Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Gaining Strength on May 02, 2011, 03:35:35 PM
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This thread is what I am going to use to do the work that is inspired by PR's thread.
I recognize that there are a number of diversionary tactics that I use to avoid the pain that is held on an unconscious or subconscious level. Today, I was forced through this pain in a way because both, I chose to face it and because some fascinating self-sabotage took place on a subconscious level.
I had a difficult meeting this morning. It left me frustrated and adgitated. I went home with the plan of facing some of these underlying issues that make it so difficult to do the things that PR is describing that will lead to some healing or at least relief.
Facing these pains, deep underlying pains is very, very difficult even when it is my primary intention. I found myself truly walking in circles. I decided to use the EFT because it helps me get to some level of consciousness in a way that meditation cannot yet do for me. That is because it is currently impossible for me to sit still and let my mind go blank. EFT shifts what I think the issue at hand is and diverts my thoughts to a secondary and sometimes a tertiary thought pattern which actually is deeper and closer to the issue at hand.
While I was adgitated and trying to sit and tap, I found myself getting up and taking care of first one task and then another. Things that I have not been able to do. (As an aside - I saw today how and why this works for me - there is some "memory" of punishment that comes from addressing the task at hand and addressing that is like pointing a leaf blower at a huge pile of sawdust - it kicks us so much detrius that I can neither see nor breathe and must seek refuge. That refuge takes the form of a number of things including getting something to drink or something to eat or TV or radio or web surfing or readeing or talking on the phone or doing errands or chores. None of these things are detrimental in and of themselves but they are when I am (unconsciously) using them to divert myself from the pain which is twisted up inside me as a kind of catch-22 due to the sabotage that my father (in particular) used to control me.
So today, a number of the diversionary tactics were unavailable to me because as soon as I got home this morning I misplaced my keys. for two hours I tried to use the EFT to find my keys. for a very long time I would try to tap and find the agitation so hig that I simply had to get up and walk and move around from thought to thought like a bee from flower to flower. When I realized what I was doing I would redirect myself and try again. At some point I found that there was a conversation going on underneath the "key" issue. It was an argument I was having with some "authority" figures and it had everything to do with the appearance v. reality conflict where one person is doing the "pretense of 'Who me?' provocation.
I wrestled with this for 90 to 120 minutes - finally realizing that there was something else underneath this "particular" at work here. I knew that it attached to some early childhood experience and so I began trying to make that connection. In time, I began to realize that the "keys" issue was actually tied into this "appearance v. reality" issue. So I kept tapping and alternately doing diversionary tasks and then tapping and repeating the cycle until the agitation began to be worked through and the connections began to be made.
In time I made some progress and I found myself going back again for the umpteenth time to one of many places I had looked for my keys and lo and behold - this time I saw them. I could move on.
I know - I must face this pain and step away from the pathology of needing relief FIRST. I must be willing to step into the consciousness of the extreme pain and stay with it to make the connections. I do know it will be difficult. I do not know how long or how well I will stick with it. I do not have a great track record of sticking with these healing techniques but that has been because the dust that is kicked up is so excruciatingly painful and life-sucking. I pray that now I know or am aware that I need to put on a respirator and have the courage and stamina to go through the cloud of dust to get to the other side. I must have the courage to believe that the punishment that my father exacted on my psyche and that my mother allowed to be perpetrated and that they together taught and encouraged my brothers to participate in - that this punishment no longer need be continued. I pray that I can have the courage to go through this dust storm with the conviction that I will not be suffocated but that there is indeed another side where healing and comprehension can take place. And moreover, I must be willing to go through this process countless times until I can reach a level of healing where a different technique might be better suited.
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I do not have your courage.
I think of you and PR as sumo wrestlers of pain...
(I am the one way up in the bleachers with my eyes shut, trying not to watch them fight.)
But I'm cheering, squeakily.
love,
Hops
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Hey - where'd you get the idea that you couldn't have some relief or comfort FIRST... before addressing the pain? The image that comes to mind... is a little girl with stage fright and mom or teacher gives her a big hug, boosts her confidence and that's all the extra "reassurance" the little girl needs to have the courage to go on stage and perform. I sure as hell need this!! In that order!!
So, do what works and don't berate yourself about it or put it down, mentally. We are where we are and have to start there. We can't really skip steps in the process, simply because we're "big people" now. These old wounds are tough to heal; and I'm beginning to think that part of the difficulty is that we're so USED to it/them being there; being part of daily experience, when we're offered a solution... a way out of that... we're loathe to let the old go and just TRY the solution. Maybe even frightened to - because of the "devil we know" vs risking the unknown.
