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This topic has been moved to General Discussion under Development of CPTSD in childhood because topic is about childhood.

http://cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=9034.0

Tonight I allowed myself to be pushed around and told what to do, in a way that I haven't for a long time. Especially since the person doing it has no say over me, is not in a position of power over me.

I was at a group I go to off and on. I asked politely the way you do in this country if the 3 seemingly empty chairs were free. A woman said "so-and-so is sitting there and there and there and that other seat the social worker, so you can have that seat there at the end of the table. It was like I was getting pushed out of the way and told where I could sit. The conversation at the table was all going on somewhere else.  It turned out that wasn't even the case that these seats were taken up. There were other people to sit on them, but they had no more claim than me.

The situation reminds me of elementary and early high school where that kind of thing happened all the time to me. Somebody would save 10 seats for all their friends, certainly not for me. Fortunately I'm not feeling it as deeply viscerally as I have done about this kind of memory before.

Next time I won't allow this person to dictate to me.

"Break the conditioning and you break the fate" - quotation of recent date from JamesG

I'm working on it, James and anybody else who's listening, I'm working on it.

Seeing the word 'fate' in the thread it was mentioned in reminded me that FOO's idk what exactly - their words, what they implied, their behaviour towards me, their refusal to protect and defend me, and just their whole own (crazy) belief system, by which I do not mean religion - left me as a teenager / young adult with the impression that I was born a loser and a failure and that I'd never break out of that. It was a feeling that I was all these bad things they said to me right down into the marrow of my bones, through and through. Felt so awful I definitely don't want to feel back into it.

Oh yeah now I know what made this seem so final, so irrevocably so: M doesn't forgive, she just doesn't believe in forgiveness, except towards herself or somebody she's protecting, ie I was meant to forgive and forget 'the bad things that might have happened to me' (by FOO)  and certainly forgive B1 because "it was all (my) fault anyway". But otherwise she openly states that she doesn't believe in forgiveness. I don't think she was forgiven as a child, her belief in her 40's or so would have been a step forward for her, if it hadn't included a victim/abuser reversal. 

So, yes, the feeling I would and could never break out of the state I was in. I'd somehow have to function anyway but would never be able to improve my lot in life, wouldn't be able to improve on being a 'failure and loser'. It felt too late, that was the message I got from FOO when I was a teenager, for crying out loud. A teenager's not even fully developed emotionally and intellectually - how can it be too late??

It no longer feels like my fate. Of course I've changed a lot since then, and don't believe all FOO's nonsense, though psychologically I'm still somewhat in their grips.

They'd deny it now and accuse me of 'misunderstanding'. I didn't though. imo this was terrible emotional / psychological abuse that did an awful lot of damage.

I've had something in my mind on and off for a few days. Emotional abuse? Nah, can't be. Just rude, maybe. Or verbal abuse?

I was setting off somewhere with B2 and his FOC and while settling in and putting seatbelt on, I spoke, forgetting that one of the littles was meant to be having her nap during the drive. I probably would have stopped in like a minute max, and the LO didn't even have her eyes closed at that point nor had the car started...

SIL2 turned round in her seat and made a very plain non-verbal gesture which said "Shut the * up" in capital letters. And I don't mean anything toned down, polite like putting her finger to her lips. No, this was a full-on "Shut the * up".

I can understand parents being annoyed when they're trying to create an atmosphere conducive to littles falling asleep and someone talks or otherwise makes a noise, but this seemed so OTT and so early on, and what irks me is: SIL2 would never have done this to B1 or my M, though both are a lot louder than me and like to be the focal point, so might well have been talking and laughing loudly while settling in. Well, I am the scapegoat and SIL2 will either consciously know that or else sense it. If so inclined, you can do what you like to scapegoats in their abusive setting, which is FOO in my case.

I feel kind of dumb writing this here, but I'm going to leave it anyway.

P.S. This was a while ago, Idk why it's upfront in my head rn. I don't have contact with SIL2 anymore and VVVLC with B2.

Another bad habit of mine, which maybe ties in a bit with feeling responsible for other's well-being:

When somebody 'needs' me to do work for them - for pay - there are times when I seem to shut down my brain and yell  of course I'll do it for you! Instead of realising that it's way too hard for me and that it's the other's duty to go find somebody else. I'm not quite sure what the 'theme' is here: feeling 'needed' maybe? So I have my spot on this earth? Something like that.

Anyway, babbling about it is not going to get the work done. I'll definitely be having a couple of Difficult Days. e.g. last night I dreamed for what seemed like hours about doing a form of SH that I've actually stopped doing...

Holy Moly! I find in the responses I'm writing here that new words are creeping in. They are words I know like "love" and "dear" but they are not words in active usage, except in set phrases like "Dear Sir/Madam", never used actively towards someone. The only exception: I could use terms of endearment towards my little furry creatures, but I don't have them anymore. And anyway they weren't people.

