Its a 'go mad or die' sort of option, ie take on someone elses disowned crazy destructive issues, or no relationship at all, which in the N paradigm is = to non existence.
River posted the above the other day, and it so completely summed up the "original wound" that is the source of my own self-harm habits, I was stunned. I also happened to be processing the experience of coming 100% face to face with it, in myself, when I read it... so it was timely, too. My genius D pushed me right into the experience... and pulled me right back out again. She is stronger than I am... and strikes terror in grown men. A natural-born Amazon!
I'm very proud of her.
Anyway, there are a lot of "moving parts" in River's statement that bear close inspection and reflection. She concisely describes the kind of stuff I've now spent YEARS on. And as usual, I gotta lot to say, in explanation of what I see open before me now.
go mad or die - yep; that is exactly the choice I was presented with at 12, when wholly unprepared to responsibly make such a choice. I didn't understand AT THE TIME, that were other options - how could I, when I'd always been told exactly what I could/couldn't do, what was "right", what I felt, what I should even think? And if some other option crossed my path... it was automatically "bad" or "off limits" or "not what 'we' do... there was no possibility of rebellion or revolution or third choice - no "door number 3". No "self" boundaries allowed, you know... that would've been contrary to my "purpose" in life, the meaning of my existence which was:
take on someone elses disowned crazy destructive issues, or no relationship at all - it was my "job" and responsibility to solve those issues (not my own) for my mom... and for a time, my brother as well. That was the meaning and significance of my existence... and anything outside of that, for me, myself & I... was often secondary, considered shamefully selfish - a betrayal even. I learned quickly to hide any/all needs I might have and to appear to be as self-sufficient emotionally as possible. That's not really humanly possible unless one is seriously mentally ill - and I cracked often, BECAUSE I had such overwhelming needs... and I vented those taboo emotions... self-soothed... etc with things that would harm me simply because it wouldn't provoke that abandonment response or jealousy.
My mom is only able to feel a very small range of negative emotions without going completely nutz. I mean violently, insanely, irrational - she can instantly do a Dr. Jekyll - Mr. Hyde transformation when in any environment where people are being emotionally expressive... and disagreeing with her view of reality. I allowed myself to be her "sock puppet" to protect my brother & I from these physically harmful rages and swallowed my own anger... and can not describe the primal anguish which I know is worse than death... to have one's own self so consumed, invalidated, DANGEROUS. It was dangerous to be me... to care for myself - because that brought ridicule and shame and flat out condemnation. I didn't know then, that this is an expression of jealousy and resentment.
This is how I came to make my biggest mistake in life - of believing that being "me" was bad and therefore seeking out ways to harm myself, or associate myself with "bad" things... so that my mom could feel better about herself and not jealous of me... and not be violent and abusive. I learned and completely believed that I too shameful to be my real self with people... and since I was either being the sock-puppet of her insanity... or experiencing that self-awareness of shame and anguish of being "not allowed", such as I am... I proposed to myself a long-term project of physical neglect, addiction, dissolution... hoping against hope that the final release from this agonizing purgatory would be over sooner rather than later. I fully expected to die before 30.
which in the N paradigm is = to non existence - This is the final, ultimate abandonment you know. In the N's mind, they can erase you from the earth... "I brought you into this life, I can take you out" is a statement of the belief in a righteous permission to do so, without criminality. Dealing with all of this - at the same time I was dealing with a very real attempt on my life via the rapist and my struggle to survive - then isolated from the people outside the FOO that I relied on for other perspectives and feedback on my own sanity - is it any wonder that I took refuge in self-neglect, self-harm, self-deprecation, self-sabotage in order to survive?
Is it any wonder, that the old self-harm is still around even at this point of returning back up Alice's Wonderland tunnel with my "self" rebuilt? It's there "just in case", I think. A security blanket. It worked before, to protect me, right?? That kind of kid-logic needs to be over-written with new programming now. Line by line, until I disable the functional parts. Things might go a little haywire, for a bit... but that kind of chaos is normal in the creative process. And I have way more skills and understanding than I did back then... I'm not going to let "survivor guilt" keep me expecting the "other shoe to drop"... or worry that I'll be victimized again by the unified MomBro or one or the other.
I don't have to keep subjecting myself to mom's sockpuppet delusions about me anymore. She managed just fine, not talking to me for two weeks and I felt much better about myself, too. I'm tired of her monologues... the same repetitive crap. Do I really need a reminder these days, that the only time I exist to her is when she thinks she's dumping all her crap on me??? She doesn't even recognize me these days, in person. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I can't imagine not recognizing one of my Ds.
sigh. So fortunately, I now see that I have access to many more options that just "go mad or die". Which one I settle on, eventually, will be a matter of experimentation; trial and error and which one isn't all that special, as long as it works. I'm glad that piece of poison has worked it's way out!