Way back when... I wrote about habits & routines that it was like a two-lane highway: that the old stuff wouldn't "just go away" until I had something new to fill that space or replace it with. Just picking the right "something" can be a challenge... but it doesn't end there, either - a new "habit" requires repetition until it seems second-nature, normal for oneself, part of oneself. That applies also, I believe, to thoughts and feelings that are strongly associated with things that are difficult or painful. So that we need to "train" ourselves to respond differently - internally. Simply because we didn't get this hug and reassurance growing up, so didn't internalize it. Or because of the no-win experiences, or scapegoating, or gaslighting... or whatever.
Good Luck - and don't forget you're allowed to have breaks - "time-outs" - too.
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Hops - you are so courageous. Don't even try to say otherwise.
PR - I don't really know but am hoping that in going through this baloney I will get to the other side. I agree that I must have something to replace the old stuff. I broke out Wayne Dyer's Intentions again last night. I think that in going through this stuff that I may be able to actually get to the good stuff. Who knows - we'll see.
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Rereading Wayne Dyar's Intentions, particularly the section on Barriers, I am reminded that much of how I was trained to think fits into Dyar's descriptions of barriers. Tapping with EFT helps me identify and move past these barriers but it is a very slow and laborious process.
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As i go through this it is definitely painful - reopening the old experiences. It is not as though I have a choice - these painful wounds have been effecting my life whether I repress them or reveal them. They won't be healed if continued to be repressed. But I still need a place where i can write about the pain I am experiencing.
As I get to one experience and begin tapping it explodes into a myriad of memories of similarly experienced micro events, each one adding more and more onto the pile of pain and rejection and voicelessness. I hope that I will be able to separate out these memories and some how get them written down, separated out, individualized and dealt with one by one by one.
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damned if I do - damned if I don't.
It is in being seen, being present that made me a lightening rod for their shame.
any thing that I was assigned or expected to do
it would not matter if I did a good job or a bad job except that
finally I see that doing a good job actually brought out more recriminations
This is the source of the paralysis
Must go in and undo.
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damned if I do - damned if I don't.
It is in being seen, being present that made me a lightening rod for their shame.
any thing that I was assigned or expected to do
it would not matter if I did a good job or a bad job except that
finally I see that doing a good job actually brought out more recriminations
This is the source of the paralysis
Must go in and undo.
For sure, the being present as enough reason for abuse, is something I know; not so sure about good vs bad job... for me. It could be given my predilection for perfectionism.... trying always to "get it right"... and of course any outside commendations were met with jealous, envious tearing down of the significance of that...
don't know if it'll hit you the way it did me, but what Guest said on my thread- about being loyal to oneself FIRST (before FOO) makes oh-so-much sense. I'm not sure if it's the same for you; but I was always strung along with this implied "promise"... that if I made all these sacrifices... if I let my boundaries of self be violated time & again - for MomBro's needs.. if I were the actual parent in fact, if not in the eyes of the law/society... THEN, I'd be accepted, belong, cared for, etc.
And no, I can't say I've ever attained that status and now I know enough about how sick it is (in it's dual, co-dependent reality of delusions and self-righteous congratulations) - I no longer want it, either. But then there is the attending, surrounding crap... the stuff I endure within myself. I know you know what I mean by that...
sigh.... let's take a time out and have a hug before going back to the trenches again, OK?
THANKS.
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I was tapping earlier today and got a flash that tied into a flicker I received a coupld of days ago.
This wounding - that is getting triggered in my life today - is old, ancient. It goes to the need to connect to my father. In this flash I saw how I knew even as a very, young child, that my survival was not dependent on my mother but on my father. That is most unusual. My father was not nurturing (minor understatement) but he did participate in my brothers' and my life. My mother sat by passively. She had 3 young children but she had two people who worked inside her house every week day and a man who drove and worked out side 5 days a week as well - while she lunched and did little. She didn't drive us to school or to activities.
My father taught me whatever I would be taught. He read to us and he played games with us. but he was extraordinarily demanding. For instance he had a huge gate (he had been a military man) and when he walked with us I (even at 4 or 5) was expected to keep up with him step by step. If I didn't he would excoriate me or leave me out.
So here is where I am going - my survival depended on him. I had to take the abuse in order to survive. that was how that little child processed her experiences. I longed to get his love and he knew it and he used that. I knew nothing else and as a child in survival mode I saw nothing as abnormal or even unwanted. I took his training of self criticism and abuse as the cost of survival. What I am trying to say is that the abusive voice that I internalized was critical for survival. Separating these tings out are very, very difficult. but tapping, tapping away will take me there. It is showing me how some of these things are connected. It is helping me unravel it all.
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I did see Guest's remark and recognized the validity.
I can see that as I sit here peeping in on your thread as an objective observer BUT when I take Guest's point and look at it from my perspective and my experience there is still to much confusion and convulution. There was never any space for ME. The ME part got punished and that is precisely where I am mining right now. all that is disastrous in my life right now, I see as part of the punishment that I learned to do as a survival issue, always couched in a moralistic turn and in a "suffer now for benefit later" sort of conservatism. having to sort out the lies and the truth and the me from the them, the twisted manipulative abusive cr&p.