This is huge for me.  I'm pretty sure it's to do with finally writing a Recovery Letter to B2 and another to M.

I know in quite a few people's books feeling responsible for everybody's well-being is termed co-dependency. I don't like that term. It's a misnomer for me.

Sometimes I have fits of feeling so much responsibility here too. Some people's posts are difficult for me to respond to. As moderator I feel even more compelled to than before. I have to save them, they're in difficult straits. I feel a lot of pressure to find the perfect response and the perfect words and perfect thoughts.

Of course nobody on here is expecting that. These are old things from my childhood and from FOO.

Partially it comes from being blamed from a very young age including retroactively to birth for 'all the problems in the family'. So I practised a lot of 'trying to help the whole of FOO heal' as a child and teenager. They didn't actually want to heal from anything, they just wanted to dump their anger and resentment on somebody, and that was me. Anger and resentment are definitely not being dumped on me here! But I still have this urge to help far more than I in actual fact can when somebody's post sounds desperate.

The other thing is the amount of gaslighting on wording I experienced growing up. FOO was always picking up language mistakes and/or saying they couldn't understand me or that I was making no sense, talking nonsense. I'm still very affected by this which makes responding to posts difficult and/or time-consuming. I've been told that I'm perfectionist. Maybe I am. But that grew out of a lot of childhood suffering. No wonder I'm still trying to avoid it and my ICritics by weighing my words.

Sometimes I respond to posts by copying someone else's response and adding the Yeah That emoji, only if I agree with it of course  . It feels a bit lazy but it's better for me. It allows me to do more, get more moderating done, still have time and energy for my own posts and recovery. I'm trying to get used to not having to have an answer for everything and that that doesn't mean I'm a loser or a failure. Those two descriptors have just come up rn along with image of B1 and M. So now I know more precisely what's behind it.

Codependency is too weak and too blaming a word to describe the anguish behind young Blueberries desperately trying to avoid being termed loser and failure by such important family members. What I developed to try and circumvent is well-practised and well-learned behaviour, but what's learned can also be unlearned, with practice. 

This is a similar topic to my question on this thread.

I used not to be able to defend myself against children at all. There are 2-3 year olds who will hit you just to try it out. I would duck. Cue child looking really confused. Now I can use my voice and gestures to show that I'm not taking it!

Interacting with children and not setting appropriate boundaries - I'm allowing myself (and/or ICs) to continue to be treated in a disrespectful or abusive fashion. I used to think I could somehow separate my ICs from myself. I know I can do that briefly by putting them in an Inner Safe Place but they still are part of me. So if 'only' they are being hurt, that's not an excuse to let it continue.

I know what I want to write here but it's too difficult for me to write it down so I'm leaving it for the mo. Maybe tomorrow.

I don't have children myself, but I have an 8-year old godson with whom I have a good relationship and regular contact.

I have also grown very fat and he makes remarks about that. Up until now I've brushed them off or even turned humour on myself, e.g. when I was horsing around in a swimming pool with him and his 12 year old brother, I said I was a whale coming to sink their raft.

Buuut humour was used against me in my family growing up and I think I'm turning this on myself now. It could be a teaching moment, but I have no idea how to do it. Mind pretty blank. The only thing that occurs to me is that I could go along the lines of the 12 year old brother and say "That's not nice." Or even add "people are worth more than their body shape." But to the first comment I hear M and B1 laughingly saying that they know it's not. Beneath that, unspoken, but meant: they don't care, they're going to continue with their remarks and if they hurt, well that's my fault for being too sensitive OR my fault for being stupid or fat or whatever it is.

The 12 year old said to him that it wasn't nice to say that. 

My 8 year old godson is not my M or B1, obviously. It's just I feel clueless as to how to conduct a conversation on this and fear what he might say that I have no answer to.

And I don't know about "people are worth more than their body shape". Maybe not the kind of thing an 8 year old really understands.

I'd like to try and deal with this myself and not go to his parents about it.

is a rhetorical question of mine sometimes. As in: How can they be so blind??

I'd like to link to Out Of The Fog where a member postulates that FOO actually does get it  http://www.outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=71904.0

Might help some of us with our FOO problems.

is an underfunctioning thyroid.

I take hormones for low thyroid levels.  I've been taking them for years now, except sometimes during self-sabotaging EFs when I don't take my meds at all. (My doc knows about this and also knows how badly I react to "should" and "must" so he doesn't say "oh, you really should take your meds, you know".)

A year or so ago my doc had me reduce the amount for a while. Next blood test showed that had been a bad idea. I have read that hormones for low thyroid are prescribed way too often, but doesn't seem to be in my case.

Because of other posts with CSA content and freezing response today, I've been remembering some stuff which I want to write down. None of it is stuff that I haven't remembered before. There have been no memory breakthroughs today.

