Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: sKePTiKal on August 25, 2009, 09:38:16 AM
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OK, this gives me chills - and y'all know I can "go" a bunch of strange places without getting the willies. I'm putting this out here for comments, explanations, maybe you've had a similar experience... or heard of something like this.
My T cautioned me to not ever breathe a word of Twiggy's story to my brother, without really explaining why. Not one word or even referring to, or alluding to from me - so far. I did tell my mom, that I was remembering things, and at the time, she said I wouldn't remember them "right"... sigh. But I never told her what I was remembering.
So... my brother's life/marriage is imploding. My SIL has anorexic tendencies - and since being unemployed has become unapproachable, intolerant, paranoid, depressed, blaming and very controlling/abusive with the kids. Just what that level is, I have no way of knowing, for sure - tho' I have witnessed a couple things myself that fit the "pattern". When my mom first started telling me about all this... I figured she was just projecting again... onto my SIL. Not good - but also not my problem. So, I attempted to rationalize with my mom... find explanations for SIL's behavior that would make sense... once again, trying to "keep the peace" in the situation... but from a safe distance. That probably wasn't the best thing... it's a reflex... because my mom tries to make ordinary things out to be horrible, horrible stuff.
But it's clear, from my brother's comments and his demeanor last week that he is very afraid, worried, upset - and paralyzed in indecision. I put that down to his worries over a possible divorce. And then, I talked to my mom who described my SIL's behavior - almost exactly Twiggys'/my story - being played out in the present situation, with SIL playing the part of my mother and my niece in my part of the story. And it dawned on me: my mom is reliving that whole experience - there is no line between then/now for her - except she is telling me what she SHOULD have done; and what I should have done - i.e., contradict my mom's "Big Lie"; in the process of trying to problem-solve in the present... almost as if she in is the position I was in - then. That is the part that I don't know what to call it - my mom's reliving from another person's perspective. Apparently, she isn't making up or making more of my SIL's behavior.
Bizarro-strangeo... it gives me chills, because my mom is asking me for advice and validation, for the present situation... and in some strange parallel universe... this is validating my own experience from the person whose hands I suffered at. My brother is just beginning to ask for help, also. It's clear he can't bring himself to talk about it - I'm sure there are triggered emotions for him, as well. I see it in his eyes and his inattention during important conversation... the dissociation and pre-occupation with something completely unrelated. He is not present in the room.
They appear to be reliving that whole original situation: Twiggy's nightmares. My boundaries about this, got drawn a while back and so far are holding, but this is SOOOOO creepy... and I really don't want to "get any on me", you know? Not EVEN if there is validation for my own experience twisted up in the whole mess. I keep telling my mom, that it's up to my brother to deal with it (drawing a boundary for her) and that she needs to keep reminding him that he can't keep avoiding the issues - for the kids' sake - time is of the essence. Either everyone seek treatment, which would be a very good thing... or remove the kids from the abuse... which does of course, spill over onto my brother and mother... or both or somewhere in between - but he can't run away from and stuff the problems, because it will only get worse.
Anyway, I just wondered if anyone else had watched their mom go through something like this... it's totally spooky, icky and I'm keeping my 10 foot pole close by.
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Oh, ((Amber.....))
what a difficult confusing painful situation.
I bet it feels like a familiar dream to you.
Mo2
ps I hope your brother's family can get therapy soon.
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it dawned on me: my mom is reliving that whole experience - there is no line between then/now for her - except she is telling me what she SHOULD have done; and what I should have done - i.e., contradict my mom's "Big Lie"
I don't blame you at all for having creeped-out feelings on this one. Totally natural and right.
Yet it also (parallel) struck me as something healing, rightening.
(NOT that your M would ever "confess" or try in a mature, conscious way to make amends...but that in some part of her being, something is somehow trying to struggle to the surface and make it "right".)
It kind of reminds me that even deeply within disordered people, there can be an ethical or balancing psyche function that does try to reach the surface.
I don't think you should be involved or harmed by this -- your distance is the right one, wherever you set it.
But it gave me a moment of hope for your mother.
love,
Hops
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PR,
Mystery and suspense! There was more of it during my seven years of hell than all the years before. Pain aside, walking through it brought valuable redeemiing gifts I would have never dreamed of. You have your gift of insightfulness and wisdom to draw from in this new situation.