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That's a pretty amazing "picture", GS....
an emotionally unavailable (and attentionally neglectful) mother...
and a father with such a strong belief in military "toughness" that he couldn't make allowances for the fact that a child isn't born with the abilities, inherently, to achieve that...
without providing the safe, protective, caring and understanding environment that becomes the seed-bed for germinating and growing a strong, healthy, tough yet flexible tree.
I think you instinctively know - deep within - what it was that little child needed but didn't get. And it sounds as though you're zeroing in on it. I'm hoping you also fiind out, that even though you were deprived of whatever it was... that you have evidence around you, in you, in your life... of the kind of toughness that makes a "survivor". A different kind of toughness than your father valued - but perhaps one that's better suited to you; that allows for nurturing and empathy and connection and doesn't see those things as "weakness".
I surely understand the search for "me"... and pulling off all the pieces of duct-tape with labels that have been stuck to oneself over the years. One thing that helps with those pieces of tape? I accept that most people are capable of everything - in the right or wrong circumstances. But unless something is repeated over & over & over... it's not part of the package of who one IS. The ME. I'm still having to rely a lot on feedback from people about "me"... checking the old tales/lies against what I know from that kind of feedback - whether it's something that's been said to me, the way I've been treated - it's "reality-based", and I'm (trying to) no longer just automatically accept the "You always..." statements that people make.... because not everyone sees me the same way; thinks the same thing about me. And my FOO - most of all - don't have some special, x-ray vision or knowledge of me that the "outside world" doesn't perceive.
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Healing seems (though I haven't gotten there yet) to provide a release rather than a resolution. I have been stuck in trying to get resolution.
I think there is some very significant shifts I can get from this insight.
I'm going to work on this today.
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The search for me
PR - that is what it is isn't it
It is very difficult
mining feedback
separating detrius from nugget
essential but slow, frustrating, at times hopeless and lonely but essential none-the-less.
I am (again) becoming conscious of when I slip into avoidance (because the habituation of aggitation tripped by triggers IS overwhelming and so omnipresent) and trying to use the EFT to go through and get to an earlier experience in order to process and get some release.
I care not how many hundreds or thousands of times it may take to process these things (memories, experiences woundings) in order to get release, relief. I have no choice now that I can see an out, a hope.
thank you for your writings - they are flickers of light - momentarily shining on something I need to take the next step toward the light. Ever moving forward even it the journey takes me into periods of pain, despair, hopelessness and woundedness. Even those steps are temporary but necessary.
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You're welcome, Hon...
I gotta tell ya, too - that once I started to establish what was really "me"... a big chunk of the old "I'm so alone" and "I'll do anything to be connected" really started to fade away. As if, in recognizing - really seeing me - I had a new best friend that I could really trust.
It's still a work in progress; being in the "toxic zone" - a place where I really don't belong - brings up a lot of those fears, confuses me in the warpedness of it's perversity - how could it not? I think it's probably OK for me to give up the quest to understand that zone. It's a distraction for me, from moving on to learning how to handle and deal with it - without being roadkill. So "training" is my idea of developing and collecting the wisdom and skills to make myself strong enough... that when I do have to deal with the toxic zone... I'm not thrown for a loop. Maybe next time, I'll get it more "right" that way.
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PR - your post reminds me of somethng that I glimpsed the other day - the part about doing ANYTHING to feel connected is exactly part of what "Stockholm syndromed" me to my father. I was doing something the other day and had this bizarre flashback type experience in which I saw one memory after another in which I was acting/interacting/reacting with this knot in my stomach hoping that the proverbial door would not close in my face. In each of these memories I was with family or good friends. At the time of these every day events that I remembered I was utterly unaware that I was afraid of being excluded. It was so normal for me. so normal.
I have such a heightened sense of exclusion> I have a radar that tunes into passive aggressive behavior as well and both of these flip a trip wire in my core.
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I was tapping on something that I needed to do today but was hitting paralysis on.
I was aware of what horrendous dust gets kicked up when I face things that connect to some of the old stuff.
It is truly like being in a dust storm to an asthmatic - it is suffocating and fear inducing. It feels life threatening. It takes so much will power for me to stay on task or to return to task or do anything other than avoidance.
The more I do this the more I understand why it is so difficult. It feels dangerous and life threatening or safety threatening. The avoidance stuff happens in ways that I cannot even describe. They come on like a wave with the power of powerful addiction and all I can think about is the avoidance thing - whether it is eating, web surfing, chatting, reading - whatever - even cleaning but NOT what ever is on my agenda. that is dust stirring - everything else is avoidance.
This explains so much about how I have dealt or not dealt with things in the past 10 and 20 years.
So I get that.
Now to keep the focus and get through these storms in spite of the fear and panic and feelings of suffocation.
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Now to keep the focus and get through these storms in spite of the fear and panic and feelings of suffocation.
