too?) is compulsive inaction or "freezing" (in addition to fight or flight, some animals freeze when they feel endangered). In his case, it's a compulsive action, that seems to come from a similar root.
All this is a longwinded way to get to a question for you:
Have you thought about finding a therapist who is experienced with OCD, and trying to approach the paralysis stuff from that angle?
I'm really liking that my own therapist has experience with ADD. Even though I don't fully qualify, I know he has knowledge about some behavioral steps I can take to get myself more focused. Way below that, though, I think another thing I have to address is anxiety -- the pure fear of the consequences of my emotional state.
More rambling, bear with me...thinking about you a lot this week!
You often mention your rage. (No judgment!) Just that one of the recurring whirling prevailing feelings (along with pain) is recurring ANGER.
I heard once that beneath anger is always hurt and/or fear. Fear = anxiety. Anxiety is the key emotion in OCD. I feel a lot of anxiety.
I wonder if an OCD therapist (who specifically helps people, behaviorally, face their fears...with increasing exposures) might help you peel away the anger not just to the PAIN beneath it, but address the ANXIETY.
I am thinking they trade off, and in my life I have felt shattering pain of the sort you often describe. But once that moves through, if my life isn't working, I think what's often going on is more fear and anxiety.
Pain doesn't immobilize me. Pain plus huge FEAR does.
So I'm starting to think addressing my fears is what may wind up both reducing the pain and "unlocking" the frozen behavior.
I doubt all that's particularly insightful, but it produced a blast of verbiage anyway...thanks for wading through it.
And, GS, I want to mention again how enormously helpful the "borrowed thought" was to me. I told my new counselor about your insight the other day, and it truly helped me unlock a bit. The thought: I don't care for my space because in my mother's attitude toward me over the years, I gradually internalized a sense that I didn't deserve to enjoy my own environment.
When I think about that thought, I DO reject it, instinctively. What a horrible thing to say! Or course I do! And all of a sudden I want to water the plants and cook myself something nourishing, as opposed to just collapsing in the evenings.
I am so glad you pointed it out to me. Thanks.
love,
Hops
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With an apology - i find that I am dumping those thoughts and feelings that bubble up to the top. It is like a relief valve. I am pushing forward and I am making my way toward building an important transition out of stuckedness and out of financial scarcity. The more I push and the more I progress the more the stuff bubbles up and the anger along with it. It is not a fun process but the outcome will be a great relief.
PR - I did miss him and I am glad to be with him. The time issue and some other issues of having him home are pushing all of my old buttons and I am not sure which ones are getting pushed. I do hope to identify what old wound is getting poked.
I do not like being angry nor having tantrums.
I have plans to go speak to my father in an hour. Desparate times require desparate measures. It will be interesting if I can adapt a positive attitude regardless of the outcome.
Hops - I have watched both of those shows and marvelled over them. For a long time I have talked to my therapist about Intervention because no matter what those who are addicted have done they have a group of people who love them. It is such a marvel to me. Each and every episode I am amazed at the love and care demonstrated - amazed and profoundly envious.
Obessession is a fascinating show. Your thoughts about the parallels are not lost on me. I definitely see the parallels. With out question I think there is a link. It helps me as I push through all of this personal disorder.
as far as finding a therapist whith an experise in OCD - I am too worn out to do the search. I would love to have a hands on therapist like those in Obsessed but I find myself in such a double-bind as it is. I need help in order to function sufficiently well to earn an income and I need an income in order to pay for a therapist. Really no way out except to push harder and faster.
I always knew that when I got strong enough to clean up the mess of years of neglect that it would be overwhelming. Well that's where I am now. But I just keep pushing forward. It will pay off and I will be thankful. And I continue to be thankful for this place to let out my frustration and struggles. - thank you alll - GS
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Oh HOPS... great insight! Yes, pain + fear = collapse, freezing, paralysis, flight/fight....
Like my not being able to "get started"...
And I think GS said it: "years of neglect"..... when a negative state becomes the "familiar" (read: comfort zone) then the pain (self-anger) and fear (change - any change can be threatening)... we cling to the old, negative familiar for dear life, completely irrationally... KNOWING we're self-defeating and hating it, which provides more kindling to fuel our particular inner message:
And mine is: I don't matter.
GS - I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!! Good luck on your "mission".
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I need some help here. I am like a yo-yo in extreme bouncing from big highs to deep lows.
I asked for and received the loan. It was a boost in more than one way. Not only can I pay some of my debts and have a small amount to help get my business going but the big thing is that it is encouraging that my plan and my work to get myself out of this place I am in and into functioning thriving, fiscally sound life is looking possible and probable.
