Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Ami on August 10, 2009, 09:12:22 AM
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I think I am coming to understand the core damage that was done to me.
Everything that was primal was bad---selfishness, jeaoulsy, pettiness, egocentricity etc--according to my NM.*I* became the bad primal nature and she became the good non primal one. I guess this is "splitting".
When I was in nursery school, I remember my M raging that I needed too much love and was too dependent. I thought I was bad for these ( and all) primal needs and wants.
I took HER view of me .
However, there was always a part of me that knew it was not real
There was always a part of me which could see human nature .God made me naturally intuitive ,I think.
I had to throw away my self protective nature in order to survive my parents, who were an N team.
I was like a de-clawed cat in the world. I thought my primal nature was bad and I denied it in others.
I was the de-clawed cat in the world of people who could use THEIR self protective mechanisms
I am still at the place where I feel guilty for primal parts of me and I feel *I* am bad if I see them in others.
I am trying to get unstuck from this place. Ami
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I think I am coming to understand the core damage that was done to me.
Everything that was primal was bad---selfishness, jeaoulsy, pettiness, egocentricity etc--according to my NM.*I* became the bad primal nature and she became the good non primal one. I guess this is "splitting".
When I was in nursery school, I remember my M raging that I needed too much love and was too dependent. I thought I was bad for these ( and all) primal needs and wants.
I took HER view of me .
However, there was always a part of me that knew it was not real
There was always a part of me which could see human nature .God made me naturally intuitive ,I think.
I had to throw away my self protective nature in order to survive my parents, who were an N team.
I was like a de-clawed cat in the world. I thought my primal nature was bad and I denied it in others.
I was the de-clawed cat in the world of people who could use THEIR self protective mechanisms
I am still at the place where I feel guilty for primal parts of me and I feel *I* am bad if I see them in others.
I am trying to get unstuck from this place. Ami
Ami - there is a lot here. I know all of what you are talking about. Our NM's did not mirror for us. They did not mirror us at all, they only wanted the parts of us that affirmed themselves in the way that they wanted to be affirmed. If you, as a child, needed, cried, acting exactly like a child who is full of needs and essentially is in pure need of unconditional acceptance AND love then our NM's denied us; that rejection takes on many forms, facial expressions, harsh judgements, abandonment, rules of silence. We, as child, are highly intuitive...our whole world is about getting our needs met, getting validation, attention, recognition, praise, stimulation etc. it is has you say, if those parts of ourselves are not mirrored as OK, or at least given the room to be worked out in an atmosphere of acceptance then we bury those part of ourselves.
My sister is an excellent mom, she is so tuned in to her children's emotional lives; she accepts them, their oddities, expressions, voices. She sends them a powerful message of freedom in unconditional acceptance; they feel secure in her love of them, that they can be and fully experience the world, their world without so much fear.
It is like you said yesterday perfect love casts out fear. Our Nm's were imperfect love, they could not love, they were living in constant fear and they evoked that fear in us as a way to cope with life and tell us their story. We became their parents before we ever had parents.
Over the years, in therapy, I learned that unconsciously we are trying to tell the world our story of pain, we are aching for someone to give us the space and room and time to share the story, cry the story and have our story of terror and agony as child, who were denied love and then denied ourselves, heard. Our little inner child will go to great lengths to get that story across to others even unconsciously evoking fear in others as a way to tell them about our buried fears or terrors of rejection.
We were objects in our parents eyes. They saw us as an extension of THEIR needs, if we did not mirror for them, then they rejected us. It is a tragedy or was but that part of you, that just knew better, was the part of you that buried yourself, knowing that there would come a time when all of this unfinished business would finally get expression.
The guilt that you are talking about may be about the ways that our mothers used guilt as a weapon on us. I have certainly used guilt as a weapon on people before, very effective. What your mother wanted was for you to love her in the N way. But, whenever we fail our N-parents in not giving them what they wanted they guilt us with further silence or punishment, these messages are hard to break....
Ami - tears break the old tapes for me. Just squeezing all the old pain out, crying deeply and grieving that I was just never loved when I was supposed to be loved the most. The more I cry, hurt with pure ache, the more I can feel grace and hope of healing, real freedom...perhaps one day?