There was never any space for ME. The ME part got punished and that is precisely where I am mining right now. all that is disastrous in my life right now, I see as part of the punishment that I learned to do as a survival issue, always couched in a moralistic turn and in a "suffer now for benefit later" sort of conservatism. having to sort out the lies and the truth and the me from the them, the twisted manipulative abusive cr&p.
For instance he had a huge gate (he had been a military man) and when he walked with us I (even at 4 or 5) was expected to keep up with him step by step. If I didn't he would excoriate me or leave me out.
So here is where I am going - my survival depended on him. I had to take the abuse in order to survive.
This sounds like a series of dots that you can connect to finally "see" the picture, GS. I'm not going to theorize on what that picture might be... until you give it a shot.
And I do have a suggestion, if you want to try it... while you're tapping, sitting, working through the dust storms and the old fear... I wonder what would happen, if you surrounded yourself with comfort? For me, going through the scariest parts of Twig's story - I have an old ratty terry robe; it's heavy... maybe weighing 10 lbs or more, dry. The weight of it is tactile; like a hug... it's comforting even when I've smoked in it for months and it stinks and needs washing - it's a literal security blanket that I can't help but "feel" is surrounding me with protection, safety, and comfort. Twigs had a heavy quilt made of upholstery fabric; again the weight of it was important in the sense of safety. I know it's probably too hot now for something like this... but a lighter shawl or silky scarf might also work. A sleepy cat on my lap was also a frequent bit of comfort. It's a physical touchstone - like a momma's big protective arms and caress - and I think you might find this will open up a door into some new insights... get you through the storms to the other side, safely... and also point the way to the specific "how-to" you've been looking for...
It will be OK; it will be all right. He can't hurt you now and you can change any part of the old habits (with practice and kindness and comfort) you want to.
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This is something for me to process.
On reading your post about "comfy" and terry robe my insides are screaming "no" in a childlike fear/tantrum.
Will have to find out why, what this is about.
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((((((((((GS))))))))))
I am sitting with you, with this.
I hear you.
I am sorry that some fear rose but so impressed that you are asking it questions.
love,
Hops
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Working through some more deeply repressed pain.
yesterday I misplaced my phone and I needed to make some phone calls.
I found myself working on a project, unable to sit and concentrate on finding my phone.
8:00 o'clock came, then 9:00.
I was making great progress on cleaning my patio and planting flowers and seeds.
something I am glad to get done but it was still quite clearly an avoidance for me.
9:30 and later.
I would stop for a minute and find myself pulled with the power of an addiction on into the task at hand rathe than the focus I needed. When I finally got there, I discovered that underneath the phone disappearance was that life-long condemnation. I had procrastinated in getting a project completed and the deadline was at hand. The repressed voices of condemnation, rejection, humiliation were hard at work and I harder at work avoiding that pain.
I have discovered that one of the forces at work was that the only thing that kept me out of the lines of fire was by being invisible. once I worked on a task the joking and stinging darts flew. Once busy on task I became a target. Once I worked towards a goal the caustic condemnation, sabotage went into full force.
As I continued working on this as i was driving some distance i discovered more.
Much of my anger was displaced on those around because they did nothing.
I suspect this was a safer focus than on my father who championed my ostracization.
Then I got to that place I have hinted at - the kind of juvenile Stockholm syndrome - I needed my father to survive and I wanted him to see me as a being of value. These two prongs are at the heart of how I got stuck or hooked in.
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Thinking of James and Alice Miller.
Going back into the childhood memories and seeing them from adult eyes is enlightening and helpful but indescribably painful. The understanding is from that adult perspective but the pain is a sharp and penetrating as it was the moment it occurred.
I have two insights that I want to write about and explore but my time is limited this morning so I am listing them here for development later.
Intervenor
Responsible for all that is bad
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I have become acquainted with a couple of young men who work at a coffee shop/newsstand recently. On Sunday, in a conversation with one of them he said how much he enjoyed our conversations. Later that morning I found myself deeply moved. His comment really struck a chord. I have been so lonely and so alone for so many years with noone to have indepth conversations with, no one who really enjoyed a back and forth. I have felt so rejected and so alone. And even though i have written about it here it was his remark that hit me hard an hour or so later. It actually opened the flood gates to how terribly alone I am and unbearably lonely I am.
yesterday my child sang in a concert. I was not as early as most of the parents because I had to go pick up his black trousers which he had left at my mothers a few weeks back. Because I have no one else to help out, I could not "hold" a seat so when I got back it was first of all very difficult to even find my son and then very diffficult to find a place to sit where I could see him (even though I was a full 1/2 hour before the concert began.) The loneliness was so deep and so bitter. I caught myself wishing my father were alive and then immediately recognizing that he wouldn't have come if he were and I wouldn't have wanted him to anyway. I didn't even have to look around to see that other children had parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts cousins and on and on. It is a miserable feeling to be so all alone.