But turn around and I am low again and on edge and easily angered, feeling overwhelmed and hopeless. Just a bundle of emotions, in the midst of which it is very difficult to identify the source. Is it an imbalance? Is it the experience of coming back through the tunnel of my past experiences? Is it something new? I assume it is coming back through my lifeexperiences - on the way out of hell - but I don't really know. I do know that it is lonely and extrememly emotional. I feel so shut out, so unwanted, so alone. I cannot say this enough. People should not feel so left out - so rejected - so on the edge - one move and its over the cliff - hanging by a thread.
I want to share this following dialogue from another forum because it upset me so. I do understand why it was upsetting but now quite to the extent it did. This person - Angela - is really pushing my buttons. It is her judgementalism and her lack of compassion, empathy. Does it push my buttons because she reminds me of my family or because she sounds like Everyman to me. Does it matter? Clearly I have work to do about it. What do I need to do? Often I know. This time I am flummoxed and tired. Why does her jugementalism knock me low and Ryan's thoughtfulness and kindness touches me but that's it. Why doesn't Ryan's post send me soaring and Angela's just leaving ho-humming?
Here is the last few posts of a thread I started about wanting to borrow money from my father:
GS - there are times that adult individuals go through difficult times and need a helping hand.
There are countless accounts of experiences of helping people in need in which both sides were transformed. One such account is The Same Kind of Different as Me.
RYAN - The posts that have been going on here are great advice for things to do on your end of things. However, I would like to share 2 more things.
The first is on the same topic of your end of the deal. This is the "cleaning" technique from Joe Vitale's Zero Limits and is about ho'opanopano, as somebody above recommended. Accept your father's state of mind as YOUR responsibility (not your FAULT, but your RESPONSIBILITY). Then just constantly say to yourself, to him, and to God, "I love you, i'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you." And just repeat that over and over. Let it become a life mantra.
Secondly, you may try the Silva Method. With the Silva Method you can learn ways to make certain encounters go a certain way or to influence other people from the alpha state. It used to be called the Silva Mind Influence System for a reason! Do some research.
GS – I got the loan.
ANGELAThat's for sure. And a wealthy parent handing money over to his poor, indebted adult child -- it's more like putting a band-aid on a geyser, or buying an alcoholic a drink -- it's not doing her much of a favor. Far more valuable would be if the child could learn the inner resources that the parent has to offer -- the inner resources that have that parent generating wealth and abundance.
GS - Angela - you are an extraordinarily judgemental human being. You could not possibly know all that you think you know from 3 or 4 lines that someone here posts.
*****
I'm thinking that Angela is a boot strapper, that she had parents who were not emotionally present but she pulled herself up by her bootstraps and moved on and therefore everyone else should as well. The fallacy in Angela's last statement, of course, is that wealth and abundance can ONLY come from a person's inner resources. That is a fallacy that many wealthy have of themselves as well. It is very individualistic and strikingly lacking in a community outlook in which we lift ourselves up by lifting up others. So it is not that I disagree with her that makes me so angry. It is that button being pushed. I am tired of that particular button being so much more reactive than anything else. Words of wisdom - please.
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OK... I started to post this when you first mentioned the money issues... but held back, 'coz I wasn't sure what had triggered your feelings about the other posts you mentioned. Now that I read them...
Yeah - Angela's not being too compassionate is she? There is a school of thought that if parents provide financial assistance to adult children, then that opens the floodgate to the adult child becoming dependent, not self-sufficient, and taking advantage of the resources (and generosity/kindness) of the parent. The parent then becomes an "enabler".
I've been on both sides of that point of view. I seldom - twice - asked my parents to help me out, substantially. I am the boot-strapper, for sure. On the other side: I've been enabling my kids. One figured out that it was totally unfair, is working 2 jobs to climb out of her debt and she has a record of what I've provided and has promised to pay me back. I've insisted that she take care of herself first and we'll worry about the payback - someday. I trust her to do so. The other... sigh... will take all she can get - blow it - and is permanently creating more problems for herself. They're both GenX... both have some college courses; no degrees. Very different people.
So maybe Angela's been burnt by someone, like I have with my one daughter. Maybe she's just really rigid in her thinking on this... maybe her parents wouldn't help her. And then: there are people who are excessively jealous and resentful of the wealthy. They assume that wealthy people think badly of, and blame the poor for their circumstances... and I DO see that a lot right now even though many, many kinds of people have lost jobs through no fault of their own. Even my hubby condemns those who took out subprime mortgages, without understanding what their payments would be. He doesn't recognize that there WERE predatory lending practices; he would never sign something without having specifics... and so doesn't understand how someone else would. We "discuss" this a lot - LOL!