I think my mom had a different way to 'replay' past scenarios with different players. I'll have to think about that one.
tt
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Thanks...
I'm OK, Mo2... like Hops, I think there is some weird trying to make amends, going on here. I've been "medium chill" with mom for a few years now... so it's not like I get a daily dose of the "latest". She seems truly concerned for the welfare of my brother & his children... (ok... the irony of her sharing this with ME... ok, I get it... it doesn't hurt, really... she is totally not aware and still in denial about me)
I was sorta hoping that maybe someone could see this as a specific symptom of something... to help me understand her weirdness.
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Hiya, Phoenix,
I'm glad to hear you are receiving some form of validation even if in an odd way, maybe?
So your mother is watching your sister in law and niece's relationship unfold. Your mother is identifying with the niece, who is in the role of victim. By doing this your mother is identifying with twiggy's role and hence validating you in a way because she is expressing some understanding of what the victim experiences. Your mother is communicating her thoughts about how the situation needs to be remedied. It's strange for you because you are seeing that your mother has some recognition of what is happening. Is this correct?
Maybe because she is seeing it happen to your sis in law and niece, she can recognize it because it is removed from her.
She is in denial herself on some level, but when she sees it outside of herself she can recognize it because it's remote.
I can relate to my Nar-mother making ordinary things into horrible things.
I can relate to witnessing my brother's life/marriage falling apart and my Nar-relatives strange part in that.
There probably is some level of abuse going on with my brother's kids, he says that his wife hits them. I just have bad feelings about the whole situation for the kids. I have never met the kids or his ex-wife, they all live in a different state. It's very sad.
I'm not certain I have ever seen my mother go through the reliving from the other side. (parallel universe!)
Both my aunt and mother have said that they were neglected when they were kids and my mother even regressed I think when I tried to speak to her about her childhood one time. My aunt and mother also say how horrible one of their step father was. My aunt actually got in fist fights with him I think. Sounds a bit different then what you are seeing unfold.
My only guess, maybe way off, is that yes the Nar-people have experienced both sides, both the abuser and the receiving of the abuse and so they do know both sides. When they themselves act out the part of the abuser they are in denial of what they are doing.
I'm glad to hear that your boundaries are holding up against the storm.
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I'm not certain how relevant this is to your situation.. but I thought of this.
So I remember this passage from a book about abuse that stated this: When a person is abused and there is no witness or no person to say that it is wrong they themselves become abusers also. When a person is abused and there is a third person/witness or perspective to tell the receiver of the abuse that it's wrong then the receiver becomes a victim rather then an abuser.
I have no idea about the making amends part.
I personally think that I am better off if I never expect a real apology from my mother.
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Hi PR,
Apparently, she isn't making up or making more of my SIL's behavior.
Just stabbing in the dark here, PR, but have there been other times (not related to family stuff or her past behavior) when she 'other-examined' correctly, or is this situation an isolated event where her reasoning of it doesn't involve exageration and mis representation of the facts?
tt
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I notice my mom sliding back into repeat...........it is almost like they go back where they are comfortable. Rather than stepping out of a dysfunction they embrace it...
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tt - that's it, really. She so sees only the worst and is so paranoid & suspicious about others... that I generally discount her assessment of people and situations. It's as if she's in a completely other reality than the one most people inhabit; my brother rather tends that way also. Some of that is just B&W thinking... some of that is a need to be "right" about someone, that doesn't consider someone's action in the context of a specific situation - do one bad thing and they are bad people. There is no separation of behavior and the "character" of the person... doing equals the person. Is that a form of objectifying?
And some of that is mom projecting her opinion of right/wrong and some absolute "right" feeling or behavior and expecting others to be exactly like her and feel just like her, at all times. Again, as if the other person doesn't have the right to thoughts & feelings that are different from hers... (I seriously feel for my SIL having to live with my mom & my brother for 10 years... it's only complicated and triggered her own issues, no doubt.)
Yes Helen, I believe that even earlier than my mom's marriage to my dad (and that's another story) she experienced some kind of traumatic abuse. I have wild theories, but nothing concrete has ever been said - that I can remember - to that effect. The closest I've been able to come to defining her mental illness is BPD. Borderline Personality Disorder. I do remember, though, that she wasn't this way from birth. We were looking through some of my mom's old stuff in my Grandma's attic - prom formals, tap dance outfits, horse stuff, paint by number supplies... and my grandma made the statement that she never understood why my mom was so outgoing, happy and creative and why that just stopped abruptly. I don't remember if my mom even answered her.