I have been thinking or remembering how my father would be certain to put me last in most/any situation. One memory that highlights that came when I was 6 years old. I had fallen from the 2nd floor to the first - right over the banister and landed face first. I was hospitalized with a concussion and broken jaw. The first night I spent on a large ward but the second night I was moved to a semi-private room, in the bed closest to the door. That afternoon my father came to visit after work. He brought a gift. But when he opened the door he didn't stop at my bed but kept on going - to the child in the bed next to me. I couldn't see her because there was a separating curtain. he brought the gift to her. he didn't know her. But I have always attributed it to his "sense of duty" to always do things for others and not for ones self and that would include his children.
I recall later as my brothers and I began graduating from college he told us he would not help us find a job. He didn't help us do anything as a matter of fact - but he did help many others. he would help his friends children. In fact, I have a cousin on my mother's side - my maternal grandmother's 1st cousin's son - who recently (after my father's death) mentioned how helpful my father had been to him in getting into law school. (This cousin is very bright and his father and grandfather were both judges. He truly didn't need help but was glad to get it.) But my father would never have helped me - inany way - no matter how much I needed it.
My mother is similar only she would have no help to offer.
My son and I had told my mother about his concert a few weeks ago. She doesn't keep a calendar and didn't remember. We didn't remind her because honestly we didn't want her to come. When she used to come to his Christmas concerts at his school she would say such embarrassing things. It was dreadful. And naturally, the getting in and out of the venue would be more than a chore. Being with her is one of the loneliest things I can do. It is beyond dreadful.
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Single parenting can be soooooo lonely. I've done those moments a lot, too.
It's part of what makes holidays hell, imo. At school events, only thing that helped
was for me to just bond with everyone around me and get into a sort of we're-all-the-parents
kind of thing...but I know that's easier said than done. Many times, I just felt that same pain.
I would've been very proud to sit with you and cheer on M!
And good for you for being there for him anyway, letting love be bigger than you losses.
One day soon, he'll be off to college, but not without knowing how much YOU have been there for him.
And meanwhile, you certainly deserve a 3-D support system who're there for YOU.
Where are we going to find you a meaningful regular support group?
xo
Hops
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Boat that Rocks - not so much challenging but risky - a kind of vulnerability and I also expect for my experiences to be minimized or "repackaged" by others with explanations about why and how I am not really alone. Part of the expectation is from that basic voicelessness where what I have to say is not received and part of it comes from experience in 3D and online.
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I also expect for my experiences to be minimized or "repackaged" by others with explanations about why and how I am not really alone.
I like this way of looking at it being "repackaged", the feeling hasn't changed for you-- but when another speaks about what you have said about your experience of having loneliness it is described back to you in a way that disregards the significance of the experience to you, or even says that your perceptions are not correct....something like that?
So when they tell you that you are not really alone they do an erasing of you-ness.
That's sort of the core of the voicelessness experience.
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Yikes, I'm sorry if I did that with my comment, GS...
good lesson for me.
Your aloneness is yours and not someone else's to make prettier with a more cheerful alternative.
xo
Hops
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Hops - I wasn't responding to your post. Boat that rocks had posted another comment that seems to have disappeared.
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when another speaks about what you have said about your experience of having loneliness it is described back to you in a way that disregards the significance of the experience to you, or even says that your perceptions are not correct....something like that?
So when they tell you that you are not really alone they do an erasing of you-ness.
That's sort of the core of the voicelessness experience.
Wow - Boat - you have such a command of words. So powerful. That is what I was trying to say. Thank you for putting it in your own words.
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I think I decided to point it out because I have been experiencing this also both loneliness that I try to "cope" with or accept as a life-long curse, also I get frustrated with the conversations I have with people..gets me all dog-chasing-and biting it's tail crazy sometimes.
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Boat - I think that concerning the issue of loneliness and talking about it that I have come to the conclusion that human beings simply have a limit of how much pain in others that they can tolerate. Perhaps that is why people have such a tendancy to mitigate what others are experiencing. What ever it is, that in and of itself is an even greater pain and alienation than the loneliness itself. That is a kind of craziness that can lead into a downward spiral for me as well.
In the past two days I have begun to get some relief. I have no idea the longevity of this relief but it is from a combination of things. I think there is a physiological component and psychological component. I might write more about them later.
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In the middle of the night I had an understanding of a combination of factors that helped me cobbled together a confluence of forces that have had a profound influence on my life. That full comprehension vanished on waking much like that of a dream but it was one of those moments even in my semi-consciousness that I knew was a kind of unified theory.
In essence what I saw was that the key for me is to be able to stand in the pain and transcend it. This is not unlike what is done in many forms of meditation. There are several obstacles that I will have to overcome in order to do that and one of them is the "adrenal" issue that can be described essentially as the adrenal gland being stuck on full blast after so many years of extreme stress. It leaves me in a constant state of low level agitation, much like a never ending caffeine buzz. So that when ever any outside event occurs that adds to that stress my levels go off the chart and my coping skills along with them.