SIGH. It's just the way some people are about some things, GS. I'd say, don't take it personally - except she did make it personal. Your reply was reserved, though I hear the anger in it... the hurt. I wouldn't have been that nice, I'm afraid. But - that should be the end of it. She's not an important person in your life - or is she? You seemed to say that she didn't know you very well - so what her opinion of the situation is - and you - shouldn't matter as much as what you think of you.
That said: HIP HIP HOORAYFOR YOU! I KNEW you could do it! I knew you had what it takes, to handle this crisis - and it sounds like it went even better than you had hoped. That's terrificly good news! Don't let someone else's sour grapes - or jealousy - bring you down... put the good that happened in the situation to work making more, new good. Pay no attention to the peanut gallery.
Sending you a PM; I think I found a useful "how-to" manual... it's sketchy, but enough ideas to build your own plan from it.
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Dear GS
I think it is an opportunity to not care what Angela or other people with their own problems think. That is our freedom,although it IS very hard.
When you are vuilnerable, it is harder. For every sick person out there, they have a sick opinion. That is where I would put Angela. Ami
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You are right Ami. I seem to have managed it before. I cannot understand why I am caught up on it today. I do understand that this person is my button pusher but why does it get me today?
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Whew - she is just someone on a forum who offered to help me a few weeks ago and when I say yes she said her fee was $100/hour and that it would take 4 hours. When I said no thank you she said I had a scarcity mentality. So this latest stuff came when I wrote about asking my father for a loan. I wrote the post to generate encouragement. I got some encouragement but I got this one person who is on the attack putting me down and calling me names and the names were the triggers - not worthy, not deserving, etc - the shame buttons. She was pushing those shame buttons but all the while completely ignoring the fact that I got what I was trying to get - that I made my goal. That is a double play - so much like my experience - stay focused on why I don't deserve help and completely ignore the achievement I made to continue to focus on why I am undeserving.
Boy does that hurt - it hurts because it is a repeat of what I always got - in a forum that is focused on help. So I ask for help and get a heaping of why I don't deserve it. That is exactly what I experienced over and over and over as a child, a teen and a young adult. That is why I am spinning in frustration and anger. It is LG who has been stoked in rage. Maybe I can help her. Maybe I can do for her what I am asking you all to do for me. Wow - it is so miserable!
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It gets better, GS...
time, repetition... lots & lots of chances to "practice"... I'm STILL practicing! :D
So go easy on yourself... you don't have to always know why someone pushes your buttons, as long as you know they've been pushed you can help LG dust herself off and go on. Why today? Stress makes everyone more touchy... more vulnerable. So, since I'm not there to make you a cold sweet tea... take a few minutes just to relax... nothing to do right now except enjoy RELIEF and REST a bit. After your brain's a little refreshed...when you've had time for YOU and LG...
then it's time to look FORWARD again... Angela's "loopy" post isn't worth getting stuck in; not when you still need to keep pushing on. You be sure to remind me of that, when I need it, OK?
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I thought I had posted this but I can't find it. I apologize if it is a duplicate.
This lengthy excerpt came from the book PR mentioned in her thread. It is by Claudia Black and it really helps me. I identify with all the parts that I am posting here.
Emotional isolation is also a common experience for children in troubled families. Isolation is particularly damaging because we need a connection with others to create meaning in life. Yet we live life as if in a bubble, shouting, “Hello out there – I’m alive in here! Does anybody hear me?” But no one answers.
As adults we have come to be socially isolated….
Underneath layers of shame you will find that abandonment is at the foundation. Abandonment, as described earlier, may be emotional or physical. But abandonment is most often experienced through various forms of rejection, rejection that has been colored by parental words and actions, some subtle, some not so subtle. It is useful to visualize a continuum, with acceptance at one end, rejection at the other end, and many shades of emotional unavailability or parental indifference to your needs and wants somewhere between.
If parents reject us in any way, we know in our hearts we must not be worthy.
Chronic loss resulting from a mix of rigidity, denial, isolation, and shame – deserves the opportunity to heal.
You were never bad or unworthy, and you are not today. It is my hope that, in time, you will be able to say and to believe in your heart, “I am good. I am adequate. I am worthy.” …. Each insight into your pat and its connection to your present is like turning on the light in a dark room. It doesn’t change what is there, but now that you can see where you are going, you can go in and out freely without harm. Fear no longer drives you – freedom moves you.