I'm not obsessing on this or concerned... yet. I do need the practice on boundaries, myself. Especially with them... since it seems they're allowed to set boundaries that others must respect... but god forbid, I should set one and expect it to be respected. It's truly challenging - and Kelly, I can just imagine how exhausted you've become trying to run a business with your mother. Every interaction I have with my brother it's like I'm talking to a different person. He doesn't recall what went on in important meetings a week ago or decisions that we made... and then launches into an attack on me... because he thinks I'm doing something "out of bounds" or behind his back. Sigh.
Taking on the alligators - wading into the midst of them - and trying to run a business and function with an unrecovered FOO isn't for everyone. I almost ran away from the whole situation. Total fear threatened to overwhelm me at one point a few months ago... when my brother's behavior set off my alarms and I realized the "horror of the situation", for me. I can still be triggered, based on certain things from my old experiences. But Twiggy wouldn't let me run away. So, I'm trying to put everything I've learned to use, to keep myself "safe", to deal with them when I have to, and still fight my way to good decisions despite all the old crap I'm being forced to wade through... and the deflections I have to make when the turd-bombs come my way. And on that to-do list is ALSO be happy more and enjoy myself, as much as possible. It's been happening, more and more often. I'm not nearly as anxious as I might sound about the future of this challenge.
Just crossing bridges as I get to them... still chopping wood and carrying water... and still remembering who I'm dealing with, to minimize the surprise attacks... and minimize the tendency to link now and the past, emotionally. To just let the old stuff go and deal with now. I guess I needed something that wasn't easy to try to do.
:D
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When Helen writes,
So your mother is watching your sister in law and niece's relationship unfold. Your mother is identifying with the niece, who is in the role of victim. By doing this your mother is identifying with twiggy's role and hence validating you in a way because she is expressing some understanding of what the victim experiences. Your mother is communicating her thoughts about how the situation needs to be remedied. It's strange for you because you are seeing that your mother has some recognition of what is happening. Is this correct?
Maybe because she is seeing it happen to your sis in law and niece, she can recognize it because it is removed from her.
She is in denial herself on some level, but when she sees it outside of herself she can recognize it because it's remote.
I think she hits the nail on the head. I do hope you can experience this as validation for Twiggy because her mother clearly knows the behavior is wrong even if she cannot acknowledge it as her own. I can imagine how bewildering it is for you. Hold those boundaries tightly. This is not your battle unless you choose to step in. Your first obligation is to yourself and yours.
Thinking of you friend - GS
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Hi PR,
Objectifying? Would the M O be complete without objectification?
Do you suppose a melt down of the three, your mom, brother, and SI is eminent?
Could your father's passing be strongly tied into the behaviors you're seeing?
I don't know, PR. Time is often a slow story teller.
tt
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ah, tt... and there are mysteries about life that are precious, simply because they are mysteries! It will be interesting to see what happens later on, with them, because there is also a strong aversion to change - any change - in both brother and mother. My mom always saw my dad as an evil boogey-man (he wasn't THAT bad)... it's a little difficult to be a victim, unless there is an evil perpetrator to blame, right?
GS - yes, Helen sees far and clearly! Twiggy is a bit bewildered about the validation coming in this fashion - but she's holding it, nevertheless. She knows this is probably as close to an apology, as she'll ever get... and she's thinking it might just be good enough, under the circumstances.
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(NOT that your M would ever "confess" or try in a mature, conscious way to make amends...but that in some part of her being, something is somehow trying to struggle to the surface and make it "right".)
It kind of reminds me that even deeply within disordered people, there can be an ethical or balancing psyche function that does try to reach the surface.
But it gave me a moment of hope for your mother.
Amber -- I agree with hops on this, what he wrote above. That was my first intuition when I read your post. It also came to me that our family dynamic shifts when just one person seeks truth to get well, as you have done over the years. It may take a long time, but if one of us in the family gets well the rest of the family, unconsciously, may start to seek wellness or at least make a slight shift in that direction. It has happened in my family, many times.
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So I thought about this situation a little more and remembered this:
When my brother was going through his divorce, my mother read a book about how divorce impacts children. I guess my mother was concerned or something about her grandkids, who knows, maybe someone loaned her the book and she read it out of duty.