It's truly OK that I was reminded! In a weird way that's some of what I missed when the forum was down - other people's posts and my responses to them help me on to realisations in my own healing.

Anyway, these are more symptoms but I want them on the SA board.

When I was in my teens / early 20's I allowed hugs or other inappropriate touching to take place even if the man suggested it. As opposed to the man just doing it. Somebody without a history of CSA probably would've said "No." I couldn't, I froze at the suggestion and allowed whatever to happen. In fact a friend told me so much at the time - she wouldn't have let it happen. I'm fortunate in that I apparently seemed invisible to most men. That was probably part of my saving grace to having worse things happen. I was good at disappearing into the woodwork. (Added May 10th: Actually this means that I disappeared automatically into the woodwork, it's not as if I did it actively or anything.)

Due to the amount and intensity and type of emotional/psychological abuse done to me, I believed that my opinion was automatically incorrect by virtue of being my opinion. Once I even allowed a 4 year old I was babysitting to override my decision and it was a safety issue  But that was just the amount of damage that had been done to me. (Fortunately no physical injury to 4 year old after her antics.)

So it was my opinion that I didn't want to be hugged by some random man? Must be wrong. I believed I had to let him do it although my body went rigid with fear.

So it was my opinion that I didn't want to dance, especially up close, to some decades older fat man? I believed I had to allow it because if I said "No." that would 'hurt his feelings' and that certainly wasn't allowed in FOO. "No" to M or B1 no matter how minor a "No"?  not allowed. So that applied to others too. How was I meant to know the difference if I'd never been taught that saying "No" to males (B1) and to unwanted sexual attention (M) was allowed??

I danced with him several times. Eventually a young woman about my age asked if he was a really good dancer or what?? And then cautioned me in no uncertain terms to be careful! That helped me to then say "no" next time he asked. The fact that while I was dancing with him I felt nauseous at the contact wasn't enough. Cuz Blueberry's opinion was wrong no matter what in FOO.

Also I'd spent years freezing away from sexualised touching because there was no other way to deal with it as a child and no possibility to talk about it in later years. It was just this terrible secret I carried with me. Till I finally started talking in therapy. But even there it took me a while to be believed, especially that that done by M was 'all' and 'enough'.

I was also usually ashamed of my reactions, of allowing my opinion to be overridden by somebody else's when a third party called it into question. Like the parents of the 4 year old and the friend about my non-reaction to touching.

Last night I did some more trauma processing on my own. It worked really well - no hitches. It went pretty deep and I'd say it went into a really difficult area. I was really surprised what came to the fore, so to speak. But I used all the skills my T has taught me and I made it out the other side quite fast. 

I'm tired this morning, but that partly has to do with going to bed very, very late, but at the same time I also feel energised and my self-care is better. It even was last night immediately after I finished trauma processing. I knew I should do something good for myself. I thought about colouring but then realised that what I wanted to do was put skin lotion on my hands. Then that spread to my feet too. It has a nice scent so I went to sleep with the scent about me too.

I don't know why, but my M keeps dropping by my thoughts today. There will be a reason. Probably in fact because of something I posted to do with my childhood.

It makes me feel kind of sad and it also makes me feel like reaching out. But I'm not going to do that! That would only be destructive to me atm. She was and still is abusive, even if 'only' verbal/psychological/emotional now.

As I wrote, the usual....

One client sick so turned down at short notice today, which is OK according to my contracts. Anotehr turned down at very short notice last week, which isn't OK, unless he was sick, which he didn't mention. I pointed that out but said I'd let it slide. Now I discover he hasn't paid into my account for the month. Nor did he reply to my email of last week. He didn't have to, but it would have been good. Because now I'm sitting thinking: Great. Knowing my luck, I'll prepare and he won't come.

I also did a piece of short contract work in my other field over the weekend for somebody who needed it fast and was going to collect it an hour ago. He hasn't. It is annoying. Not just that though. Because of the CPTSD and all my EFs it takes a lot of effort to stand up for myself whether speaking to the person directly when they next come or by email now, like the guy who's meant to be coming in an hour and a half, who cancelled at short notice last week.

I know I am making some progress in speaking up, like even getting cash in advance from the client with the rush job. But still I can feel the jitters a bit at standing up for myself.

I'm glad I'm keeping going freelance but for anybody who thought it was easy after childhood-onset interpersonal trauma, I feel I have to disillusion you. It might be for you, but it also might not be.

I tend to leap into arguments, where other people might and do hold back for a while. This is a form of regression for me because I allow myself to be provoked into an argument. 