When children are raised with chronic loss, without the psychological or physical protection they need and certainly deserve, it is most natural for them to internalize incredible fear. Not receiving the necessary psychological or physical protection equals abandonment. And, living with repeated abandonment experiences creates shame. Shame arises from the painful message implied in abandonment: “You are not important. You are not of value.” Unresolved pain of the past and pain in the present created by past-driven behaviors fuel our fear of abandonment and shame. This is the pain from which we need to heal.
Abandonment is experienced by parental indifference to a child’s needs and wants, or the parents (or other primary caregivers) are emotionally unavailable on an ongoing basis. They do not offer the support and nurturance a child needs.
Abandonment occurs when it is not proper in your family to make a mistake, it is not okay in your family to show feelings, it is not ok in your family to have needs and everyone else’s needs appear to be more important than yours and the only way you even get attention is by attending to the needs of others, and it is not ok to have successes. Accomplishments are not acknowledged, are many times discounted, or even used as ammunition to shame a child.
Other acts of abandonment are when children are held responsible for other people’s behavior. They may be consistently blamed for the actions and feelings of their parents.
Chronic Victimization is the result of when we accept and operate on the shameful messages that we internalized as a result of the abandonment. It is a combination of not believing in our own worth and not developing the skills that go with a belief in our worthiness. Setting limits is one such skill. When we have internalized beliefs, such as “I am not worthy,” “I am not of value,” “Other people are more important than me,” or “Other people are more worthy,” this it is difficult to set limits.
Not believing in their own worth, victims often fail to realize they even have needs and, as a result, do not take care of themselves. The development of the victim response is the result of the belief in personal powerlessness, it is clearly a response to the intense emotional pain in one’s life. It is not only an outcome of helplessness, it is also a kind of defense in that victims believe they may not have as much pain if they give in and relinquish their autonomy to someone else.
Rage as Response to Pain
Rage is the holding tank for accumulated fears, angers, humiliations, and shame. It is for many a response of no longer wanted to endure the pain. Emotionally, rage is an attempt to be heard, seen, and valued when people are most desperate and lacking in other resources.
Most adults from troubled families experience a combination of both unresolved loss and a pessimistic view of life. When we feel our powerlessness, our despair, and our fear, we send ourselves into a downhill spiral so quickly anybody’s head would be spinning.
Rational or Cognitive Responses to Pain
Perfectionism
A common rational or cognitive response to pain is perfectionism. Perfectionism is driven by the belief that if a person’s behavior is per4fect there will be no reason to be criticized and therefore no more cause for pain. However, perfectionism is a shame-based phenomenon because children
Understanding Your Defenses Against Pain
Rage, depression, victimization, addictions, compulsions, perfectionism, and procrastination – these are some of the responses to having lived with fear and pain. Such responses often become protectors. They offer ways to control the pain itself and/or control the source of the pain. Other protectors begin as common, everyday acts, but taken to extremes create negative outcomes in the long run.
To let go of our pain, we must also acknowledge what we have been doing in the present to control our pain. Facing our own painful reality, both past and present, empowers us by giving us choice.
The pain we feel is not only from the past, but also from the past-driven present.
We were powerless in the past, but we are not powerless in the present.
Our pain is our responsibility.
What we do about our pain is a choice we make.
It is such a relief to read someone who completely gets so many of the results of abandonment. This helps me so much to again connect my reactions today with the pain from the past. What am I doing today to control the pain of the past?
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Chronic Victimization is the result of when we accept and operate on the shameful messages that we internalized as a result of the abandonment. It is a combination of not believing in our own worth and not developing the skills that go with a belief in our worthiness. Setting limits is one such skill. When we have internalized beliefs, such as “I am not worthy,” “I am not of value,” “Other people are more important than me,” or “Other people are more worthy,” this it is difficult to set limits.
Boy... is this a good description of what I struggle with! I bolded a couple things....
ACCEPT: the way I "accept" the old, past victimization is through paying heed to the self-abusive statements in my head - at least most of the time. There are other ways, too. Like not asking for what I want, or not setting a boundary, and definitely not giving my self, what I know I need. Gotta always talk back to those messages...
BELIEVING IN OUR OWN WORTH: well... let's see... if it's important that other people have _______________; then WHY NOT ME? Regardless of race, gender, religion or PAST HISTORY... we all have basic human needs and rights. It's not a perfect world, so not everyone has the same things... but we are ALL free to seek to achieve them; pursuit of happiness and all that.