It's totally out of character for my mom to read this sort of stuff. She mentioned to me that she had been reading the book, and it ALMOST sounded like there may have been a little window that opened up in her consciousness momentarily and then closed up again.
Like possibly when she was reading the book she realized that her behavior had an impact on me and my brother. I have decided for my self that she does not give a F*ck. That she does know.
She still has her behavior habits and her denial. It was a little blip on the map.
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From:
http://www.lisaescott.com/forum/2009/06/28/conscience-self-preservation-narcissist
The Narcissist has NO warning system, no internal traffic signals, no alarm bells. The narcissist does what he wants regardless of the pain he or she is inflicting upon others. The only time the narcissist might consider his options is whether or not he will be inconvenienced and therefore unable to continue his games in society, he does not stop for guilt he does not stop for shame , nor remorse. The green light is always ON for the disordered it is "One for all and all for one" with the psychopath.
Kathy Krajco said:
"When you cannot resist, you at least have the comfort of knowing that there was nothing you could do. But when you have the power to put up some resistance and don't - when you in effect say, "Here, take me and do what you will with me" - you feel like an abject worm."
"For, what does it mean when a person accepts pain for another's pleasure? That goes against the instinct for self-preservation. So what happens to the victim's self? The victim no longer belongs to him- or her-self. The victim is possessed by the abuser. Like an arm or leg of his for him to use or abuse as he pleases. It is the ultimate degradation..."
The bolded phrases are identical to bits of Twiggy's story... words she herself used telling her story. Something big is being pried loose; falling off. Why is it, just when you think "you've got it" - there's more?
"Introjection" is shown whenever an individual treats him or her-self as he or she was treated by important others... If the parents do not care about them, children are unlikely to care about themselves....If parents blame them, then they blame themselves.
from: http://books.google.com/books?id=Ht8wJUfrSNMC&pg=RA1-PA200&lpg=RA1-PA200&dq=introjection+disorder&source=bl&ots=88ULsz_0Zr&sig=QMloD9u12D7QQZ8ErnDmrqQHfUc&hl=en&ei=7f6XSsOzKofglAfCxOi_BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10#v=onepage&q=introjection%20disorder&f=false
Introjection most often has a partner: Projection.
Whatever it is that Twiggy/I am thinking... it's non-verbal right now. But these quotes are all important clues - puzzle pieces - that are trying to tell me something. It's all coming together in the context of watching this repetition in my brother's situation - my mom's weird involvement/experience - and the work I've been doing on intention + smoking.
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Why is it, just when you think "you've got it" - there's more?
the truth of this statement is a dagger to my soul.
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yeah! I know what you mean...
but I meant it in the good sense... something is getting "fixed"... not more yucky stuff.
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Hi PR,
I think Introjection may have nailed it. Here's another article: http://www.helium.com/items/1269517-introjection-and-projection-techniques-of-the-narcissist-npd-how-to-recognize-narcissistic-abuse
tt
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Introjection and Projection are powerful tools against unsuspecting victims, and may seem less real, and thus less important if left unidentified. Naming these tactics can help to negate their power, and expose them as a charlatan's trick.
Introjection
Introjection occurs where a subject takes into itself the behaviors, attributes or other external objects, especially of other people.
A common pattern is where a child introjects aspects of parents into its own persona.
According to Freud, the ego and the superego are constructed by introjecting external behavior into the subject's own persona.
This can be a defense mechanism where one takes on attributes of a strong other person who is able to cope with the current threat. It is based on an unconscious phantasy of ingestion.
Introjection is not as primitive as incorporation, as it often involved drawing an object in, but not incorporating it into the body. An introjected object is drawn into the 'inner circle', but can still have a life of its own.
Introjective identification is the taking in of someone else's good objects. This occurs with people we like or admire.
Introjection is thus 'input' into the internal world from the outer world.
Incorporation is derived from the Latin incorporare, meaning ‘to form into a body'. It is perhaps the most basic form of taking the outside world into the inner world, being focused on bodily sensation and ingestion.
Although this need not mean actual bodily ingestion, this term is used to explain the way that incorporation is experienced and conceived. By bringing something into the body, I make it undeniably a part of the physical, solid and real me. Once incorporated, it cannot be separated from me, but I can choose what to do with it, including destroying or expelling it. ... Freud used incorporation to refer to a primitive wish to unite with or cannibalistically destroy an object.