No question that meditation would help with this but unfortunately the level of everyday agitation is high enough to make sitting still much less with an empty mind is nigh impossible. So I need to find some intermediary to release or overcome that state of "normal" for me in order to make use of meditation or yoga. The things I have used for "avoidance" have been to soften or distract from that miserable state of agitation.
I am finding that the more I come to understand what is at work the more likely I will be able to find a way around. So many years of "moralizing" have added to that internal voice of "not good enough" and expectation of condemnation which add to the state of agitation and which make attempts to circumvent or overcome even more difficult. It is a messy Gordian knot.
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Try something that's more of a moving meditation - yoga, tai chi or even just "mindful walking". Mindfulness meditation - which involves simply being aware & paying attention in the present moment - can be done simultaneously with normal activities - housework, cooking, gardening...
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That's helpful PR. I am using Yoga first.
I find it interesting that certain brain or neurological issues actual impede meditation without some form of movement.
I have two things going on in life that I know are touching old issues but I cannot yet identify what those are and so I am having a difficult time dealing with these current issues.
One is that a friend gave my son and me a dog back in September. This dog has been running away daily recently and then on Friday right in front of my eyes she ran into the road in front of a car and got hit. She is still alive but her recovery is uncertain. The person who gave us the dog happened into the vet while I was there and she said that she wants to find a different home for this dog because "it seems to be too difficult and too stressful for you." This dog is a part of our family and while this situation is certainly concerning once she gave the dog to us it is no longer hers to decide that we are not fit to care for this dog. While this person is a friend and I like her I am so angry that she thinks she can decide that the dog should go to someone else.
She called me today but I did not get the call. When I listened to the message she began by saying that she thought I was avoiding her because of what she said about the dog. She went on to say that she didn't want to upset me and then ended by saying that she felt she needed to find another home for the dog.
I am not yet able to envision having a conversation with her. Because it makes me very, very angry that she thinks he has a say whatso ever. Not to mention the deep anger that it taps into that she has deemed me not able to or not worthy or whatever to take care of the dog.
As it turns out - the dog is in heat and that has a lot to do with her behavior. But when I have thought about telling this to this person I realize that I am not going to defend myself and argu about why I should be "allowed" to keep the dog. There are so amny aspects to this that are beyond frustrating. First of all my son and I love this dog. She has lived with us since September. We could not have her spayed because she is being treated for heart worms. She came to us with heartworms and the person who gave us to her said that she was going to arrange for and pay for the treatment. But she did not start that process until February. The dog could not be spayed until the treatment was completed and that would be next month. But unfortunately she came in heat before she could get spayed. It has all been a terrible combination of events.
But the idea that this person can deign that we are not worthy of having our dog has been a very low blow for me. It hits me in a place that is difficult to describe. It is so clear to me that it parallels the way my father treated me my entire life - giving me things and taking them away because I was not worthy of the gift.
So, though I realized that I will stand up and hold my own on this issue and I will not be surrenderig this dog, I don't want to lose a friendship over it but then again, I feel damned if I do and damned if I don't - yet again. If I talk to her I will put my foot down and if I don't talk to her - well I guess that would end the friendship as well. I am not going to be walked over on this and I am not going to be treated as though I am not "good enough" AND I am not going to "defend" and argue about why I "deserve" to keep this dog - she belongs to us.
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Hon - dogs have minds and wills of their own.
I agree with you about the boundaries you are trying to draw - and why. But I wonder if it might not be possible to explain to this friend how you see things (not defensively, but as objectively as you can - granted you feel strongly) and not feel offended? As if it's yet another case of the "same old crap"? People are people and therefore not "perfect"... and sometimes we have to tell them what they might not have thought of...
... it's not your fault she doesn't see things from your perspective, you know. But, you can - and might feel you should - tell her what you think... practicing all the while, Hops' "releasing the outcome". Completely releasing the outcome slams and locks the door of "possibility" in the open position, so that you might be pleasantly surprised... or horribly disappointed... but you are ready to accept either extreme... and even something that falls in the middle.
How horrible that you saw it all happen. I hope the driver stopped - many times, they don't.
Things that happen in the "now" don't have to be exactly "the same as"... the original wounds we suffered, even when those feelings are triggered. Different people; different circumstances - and even you are different, dear... give yourself some credit for the breathtakingly spectacular progress you've made!
(((((((((((GS))))))))))))))
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PR - if I were able to have the conversation without being angry I would but at this point in my life I am not able.
Though this particular person is a very easy going person I find it beyond offensive that she thinks she has the right to deign whether or not the dog belongs to us. That is the hurdle I cannot get past. And quite frankly, I have very little inkling to try.
Surely you can see how offensive her position is?
I'm not arguing that things are exactly the same as in the past but my point is that, for me, current events that trigger the pain from unhealed wounds in the past, have an extra layer of pain and intensity attached to them. Dealing with these events are more difficult than dealing with such an event without the past. That is my point.
