Well, I don't know how you work on the black and gray spheres... but I think if you can see the "patterns" in specific situations - like the mall memory - there is enough "stuff" there for you to begin seeing what went wrong (identifying the problem), propose alternative solutions from what actually happened (look for a correction to the problem) and then, through trial and error - experimenting - find the most satisfactory one.
I think... not entirely sure about this... that I tried to completely separate myself from any "legacy" connection whatsoever with my parents. No, I don't have have my dad's freckles... no, I'm not "just like mom".... but, without any guidance or assistance, I made an error. That was, I still carried an unconscious "legacy connection"... in that I was so ashamed of their inability to be parents, to even care about me that I simply decided, again unconsciously - that I didn't matter... and that therefore I could treat myself any old way, to the extremes of pathological caretaking, self-sabotage and self-abuse... including always keeping alive that threat of psychic annihilation via shame for failure to perform perfectly and intuit the unknowable... as some kind of deep, dark, genetic - or even legacy connection - secret about "who I am". And I wouldn't even let myself know I was doing this....
so I was preventing myself from ever putting any emotion into "context" - to make it a part of my story, my personal narrative and coming to a different conclusion about myself. Almost intentionally preventing myself from changing emotional states from "shame" to "attunement" (i.e., balanced positive relationship). Because, in my family - as yours sounds, too - shame was a permanent thing.
It derived out blame, in my family... every normal child need I had was considered to be an intentional attempt to hurt my mom, make her sick, get on her nerves, or otherwise drive her crazy. Even her own mental/emotional states were blamed on us. From blame, it was easy to jump to shame - the toxic variety. When you can't do anything - or be anything - "right" or acceptable in a positive sense with a parent... ever... how else is a young'en going to feel about oneself, except that there is something wrong or bad about him/herself? And in some ways... that psychic annilhilation was preferable to always being in an environment where you never knew when/where you'd trigger the next emotional assault.
I'm babbling again, friend. But I think I see the "way out" of this kind of constant reinforcement of wrong brain development and the loops that we built in our brains. It does require that I re-enter the chaos-zone of all those emotions - again; one more time. But this time, I'm going to look at "alternate endings"... use my brain to imagine, write-over the "old" files about meanings... and between me, myself & I... re-attune... adjust the frequency... of me, myself and I... leaving the parents and the old blame/shame cycles as some kind of minor walk-on characters not central to the plot of the screenplay. They are setting, background, only. They are not "part of me", in reality... so why should I allow my experience with them to control who I am NOW?
"Simultaneous activation of neural networks of emotion and cognition may result in a binding of the two in a way that allows for the conscious awarenss and integration of emotion". Quote is from my "Neuroscience and Psychotherapy", Louis Cozolino.
This can be understood positively - as a healing process. But the flip side of it is more important at this point, for me. The binding of cognition/emotion can be negative, also - this is where I went wrong - so many years ago. Things got "bound" incorrectly... because of that blame/shame cycle... assumptions were falsely made... and I accepted a belief about myself that is completely not true.