Thank you, tt... I'm still not sure where I'm going with this; only that I feel it's really important. It's one of those things that I have to let settle around me and see how it "fits"... and whether it "fits".
GOD... I just had an AWFUL thought: OK, more than one... really quickly, so that it seemed like one thought...PLEASE don't think I'm crazy...
for some time, I've felt like I am reliving Twiggy's year - the one with all the trauma in it... including the "shunning" phase... and the final "putting Twiggy in the box". Anniversary dates are flashing by; my aunt who helped me so much died in June '69... the July 4, 1969 flood, Woodstock - 8-15-69... and of course, around this week or perhaps next week, I would've started school and the "deed" had been done to Twiggy. Chronology has been immensely important to me throughout all the healing process, because the dissociation I suffered got things all mixed up in order. July/August would've been the time I split all of my emotions off - put Twiggy in the box.
I just had the most intense emotional experience last week; grieving for an old friend who died last year. We were laughing at video of his standup comedy - he was totally hilarious in a "not politically correct" way. We were reminiscing - and I suppose grieving all the life and losses of the last 40 years between us. He was married to my best friend... I've known her since the 7th grade; met her in fact, around this time in 1969. We spent the evening diving into all kinds of emotional past history with each other... and my cigarettes "magically" didn't get smoked. I had almost a full pack the next morning. (Hops - take note! there might be something to my theory about emotions/smoking and SAFETY...)
I spoke to my brother last night, and he brought up the fact that he may be separating from his wife sooner rather than later. I begged him to take his kids with him. He told me the details... of what my mother had referred to, when I started this thread... he had pulled out old video/home movies of my niece who was clowning around and being silly in the shower. Everyone was laughing, but my nephew couldn't contain himself - he got the giggles and couldn't stop. It's one of the true joys of being alive at any age, right? Well, that just set my SIL off - and she started spanking him, telling him stop-stop-stop... that he was being mean; there was nothing funny about laughing at someone like that... he shouldn't be laughing at ALL... it was insulting - i.e., it was insulting HER. Poor kid had no idea what he did, that was so wrong - everyone else, except her - was laughing.
This is what my mother was referring to; that was "so wrong"... that the kid would start to blame himself 'coz his mother has issues. Like my mother - 40 years ago - with me.
I have this really bizarre sense of watching - from the outside - what happened to me 40 years ago, happen all over again. I don't like it...(hell, it's starting to trigger something) but I also don't feel like I'm completely in control of it. Something in me IS getting fixed, but I don't know what. I keep reminding myself... that there is a boundary I can't cross... it's my brother's family situation; not mine... but I keep feeling prompted into action... responsibility...
... but it's all in some subtexted, subliminal, underlying blender of "coincidence", "synchronicity", and emotion. And what - besides the usual innocent victim role she assumes - is my mother's part in that whole scenario?? In creating the situation. Even my brother remarked how he felt like my Dad who lived with constant, all-out war between his wife and his mother... repetition AGAIN... and I told him to get the kids away where they could be themselves, without fear... and to stop working so much and just spend time with the kids.
OK, before this blows into a complete panic attack... I'm going to let it go for the time being. That thing that seems to be triggered & looming over me, is the sense of "foreboding doom" that Twiggy had 40 years ago, that presaged her disappearance until a couple years ago. I just hope that this is pure speculative fear... and that there isn't something more in these odd coincidences and repetitions - in the pattern - that I should be more conscious of and am decidedly not, right now.
I think I'm just plain old spooked by the similarities.
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Hi PR,
This might be a stupid question and I don't know if it will spark any insight into your mother or your SIL, but if you'd been able to say one thing to your mother 40 years ago when you put Twiggy in the box, what would it have been? What would you have preferred her response to be?
tt
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Steady on, girl.
YOU ARE OKAY.
Here's what I'm thinking...
as spooky as it feels, it is actually normal as mud for cycles like this to echo down the generations.
Even wierdly down to details, echoes, similarities, synchronicities, odd little things that are like ripples, all spreading out from the same tossed rock.
(An emotionally disabled parent is like a rock, tossed into the pool of a child's psyche...)
I think you are right that very sad things are happening in your brother's family.
But it is not happening to you, and the reverberations might be confusing you into thinking it's happening to you again. It's NOT.