As I identify these extreme pains and the memories attached to them I add them to my list of things to be healed but simply identifying them does not do anything in and of itself.
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I do see how offensive her attitude and remark is to you. I do know how it started up an "instant replay" of the old wounds, too. That's why the (((((((((((((GS)))))))))))))) response from me. These kind of life's slings and arrows hurt; I know that.
That kind of "triggering event" is what I call emotional PTSD. It's where something in the here and now is so similar, has elements of the old abuse that scare the pants off me, or makes me so angry - in an impotent way - that I can only splutter angry insensible sounds until I crumple into a pile of helpless, powerless pain.
UNLESS, I cut off the spiral into the instant replay before I get to that point. Because you know, that your survival doesn't depend on this person, nor their opinion of your pet care skills. Her opinion of you is not that important on the scale of things, right? So.... it follows (in my logic, anyway - warped as it is!) that a negative comment like this need not send you back to reliving the intense abusive experience of childhood. Because YOU are in control of your own emotional states and experience now.
SIGH... but I know that it's still going to feel like being 5 yrs old, caught with your hand in the cookie jar. I know, sweetie. And once the replay gets going... it's hard to stop it and jump out of it. So the key is to try to jump out before it gets going - take a breath - step back - take a teeny-tiny time out before responding emotionally. And that's easy to say; it's harder in practice... but the results are really worth it.
Ya know, I'm learning a new phrase down here in the south that might fit as a response for you to hang on to, with your so-called friend's remark. "Bless her heart", that she thinks it's easy to keep a dog from running if they get loose... or that dogs need to be kept penned at all times. [In other words - she can't wear or walk a mile in your shoes - and you're going to disregard her and her negative comment... because you CAN and you CHOOSE to. You're allowed to do that, you know.]
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Hi GS,
I am really sorry about this dog thing.
I don't want to add judgment, but maybe shed a little light on where her judgment may have come from.
I trained to volunteer at the SPCA, have read a ton of dog books, etc. My understanding of TRUE "dog-people" (as in, sometimes nearly obsessed, but bless 'em) -- is that, whether or not it's fair to you in your unique and painful circumstances, I believe the thinking of a "True Dog Person" (I am a Dog Lover but not motivated or disciplined or as responsible with pets as a True Dog Person to do it right all the time, not by a looong shot)...anyway, their reasoning is:
--any dog that has not been spayed, and might come into heat, YES, should be either penned (or in a securely fenced yard) or if there is no securely fenced yard available, only --and regularly--walked on a leash. Full stop.
Doesn't matter about anybody's individual circumstances or feelings about gifts or whatever, True Dog People don't take that into account. In a True Dog Person way, the SPCA and similar organizations would view "not containing an unspayed dog" or even "letting any dog run off-leash other than in an official dog-park area ever, etc" as "irresponsible dog owner."
I am not saying that is who you are. And I'm not saying it's fair. But Dog People would say that fits those criteria.
I don't know about this specific adoption agreement or understanding or expectation conveyed (or sounds more like it was NOT conveyed but assumed), but when I read breed rescue sites, for example, I'm always quite amazed at how vigorously clearly it is conveyed that if for ANY reason those who made the dog available, later determine that (according to their Dog People rules), the dog is not being responsibly restrained/contained, then the adoption can be cancelled and the dog reclaimed.
Only reason I'm telling you this is in the hope that it might help you not take this so personally. It's just True Dog People rules. The truth is, as difficult as it might be to prevent, the dog ran loose more than once, and eventually was nearly killed because of it.
So the way Dog People see it, it would be an adoption to cancel.
It's not about YOU. It's just about the True Dog People Rules.
Hope that helps you not see this as personal GS victimization. I think it's not...just that the True Dog Person is finding it not okay for a dog to be hit by a car and so...the dog needs to live somewhere where that danger is not present.
Whether you, or anyone, was the adopter -- I truly believe the outcome, in their view, should be the same.
love to you, and hope everyone heals fast...
xo
Hops
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Hops - I'm just scratching my head wondering where you got the idea that my friend was, in your words, "a true dog person" who went by your delineated set of rules? Or where you came up with the idea that there was an "adoption". And your assumption about the state of being spayed or not is completely non-applicable in this situation. And the dog WAS on a leash but had pulled away when I tripped and fell on my way into the house.
This was actually not an "adoption" but simply a person who found a dog and could not keep her. She had asked a number of people and come up short when she asked us. There was no "agreement", it was a win-win arrangement. She had a foundling and needed a home for the dog. We took her.