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I connect with you post in this way. Night before last I had a dream about my late husband. In this dream he needed something and it was my job to provide it - just so. I tried - first this way, then another way and on. When I woke up I saw immediately that never in my life experience was I the one someone was trying to please. It is such a part of me that I wonder what it would feel like and how I would react if things should shift - if I were to have a relationship in which there were a true give and take - relationship, friendship - anything!
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Well, don't hold your breath on the relationship thing. I think we have magnets to takers. Even as I am going through this my h was whining about doing the litter. He has never done it. I helped because I felt guilty........guilty? Four years of him never doing it and I am on chemo and feel guilty....
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Oh Ami. I very occasionally read something you write here, and almost always wish I'd read more. I almost completely agree with you, from my own experiences. Where I differ is in the feeling that "I am bad" I think. I too remember nursery school and a particular event where it struck me, age 5, that I was surrounded by nasty little animals. I felt shocked and probably afraid because of their selfishness, their sort of 'blood-lust' reaction. I just knew that everything that was happening around me was so wrong, including what the adults were doing. I didn't feel bad myself. I just felt that I lived in a very cruel world. Thankfully I had someone who loved me for the innate 'light' he saw in me. Or should I say: He saw 'me' and that no doubt saved me.
I recognise some primal parts in me, I don't enjoy the feelings (except perhaps some egocentricity, but even that gets wearing very fast, because it cuts you off from others).
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More...you got me thinking about this stuff, I've been living this.
The N's in my life teach me a lot about myself. For most of my life I have given the N's the power to reflect back to me untruth about me. I have given them the power to guilt me, punish me and take my freedom away. I have bought their lies because that was all I knew to do in my desires to be safe, in my desire to get my needs fulfilled which primarily were to just no be abandoned or rejected. I conformed.
For instance, my roommate teaches me about myself. Yesterday, we ran into each other in the kitchen. in my consideration of her and respect of her needs I told her that our TV is not working and that I am taking steps to get it fixed as well as I empathized with how frustrating it is to sit down to relax in front of the TV and be able to get a cable signal. She told me that she knew the TV was not working, she expressed her frustration. I reminded her that she can always come to me with issues and remind me, express her concern or frustration: I was being kind, and considerate as well as empathetic, a responsible master tenant. She was cold, unsympathetic to whatever could be going on in my life; became defensive taking my virtue and twisted it to a vice to help herself feel better. It was all OK for me. I could not find a reaction in myself that was aggressive or hurting towards her other than to just accept her as she is and where she is in life. I just keep reminding myself that deep down inside she does not feel worthy of having needs, that she is trapped in the pain of needing love and not knowing how to get that love.
What amazes me is just how far I have come. I can live with and N and not be triggered, that is HUGE. Also, instead of buying her lies, her distorted reality, which in the past I would do, I can SEE clearly. The reason that I can see clearly and stand strong is because I have weeded out much of my own N stuff and pain of what it was like to have an N mom. I still have a ways to go, Ami, but noting that progress and being able to allow the N's to reflect back my goodness, truth, rather than reflect back a lie, is progress.
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I think we have magnets to takers.
I love this. So true.
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Seeing clearly is interesting. It sometimes takes me a few double checks and referring back to people I trust, to know that I have seen clearly. I have the instinct/intuition and I'm learning to trust it more - but I still question myself, especially if I think I've seen something clearly and it is 'bad'. I don't want to believe myself. Because....I suppose....it's so depressing, disappointing, sad.
Sometimes it's downright frightening.
Going back to the top, I think I watched other people's self protective mechanisms and learned to copy them - but it hurt to use them. It's survival i guess. I pretended to have that hard shell and it fooled some people - me included.
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Once, as an adult, Ami, I asked my NM why she abandoned me when I was little, she said that it was because I "needed" so much. They tones in the way that she expressed this made me feel ashamed and brought back to life the shame of what it was like to have ALL of myself rejected. Children are needy and there is nothing wrong with that but NM makes us feel so gosh darn WRONG for having needs, as children we identify ourselve with our needs, therefore, we reject ourselve and feel "bad" to the core.