It makes great sense...think about animals, how the kits and pups and such grow up to walk like, have the same yip as, weird funny personalized habits or movements as, the parent animal. It's uncanny, and behavioral stuff is no different...it ripples on out into time.
BUT YOU ARE WELL, AMBER.
I am very sorry for the kids, and for him. What they need, if anything makes sense, is a NON-disabled aunt.
If you can be steady and detached for them, sure, you can try to be a safe place, an anchor, or a sounding board.
But I hazard you know you can't do that if it is going to undermine your health that you have worked so hard and so valiantly to build.
You did build it, too. Your healing's no mirage.
And the other thing...you are one strong, intelligent, creative, gifted, phenomenal human being. Look what you've been through. You are life on legs.
And your niece and nephew have inherited the good stuff too. They can weather their lives. I promise.
They'll love having Aunt Amber, too. Having her well and sane and serene in their lives, when that can be.
'Kay? You take care of yourself, please...
love,
Hops
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Thanks, sweeties...
I realize I have to shift my gaze to something else for a bit... increase the distance in my boundary with brother, just enough, to let myself breathe... and let this settle, for the time being. It's not going anywhere, now is it? This past month, we've had daily conversations... business related, mostly... but still: I feel like a fish and there is bait, lures, being subtly wafted past me to get me "hooked" into the game again. That's the source of my panic, for sure - so hey - I have learned how to avoid that and can protect myself. ALWAYS they've taken advantage of the fact that I care... always, that's been my weakness; I can still care - but that doesn't mean giving up all to help.
Once I've rested, refreshed, and started looking out into my own changed future (we're property shopping at the beach, end of Sept) then it'll be time to see what is lurking under this rock. Maybe I'll be able to return to this in a few days... or weeks. It's not going anywhere.
THANK YOU.
tt: I would've said:
"THERE. I did what you want. NOW are you happy??"
and she would've criticized something, or mumbled something to herself, or somehow found a way to completely ignore me.
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But it is not happening to you, and the reverberations might be confusing you into thinking it's happening to you again. It's NOT.
Thanks for this, Hops. It steadied things for me. I am still "digesting" and ruminating on this... a little at a time...
the whole situation of projection, introjection, incorporation and transference is what Twiggy described as being in a world of
"fun house mirrors". I suppose it's also related to the time frames I've described as "dissociation", too... in places. Twiggy happened onto a Life mag article back then, that described people's first experiences with LSD... and she could definitely understand, because of the "fun house mirrors".
I need to let Twiggy think about those quotes/definitions above. And then she can tell me... explain it all... to herself and to me.
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Yer very welcome, hon.
Love and steadying hugs to da both of you.
xxoo
Hops
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Your SIL's really whacked, Amber.
Assaulting a child for laughing :(
I feel so badly for him.
Mo2
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Beating a 5-year-old for BEING a 5-year-old?!?!?
That is SICK and TWISTED!!!!!
Bones
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I think I'm just plain old spooked by the similarities.
I think this is an opportunity - for more profound healing. It is not easy, not welcomed but it is here and Twiggy is being summoned again. You are stronger than you have been before. Now, with renewed strength, you are being summoned to go back in and observe. Stay with PR in her newly developed understanding and strength and be there for Twiggy but do not meld back into Twiggy. Twiggy will be summoning you in like a powerful vortex but you do not need to give in to her siren call. Stand firm as PR today and observe and in that place you can actually summon Twiggy out of her danger and comfort and heal her.
This is part of the healing. But keep focused and clear and do not enmesh with Twiggy again. You do not need to in order to have a clear perspective on how to guide her and hold her and comfort her and empathize with her. That is where the healing will come - from you remaining objectively PR.
Love to you and courage.
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Agreed, Mo2 and Bones... sick and twisted indeed.
But that is what happens to a child who is supposed to accept the projected thoughts & feelings - dare I say identity?? - of an abusive parent. They are punished for being themselves - and punished in subtler ways - for doing what the parent unconsciously demands: to be as maladjusted, emotionally dead, and self-destructive as the abuser him/herself. And the child simply doesn't have the tools to know what is happening to him or her... it's beyond their realm of possibility or concept, except in sci-fi, horror movies, superstition, or fairy tales.