It's progress to realise this! Because in FOO when I was growing up and later, there was nothing to beat getting into a verbal discourse, shooting holes in everybody else's arguments, proving them wrong, and being pretty aggressive about it. I suffered terribly as a child and teenager in this atmosphere.  I suffered by what all I heard, I suffered tons of putdowns about my intelligence, my ability to be logical and rational I suffered in the general heated atmosphere and the lack of love and acceptance. I suffered in my attempts to join in. I joined in because that was conversation at home in FOO and I wanted to feel part of my family.

For other people they might well be progress for all I know, but for me: regression. Because I come away feeling bad, come away feeling all churned up inside and as if I wasn't able to argue well enough or clearly enough. And worse, I want to send the person an email proving my point correctly and logically where I didn't manage in a conversational setting.

NTS: Don't write or send those emails!  to self, that's what I need. Self-acceptance. You're good the way you are, you don't have to be perfect.

There's a type of professional work I do that always leads to self-harm. So i'm not doing any of it atm. Taking a quite long break in fact. There are all sorts of subtypes to this type of work. One of them I've longed to do for a long time, but it's badly paid and it's difficult to get into and  and also there's this self-harm problem on top of it.

There's something I wanted to buy my godson for his birthday but I can't because it doesn't exist in that form, so I have to make it for him, by doing this type of work. I've been working on it now for well over an hour: no self-harm, not even impulse to self-harm. I've also been working away busy as a beaver and concentrating well. Beyond that, I've actually been enjoying doing the work, the creativity of it!    Most subtypes I have done up to now don't involve much creativity. This is huge. 

My sibs used to come up with "we've moved on" as in 'it's time you did too Blueberry'. Cognitively it's been clear for a long time that that's bogus. Today some truth floated in from somewhere: they haven't actually moved on much at all! They just think so. The only person in our family doing much moving on is: me. In some ways, both sibs are changing things. One does Medium Chill with M and F (I recognise that from OOTF pages), the other has somewhat better parenting skills than M and F did. OTOH he married someone quite similar to M.

But moving on from the past of our nuclear family? Not so much. Their treatment of me is the biggest indicator that they're not doing so. It's as if they're thinking that they're moving on solely by concentrating on their own families and kids and that I'm preventing them from doing so somehow by trying to get better treatment of myself in FOO. Meanwhile, they continue to speak patronisingly to me (when we still had contact), "explain" things as if only their viewpoint could be true, leap on to any spontaneous remark from me in case it 'hurts' F or leads to an outburst from M, while excusing M, F or one SIL from hurtful remarks made towards me because 'that's how they are' 

No, sorry, you haven't moved on much at all! You're saying that to try and protect yourselves from having to change!

[beneficial and constructive for me]

Today after therapy I realised I've moved onto a new stage of healing, like it or not. Today was the last regular appointment. As of 'tomorrow' the insurance will pay therapy maximum 3 times a quarter. My T says he can't guarantee he can always give me an appointment that often. Might be twice a quarter instead. I felt briefly annoyed and a little let down. Only to realise that T has his reasons like no longer working full-time and having to fit newer clients in who can and will come every week.

In this new and more advanced (!) stage, I will be taking more responsibility for myself. That includes looking at what is beneficial and constructive for me. e.g. what can I do now to benefit myself in reaching various goals and in continuing to heal? What can I do that's constructive? There are different answers at different times, in different moods and depending on when i'm feeling fairly normal or stuck in an EF. 

Feeling the pain of the past or the present, connecting FOO treatment of me to the way i treat myself these days is beneficial to me. I still need that answer to "Why is it soo difficult for me to do xyz?" But then it will also be beneficial to move on, to do mindful self-soothing activities. These involve the 5 senses.

Then it will be beneficial to do constructive activities that really help me move on. What these are will also vary, depending on whether i'm still stuck in an EF or already beginning to move out of it. There are some activities that are almost always beneficial and constructive to moving on: washing the dishes is one; conversing with my pets while I still had them was another. OK, good realisation. Keep in mind. But don't rush off to adopt more little furry creatures right now. Another one from spring to fall is going down into the garden and seeing what's growing. Smelling a nice scent. Moving my body, even if just stepping on the spot. I know it's good to go ahead and do one of these. If it doesn't work, try another. Don't give up.

Allow myself less beneficial activities e.g. playing Patience sometimes, but know that it's not such a mindful beneficial activity as say colouring (because the senses and creativity are not much involved). However, remember that blanket bans bring out a relatively young IC who is practised at self-destructive activities in the face of blanket bans from on high. 

This is my new Journal to reflect this new stage.

When I say to my T that I think I've been retraumatised, as I think I was in the aftermath of both Horrendous FOO Events, he intimates that it's possibly not retraumatisation. So, if it wasn't really, then maybe it was an EF??

Does anybody know of a scientific explanation of retraumatisation? Even just a good link?

I could ask T, but I don't have many appointments left and I think this coming one is going to be full up with other stuff. So interested to know what others think or may have read.