Children who did not get their needs for love met in childhood grow up to act them out on large scale in profession and achievements. (The Classic N stuff). They see their work or profession as an extension of themselves rather than just what it is; if their attachements to work and achievements, postion can be taken away or lost it will shake the foundation of their being rather than be just what it is... a loss. That is why they fight unfair and so hard for what they want in profession or work, they are fighting for their very lives.
You got me on a roll this AM. Thanks for a good topic, I hope it is OK that I have gone off here with so much info?
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I am so happy for all these responses.(((((Portia, Kelly, Lise, GS )))))))) I don't know where to begin.I want to think about the wisdom you all have given me. I,also, would like to ask Portia if she could talk about the person who helped her. XXOOO Ami
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Lise, your responses are so profound and wonderful that I am blown away here just so happy to have a chance to heal. XXXOO Ami
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Ami the person who helped me was my grandfather. I was aware of his loving attention and knew that he enjoyed being with me, enjoyed teaching me and seeing what I did - and I don't remember ever getting the feeling that he wanted something from me for himself. He simply enjoyed my 'being' and that made me feel secure and happy. I remember the feeling clearly. It was unusual. BFNx
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Dear Portia
What is BFN x?
I wanted to ask you if your therapist helped you?
I have a real prejudice about therapists from my own experience. That is why I am asking. XXXOOO Ami
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I feel also like a de-clawed cat in the world
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From your responses about the NM, I can see why my NM didn't wanted me to develop self awareness, a solid self.Portia , you are so right. We had to be the parent from the beginning and were shamed and demeaned if we could not do it.Lise, you are right about the NM rejecting us for needs. If I had a self,I would see her.That self would NOT take it.
Maybe she did it sub or semi consciously but that was the upshot of my life--don't be a self who has self love, dignity and self respect. Be a groveling worm so *I* can get you. That way, *I* can do whatever I want to you and you will be too beaten down to fight back. That is what happened. I can see the shape of it a lttle bit better now thanks to all of you!
GS, I get that cry of "No one to love YOU"
That is the cry of the person who was trained to be an object, a helper of others but was trained to squish down her own needs on penalty of shaming from the N's. "Who do you think YOU are?" XXXXOO Amo
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I have this little flicker of hope,"Maybe, I can be a person?" Ami
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I feel also like a de-clawed cat in the world
This is such a great picture to illustrate than in fact we should be de-clawed, in a sense. To be de-clawed is to not fight back in the spirit of war or malice, like the fully clawed N's, perhaps? But rather when are left without a weapon we are forced to have to defend ourselves by turning into our inner resources of faith, hope and forgiveness -- healing.
I learned over the years a saying that is very helpful for me in the picture letting go...the saying goes "that everything that I have ever let go of in life has claw marks left in it." If I am leaving claw marks of malice in my struggle to let go then I am just not fully de-clawed yet.
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Portia, I developed the "I am bad" at 14, when my F told me my M was "fine". Then, I went in to a kind of shock. I never had it daignosed but I became numb and am only coming out of it now.
If my M were OK, then I had to be bad b/c that was what she told me.
Prior to that, I could see my primal nature and that of others AND protect myself.
I stood up for myself when I needed to. I was not pushed around and even left all my friends when they got in to drugs. However, my F telling me that pushed me over the edge as far as trusting myself to be "human" and not bad. I thought my F would not lie to me but he was the other half of the N team. I just saw that .
Ami
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Portia, I developed the "I am bad" at 14, when my F told me my M was "fine". Then, I went in to a kind of shock. I never had it daignosed but I became numb and am only coming out of it now.
If my M were OK, then I had to be bad b/c that was what she told me.
Prior to that, I could see my primal nature and that of others AND protect myself.
I stood up for myself when I needed to. I was not pushed around and even left all my friends when they got in to drugs. However, my F telling me that pushed me over the edge as far as trusting myself to be "human" and not bad. I thought my F would not lie to me but he was the other half of the N team. I just saw that .
Ami
Your F did not protect you.
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For me, sometimes it's hard to tell when I am digging productively versus when I am ruminating, which is (particularly for females, according to Martin Seligman) a major source of depression.