Hops & TT:
I've pressed on with this topic... in my journal. I am closer than ever to understanding and being able to talk about it, coherently. The fear is receding quickly, with it's tail between it's legs. Got it's nasty ass kicked. I'm gonna have a lot to say, pretty soon... maybe a retelling of Twiggy's story from the framework of introjection, incorporation, transference and projection. I was right; there was something HUGE that's being pulled off this time - and there was a reason for my morbid obsession with the topics of those quotes. Right now, the huge thing is still trying to suffocate me under it's weight... but at least I now have clarity of who/what the "enemy" is... and how to neutralize it, more effectively this time.
In the meantime, I have a new mantra... "joyful abandonment". It'll have to remain cryptic, until I have time to fully explain... but it's all good.
GS: I found the second loop within the doublebind... the loop within the loop... and I'm able to hack the programming code, to disable it. And it's absolutely essential that I embrace Twiggy - she IS ME, after all. I will explain fully, once it all settles into place... the whole POINT is to be Twiggy; Twiggy all grown up now.
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I do see what you mean. You go into Twiggy to bring her forward to adulthood.
I am doing similar and yet opposite - taking grown me into the childhood memory and revisioning it. I was putting out my own fear of being sucked back into that wretched vortex of powerlessness, hopelessness, willingness to attach myself to the ship which appears so secure and yet is sinking fast.
When you are able please write about the loop within the loop. I am in the midst, working with the code, working on cracking it - the second loop of the doublebind. It is a solitary plights and yet I do feel as though there is a parallel universe in which you are working on a chore so similar and I feel connected.
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I hoped you wouldn't take that badly, GS. I was posting rather quickly; not much time yesterday. I am grateful for the concern you expressed... and yes, I did stand staring over the edge of that cliff for a couple of days. But there isn't a reason anymore for me - or Twiggy - to dive back into and revive all the old horrible, emotional stuff. We've done enough of that, now. It's important to note that not all of my experiences or emotions as Twiggy - were like that. There was much, much more that was positive, life-affirming, connected to life and people and the spiritual or mystic. There was a confidence, physical ability & grace, openness and curiosity, compassion and a sense of social justice to Twiggy that got "snuffed out" when she was overcome and forced into her living tomb of a box.
There is much about Twiggy that I want back, in my lilfe now. It's like Shel Silverstein's "Missing Piece". I am whole, if I am cognizant of being her. And ALL of her feelings, thoughts and interests - not just that one period that got blanked out, shoved in a dark box and forgotten about because it was so horrible; unbearable at the time... and only called down punishment on me for trying to trying to work it out by myself, in my trial & error way, alone. As awful as that was, I can now "bear" that... and doing so, acknowledges Twiggy... what she survived... and allowed her to continue her "growing up"... and do her own healing. Twiggy's come a long, long way in a few short years.
There was one big life-changing "mistake" that Twiggy made back then. Given the situation, the context and the circumstances it was a forgiveable mistake or decision; but the fact remains that there was pressure and force involved in the making of that decision - that mistake. Twiggy fought like hell to come up with another alternative, but that only increased the pressure, demands, force and punishments levied against her. And eventually, she was overcome... she had exhausted all her strength, determination, resiliency and resources... and eventually, she went away into the "the box".
The mistake was that SHE went into the box instead of just the memories of what she had and was suffering. She completely gave up in the face of her mother's intrusive projections and transference about what to think, what to feel, who she really was. She simply didn't have the energy to fight it off anymore, poor thing. Another way to say this, is that Twiggy and her personality & thoughts & emotions got pushed into my unconscious... just out of the reach and spotlight of my conscious awareness.
E = mc2 you know. She didn't cease to exist in this universe - far from it. For most of my life, she was a force that - like a broken record - was still demanding attention: tell me what happened, I know/I remember what happened - I'm not crazy, why won't you tell me the truth? (to my mother). And she was still fighting for survival, too - against the "self" that I was forced to adopt, to be able to co-exist with my sick mother... and the ongoing unfairness of parentification and therefore, rejection of my rightful needs as a child and teenager in that FOO.
Twiggy became the force of self-sabotage; self-abuse... trying to fight off the paperdoll clothes of the "evil, empty self" projected into/onto her by her mother; undermining or preventing all attempts at self-development, growth, change... self-care. Twiggy has been very much "alive" all these years - in her weird, alternate, parallel universe of my unconscious self. And so, I decide that I will eat breakfast every day... and tomorrow, "I" don't feel like it or "I" forget... this is Twiggy: rebelling against the "comfort that kills or hurts"... the warped "mothering"... the "help" that hurt even more, because it denied Twiggy her separate self; her individuality. (see: smoking, too). It is the explanation for my lack of self-trust, self-committment, ability to carry out intention as regards my self.