As for the spaying - this dog could NOT be spayed until next month. She had heartworms when she was given to me and the person who gave her to us said from the beginning that she would be making the arrangements for heartworms treatment but she did not begin the process until this spring. The dog could not be spayed until the process was complete and that would be next month. So it was not possible for the dog to be spayed and furthermore noone knew she was in heat until the accident. There were drops of blood but there was not significant bleeding and it was never clear what the source of those drops of blood were until hindsight shone a light on it. I thought perhaps one of the dogs or cats had a cut paw and I had checked them all several times. So all of this was a great misfortune, a confluence of a number of unpredictable and unforeseeable forces.
So actually your assumptions simply don't apply in this specific incidence.
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You're right, GS...I guess I did make some assumptions.
I thought since you mentioned she'd been running off every day, that it sounded as though she wasn't safely contained.
I'm so sorry she was hit by a car and I'm sure it was traumatic for all of you -- you, your son, and the poor dog as well. I'm sure the friend's wanting to take the dog back after the accident made it an even more painful event.
I would've been upset in every direction!
(And I'm sure part of it is because I miss my dear old pooch.)
love,
Hops
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It's time for me to go.
I have found great value here for quite some time learning and sharing about narcissits and the struggle to overcome their damage
but I have been looking for and needing something differrent and in my mind I was trying to remake this place into what I need which is a place where there is affirmation but not so much unsolicited advice.
When I was in AlAnon years ago it was a very healing environment because differing opinions were allowed to thrive but not get shoved down one another's throat.
We are all different. We are wounded differently and have different needs but sometimes a group of wounded people without any guidelines to form those much needed boundaries can be even more wounding rather than helping and that is what I have experienced too often as of late.
Some of the most important issues for me have been trounced and violated so that I kept lopping off whole segments that I no longer felt safe to write about until honestly - my dog was the last straw.
There are a number of people I have enjoyed knowing across the years and some whom I would love to be in contact with but my time here has come to a logical conclusion.
Dr. Grossman - thank you for making this place available and I wish you great success in your work and you guide people through the pitfalls of such pain and woundedness into the light. Best of luck to you and your family and thank you for making this place available for people to learn about narcissists and their ways.
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Hi Gaining Strength,
Thank you for your kind words. I’ve always valued your presence on the Board, and I will miss you. I’m sorry for the pain you have experienced here—and I hope you find elsewhere the healing you so deserve.
Best wishes,
Richard
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Oh, GS. I will be sorry to see you go.
Especially over this.
I have thought a lot lately about my experience with voicelessness. In the 3D world, I still experience it sometimes. Not as much, because life just seems to be different somehow--or perhaps I interpret events differently. I dont know.
But one thing I have noticed, is that my experience of voicelessness has almost always been in the area of expressing my opinion. I could say I was sad, or hurt, or happy or hungry, or any of another number of things--and I didnt get much reaction. But if I responded with an opinion to something--something that was happening, something someone said...that is where I experienced voicelessness. Some people are very very threatened by a response that is either inappropriate, or unwanted at that moment, or perhaps too truthful! When I see rage and retaliation from someone, it is usually when I respond to them or something they have said.
I found that, with some people, it was better to just let them talk with no response or with a response like "uh huh". (In some situations--with any person--that is appropriate. But with some people that is the only kind of response one can give without upset). This, it seems to me, is more of a therapist/patient kind of interaction.
I havent posted so much on the board lately. It seems that many of the threads have been soliloquies (not all, some) and I sensed that no comment would be welcomed. I havent really felt that about you, although I have wondered about your recent comments that you felt judged or that you didnt feel comfortable sharing. I have felt that that was a bit of a warning to anyone commenting that you were feeling that way--and to please be careful not to do it.
To me, voicelessness is being told not to talk. Or to be warned that if I talk, there will be something unpleasant happen--rage, or withdrawal. (Sometimes, it is just the occurrence of something unpleasant every time I talk--and that is reason enough for a wise person to remain silent). I, personally, do not define voicelessness as the fear of saying something and having the person you are talking to disagree, or misunderstand. In conversation, if you are misunderstood, and you explain further, and the other person retracts their comment--and even apologizes--that is called a relationship. Voicelessness is when either or both people feel imposed on from outside themselves not to speak.
We are all fearful, because of our FOO, that we will be shut down. That we will not be able to explain ourselves when we are misunderstood. Sometimes we are so fearful that we see a misunderstanding as voicelessness. Or we think that our only recourse is to withdraw. I am speaking to myself here--I struggle constantly against running away. Every day--and I know it is not normal to feel that way, and I know why I do. And still I am overwhelmed sometimes with what has happened to me, and the determination that it will never happen again. I am finding that running is as limiting as voicelessness.
I hope you will reconsider.
CB
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Me, too.
I hope you will reconsider.
I am sorry, GS, that I was so unhelpful.
I sometimes get triggered by all of the human suffering here...
and I also have some quite intense feelings about humans and
animal suffering. It's something I have written about for some
time on a few blogs and is the topic of my next sermon...
A very unfortunate confluence and I should have stayed quiet
on this thread.
I'll miss you too and hope you change your mind.
with love,
Hops