I think I can only stop the endless recycling of my NM pain (which is NOT to say that the pain didn't have to come out, it did, and it took years)...but I think I can only stop it when I really really understand that NM was, however selfish (and she was less cruel than others here) ... a damaged human being who had been cheated of the authentic happiness a whole or healing person can achieve.
Ultimately, she was witholding nothing I could not learn, with spiritual and community help, to build for myself and those I love.
So ultimately, it was seeing her humanity and forgiving her (not forgetting), that released me to stop the recycling.
Bluntly, it was also her death. But even before that, I was learning to no longer suffer over her inability to love.
xo
Hops
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I was learning to no longer suffer over her inability to love.
Thanks Hops.
I have learned to no longer suffer over my NM's inability to love me by learning to suffer the losses, by fully facing all the pain, it is in my pain that I have found that forgiveness for her and understanding, as you articulated well.
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Hops, I don't know if you were refering to me or my thread as ruminating but I don't see it that way .
I need to figure out my life patterns until my life works better.
Ami
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Your F did not protect you.
What do you mean, Lise? Ami
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Portia, I developed the "I am bad" at 14, when my F told me my M was "fine". Then, I went in to a kind of shock. I never had it daignosed but I became numb and am only coming out of it now.
If my M were OK, then I had to be bad b/c that was what she told me.
Prior to that, I could see my primal nature and that of others AND protect myself.
I stood up for myself when I needed to. I was not pushed around and even left all my friends when they got in to drugs. However, my F telling me that pushed me over the edge as far as trusting myself to be "human" and not bad. I thought my F would not lie to me but he was the other half of the N team. I just saw that .
Ami
Ami,
Your father was supposed to protect you, that is what good fathers do. He invalidated you, your reality and what you were experiencing with a very N mom. Can you see that he never protected you emotionally, perhaps he protected you financially which is the classic bread winner role that fathers believe is all they have to do but a "healthy" father will care for your emotional well being as well as your physical needs. You were a child still and yet it was ALL on you to stand up for yourself, what a burden of pain and loss...? Our parents are supposed to stand up for us, especially when we are being abused, does that make sense?
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WOW THANKS I always blamed myself.I never saw it that way. ((((Lise)))))) Ami
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Ami, I was referring to myself.
Hops
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I am glad you have found s/thing that works, Hops. Ami
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Ami, your word choice "declawed cat" is really powerful. I can feel that.
It is basic for people/living organisms to be able to protect themselves, since infants and young children are not strong enough to protect themselves, their parents (if the parents were healthy) would have done that. I think of how big and strong adults are and then little kids, kids just don't have a chance against N parents. I don't think there is anything we as children of Nar-parents could have done to protect ourselves.
Sometimes I think I get down on myself for that- for not being stronger. It was probably impossible.
I think that is a really big thing, the : "my parents did not protect me".
It's even worse when one has to be protected from one's own parents, that is like a double whammy.
While I was writing this, I recall a time when I thought I was like a boiled-baby-mouse. I guess that was the weakest image my mind could come up with, and that image and feeling kept coming to me when I was living at home.
I don't feel that way anymore, I still have problems but I'm glad that I'm not a boiled baby-mouse anymore.
As an adult learning how to "stand up for myself" as they say, has been a struggle, I think this is directly a result of having once been a boiled baby mouse. People say its "social skills", I sometimes wonder if it is not a whole body-aura thing. People who stand up for themselves seem to have an invisible field around them. Because not only do they stand up for themselves but they don't often become Identified as a target.
Healthy parents want and teach their kids to be strong. It's like N parents want to keep their kids weak or something. After all the N parents wouldn't want their kids to "over power" them.
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People who stand up for themselves seem to have an invisible field around them. Because not only do they stand up for themselves but they don't often become Identified as a target.
This reminded me of what happened to me when I first began learning to stand up for myself, that was back in my twenties. I was a alcohalic Nish person before I became a recovering one, not all N's are bad and the more that I heal the more I see how powerfully negative labeling can be. I am guilty of it, it comes from a place of contempt which I have found has many hiding places in my heart. Anyways...back to standing up for ourselves. I had a spiritual mentor who taught me how to do it....