DEVELOPING THE SKILLS: well, this will be a long process; something I know I will be revisiting more than once and it's what I'm working on now... I'm really good at creating boundaries that continue to isolate myself - but inexperienced (tho I'm trying) at creating the kind of flexible boundaries that allow me to connect with others. This is just as delicate a process as if I were a first-grader again (I didn't go to kindergarten) and learning how to interact - play nice - with others. Lots of dusting myself off, learning that it's OK if not everyone likes me... and learning that I betray myself by chameleon-like changing myself to please others for the sake of that "connection".
And LIMITS... well, I've just this week homed in on the fact that I have absolutely no internal boundaries for behavior. Sure I have all the societal, religious, and even personal "shoulds" and "should nots" firmly planted in my brain (maybe too firmly!). But the type of boundaries I'm talking about are limits... and yes, these are connected to feeling that I'm important enough to have limits imposed...
Steven Farmer talks about what "good fathers" provide for their children:
steadiness (consistency?), protectivenss, caring and encouragement
guides, directs, sets limits, encourages and sometimes offers tough, nonabusive love
And through my attachment thread... I discovered a fact that I'd overlooked in all this work, on my relationship with my mom... all told, I have about 20 distinct memories of interacting with my dad before the divorce; THAT'S ALL. The rest of the time, he simply wasn't there in my life. And my T said it - but I misinterpreted her meaning - "you're not scared of him". Well, DUH, Amber! Of course not - he wasn't involved in PARENTING and wasn't setting "limits". My mother simply wouldn't let him; she did everything possible to keep him away from my brother and me. Even as adults, we had to sneak around to go visit my dad - so Mom didn't get mad. JEEEEEZZZ!!!!!
It was always my mom - creating limits and blaming the restriction on my dad - then turning around giving me permission to do "what Daddy would never let you do" - which activity, of course, was completely inappropriate for my age. Not only was that confusing (part of the gaslighting campaign). But I now see that it was all because she was JEALOUS - and not of my dad; she was jealous of ME. Because even as dysfunctional as my dad was, he let me be me - stood up for me to mymother - and I worshipped him. In my eyes, he could do no wrong... and so I accepted the day-to-day and eventually permanent, abandonment by him... and helplessness, worthlessness that went along with abandonment.
Guess I was unwittingly involved in what's now called "alienation of affection" in children of divorce.
But I'll take the rest of this over to my thread. Just tossing this much out for discussion... comparison... connection -
you weren't the only one, GS. Definitely NOT ALONE in these kinds of experiences.
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It was always my mom - creating limits and blaming the restriction on my dad - then turning around giving me permission to do "what Daddy would never let you do" - which activity, of course, was completely inappropriate for my age. Not only was that confusing (part of the gaslighting campaign). But I now see that it was all because she was JEALOUS - and not of my dad; she was jealous of ME. Because even as dysfunctional as my dad was, he let me be me - stood up for me to mymother - and I worshipped him. In my eyes, he could do no wrong... and so I accepted the day-to-day and eventually permanent, abandonment by him... and helplessness, worthlessness that went along with abandonment.
Wow. That is a huge insight. So important that these memories and experiences spill out into the light to be disempowered. Their power over us must be removed. Feel free to put what comes to you here. It relieves me of the feeling of being far too solipsistic.
Claudia Black writes with remarkable insight. Her words are unlocking a number of bound doors for me.
I am on my way out of town for about 10 days. Preparation for such a trip bounds me into a low grade panic and self-condemnation. Not sure of the origins but I have moved into a different place. I am able to recgonize my reaction to the repressed fear/self-condemnation. And through that I can address all of that stuff. This is all so vague and I think I will let it rest. But I am making progress.
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GS...
I hope it's a GOOD trip.
Hope it's a change of scene for good reasons, fun, enjoying being alive and doing something new...
Travel safe!
xo
Hops
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I second Hops' wishes - have a good, pleasant and safe trip. All will fine. I too, get pretty wound up when getting ready to travel... but I'm beginning to see that some of that feeling is simple excitement! I think I've just been programmed to see it as worry & anxiety... so much to think about packing... etc.
Letting things rest for a bit is a good idea, too. It all might look quite different when you return.
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I think this is outrageous:
her fee was $100/hour and that it would take 4 hours. When I said no thank you she said I had a scarcity mentality
I would not engage with this person. It seems to me it is unethical for her to engage with you if she is offering "professional" services which you have refused.
However, perhaps you also should not be inviting her commentary (or responding to it)?
Don't understand the context of your other forum though so forgive me if I speak out of turn.
love
Hops