Twiggy wouldn't stop rebelling or fighting back, until she was heard loud & clear & over and over - until I was able to feel all her feelings, not JUST the awful ones. Until I could convince her that I "got it". Until I could acknowledge that she was a force for good... that I completely understood where she was "coming from" and why she felt that way... and that no, she wasn't crazy at all. I had to believe that this was all REAL. In fact, without her thoughts, memories or feelings - I barely exist as a person. There's a paper cutout doll here that says & does the "right" things most of the time - but no vibrancy, no life, no emotion - without Twiggy alive and well and thriving in me.
And well, I guess that I still thought (deep down) that Twiggy and her story were still simply a theory; a hypothesis; of what "happened" to me until I began seeing this bizarre repetition going on in my brother's life. That has hit me in the gut with the full force of an emotional battering ram and I've had to once and for all accept that yep; this was REAL and it really happened to me/Twiggy. And yes, I was afraid while staring over that cliff... into Twiggy and me... of how we are one & the same. I was afraid of the confusion of duality... of facing yet again the inner question of "is it me or the projection of my mother?" (Twiggy says: is it me or is it memorex?) The resolution of this is simply to completely "own" Twiggy - I am Twiggy all grown up, now - and the "projections" that don't fit are being peeled off, like some old duct-tape holding together a frankenstein paper doll... covering the "real", authentic me/Twiggy.
This bit about "incorporation" is beginning to provide some insight into the inner loop of the double-bind of self-sabotage:
Once incorporated, it cannot be separated from me, but I can choose what to do with it, including destroying or expelling it. ... Freud used incorporation to refer to a primitive wish to unite with or cannibalistically destroy an object.
I'm working on this with Twiggy. The bolded part, is what I believe Twiggy longed for even while she was giving up and accepting the "self" that her mother was projecting on her. She hoped to be able to "pull a fast one" and deceive her mother long enough... to appear to be accepting the projections, like a "good girl"... but somehow be able to kill off the projected mother's self within herself, in the process. Twiggy has an accute sense of irony... and a fascination with alchemy... the four elements of earth, water, air and fire - especially fire, which has many symbolic meanings. I think, in her desperation to survive without the duality of the projections, she thought she could kill off the projected mother-self by smoking... but that plan backfired... and while it might serve as a "rationalization" for why I smoke, it simply has no relevance in the present, especially regarding "not smoking"... that will require "proof" to my unconscious self... that together we can remove the duct-tape paper doll... and that she's not ever going anywhere, ever again... and that we are one person; one personality; one and the same...
For someone to enmesh... that presupposes that there are two people. In this instance, there is only one... me. The "duality" that I still notice is mostly due to faded, peeling, flaking (and flaky) projections from my mother... and much of that got blasted off in the deep "seeing" I went through in the posts above. "Twiggy" is just a way to speak about "me" - before the abuse got extreme. There is yet a lot of sorting, tossing out, "setting on fire" to do; composting. But the task is now much simpler: what is useful NOW? and what is counter-productive - i.e, JUNK?
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I admire your ability to open up and pour forth your struggles. They seem to march out in perfect order rather than the jumbled mess that pours out of mine. Order allows us to make sense of it and make shifts and reorganize.
It takes me quite some time to read your deepest writings in part because what you pour out touches memories and associative reactions within me.
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They don't start out in perfect order!
It's a total organic mess, really. I write & write & write and there are stars and underlining, and all caps and arrows going from one thought across the pages to another thought. And I keep writing, trying to distill all the digressions, the ideas and feelings, down... into something coherent. And I know I'm getting there, when I start to see a lot more white space on the page around simple, declarative statements.
I'd give anything to have the diary I was writing in, as Twiggy - it "magically" disappeared during the move after my parents' divorce - right before the whole shunning - Twiggy in the box - episode. My guess is it would've validated a lot of the stuff that I was supposed to forget; the stuff that "never really happened", you know?
Well, I've got to get going today... things to do, waiting on me to do them! Things I really want done.
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bump - boy - it has been a long time since I thought to bump a thread. Things are hoppin over here these days. What a change!
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Natural cycles, like seasons...
Mother Nature's mysteries...