I was working in a cafe and there was a coworker who was cold and rude to me, she was getting under my skin making my job unbearable. I went to my spiritual mentor (in AA we call them sponsors) and asked her what to do. She told me that I owed this coworker and amends...I was like "NO WAY she is mean to me!" But my sponsor told me that I was not being honest with her by not telling her my feelings about the way that she was speaking to her, therefore, I was not giving her a chance to improve herself as well as I was deceiving her which is always hurtful to us. She told me to go to her in a light hearted spirit but from a very sincere place letting her know that I had been wrong to her to not speak up sooner but that I was feeling hurt by the way that she spoke to me. It took a lot of courage on my part but I did it. The coworker was shocked to know that she was hurting me, she was not even aware, or at least she pretended that in defense, but everything changed after our short conversation, she was always respectful to me and never again rude. It blew me away. It changed me...
it was like one act of spine started a spontaneous growth of more spine without me having to do anything more. It seemed for many years that I went through life with that spine sign on my back rather than the doormat sign on my back.
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People who stand up for themselves seem to have an invisible field around them. Because not only do they stand up for themselves but they don't often become Identified as a target.
This reminded me of what happened to me when I first began learning to stand up for myself, that was back in my twenties. I was a alcohalic Nish person before I became a recovering one, not all N's are bad and the more that I heal the more I see how powerfully negative labeling can be. I am guilty of it, it comes from a place of contempt which I have found has many hiding places in my heart. Anyways...back to standing up for ourselves. I had a spiritual mentor who taught me how to do it....
I was working in a cafe and there was a coworker who was cold and rude to me, she was getting under my skin making my job unbearable. I went to my spiritual mentor (in AA we call them sponsors) and asked her what to do. She told me that I owed this coworker and amends...I was like "NO WAY she is mean to me!" But my sponsor told me that I was not being honest with her by not telling her my feelings about the way that she was speaking to her, therefore, I was not giving her a chance to improve herself as well as I was deceiving her which is always hurtful to us. She told me to go to her in a light hearted spirit but from a very sincere place letting her know that I had been wrong to her to not speak up sooner but that I was feeling hurt by the way that she spoke to me. It took a lot of courage on my part but I did it. The coworker was shocked to know that she was hurting me, she was not even aware, or at least she pretended that in defense, but everything changed after our short conversation, she was always respectful to me and never again rude. It blew me away. It changed me...
it was like one act of spine started a spontaneous growth of more spine without me having to do anything more. It seemed for many years that I went through life with that spine sign on my back rather than the doormat sign on my back.
I am in the process of TRYING to get my spine back. I did have it once. Sometimes I can get it now but it does not feel natural. I feel guilty usually like I am not worth standing up for myself but as I do it, it feels more right. Ami
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Ami -
After that onetime experience of standing up for myself,in my twenties, I grew. But years later, my spine shrunk again. It was if that first experience of learning to stand up with myself helped externally, but deep inside I was still mush. I have had to learn how to grow a spine from every angle.
It is not easy standing up for ourselves but it does get easier the more we internally stand up for ourselves in owning the pain that was given to us by our parents. That was something, way back when, that I has just barely begun to do.
The girl in the cafe that I stood up to was a nice person, not Nish, who was just acting out some of her stuff with me, testing me, after our conversation there was always warmth between us, it was a successful experience, lucky that it was my first time.
Then there have been times when I stand up for myself and it provokes hostility from the person with whom I am trying to be honest with. Like my roommate, the therapist, others...my mom. There is no defending yourself with the N's. Last year, while reading the book of Proverbs I came across one that says "do not provoke an angry man", something like that. It made me think about how angry N's are, I know because I found that N wound of anger in me and I have been wanting to and have lashed out in revenge, at times. Reflecting on that proverb got me turning inward again in learning out to cope with N's, turning to the gospel for guidance as well. The remedy I found was more humility in understanding rather than being understood, patience, kindness, tolerance and acceptance. These have not been easy because the N behavior of others can trigger me, but overtime I just kept employing these defenses instead of my old defenses and it has gotten easier. Ultimately, love is a shield that is impenetrable - I still need to be reminded of that, daily.