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Messages - meursault

#241
HI all,

I thought maybe people here might have some helpful advice.

I virtually NEVER dream (or rather, remember).  I'd say I've had three I remember in the last ten years.  I usually wake up feeling like I was just in a war zone, though, so I think I'm trying to deal with stuff in my dreams, but can't really do anything since I can't make a connection with my waking mind.

Anyhow, I had a dream last week that was painfully easy to interpret,  and it's actually staying with me as important.

I keep a pad and pen beside my bed, and usually talk to myself to be open to remembering my dreams, but it isn't working.  I've been doing it for a while, so maybe remembering that one dream was a sign of it working!  Anyhow, anything people here do to help them remember dreams?

Then there's EMDR.  I have been seeing my current therapist for several months, and still aren't doing EMDR, despite the fact I was recommended to her for that, and it's her speciality.  She's brought up that she thinks I could benefit from even pre-natal processing, and certainly pre-verbal.  Anybody have experience for that sort of thing?  It sounds kind of ridiculous to me.  I guess I just don't understand how it could be done.

Meursault
#242
Frustrated? Set Backs? / Re: Why do they do this?
August 20, 2016, 09:42:39 PM
I think you've done the healthy thing here.  It's hard, but I think you should pat yourself on the back.  As Dutch Uncle said, you successfully set boundaries - hard at the best of times!  If you have to defend your feelings, like with your depression, or take responsibility for his understanding of CPTSD, you're being invalidated, IMO.  It sort of makes you have to PROVE your feelings are acceptable.  I think a lot of people don't understand, but rather than being able to face that lack of understanding, they project their incomplete view onto us.  And if we don't fit it, it's wrong of us.  Sort of  unintentionally kicking us when we're down.

Three Roses makes a good point about the snowstorm!   It's not good to be around that when we already have so much to deal with.  I don't even like being around friends much if they're drinking anymore.  It stresses me out.

I think you've done really well with this.  Still hurts, but maybe you can feel good about looking after yourself and kids too...

Meursault
#243
Frustrated? Set Backs? / Re: Demoralized...
August 20, 2016, 04:17:42 PM
It's good to be able to come to a place where I don't feel so alone with all this.  I have my therapist, I suppose, but that's different.  My two best friends are women, and they seem to get it pretty well, but not quite.  They're both very supportive of me.  One of them was a national volleyball champ, and coaches some university women's volleyball team now.  She jokes around about inviting me out with her team, but can't because I'd be so easy to walk over.  I say "I'm willing to accept that!", and she responds: "That's exactly the problem!" 

I guess I have intimacy, albeit non-romantic, with a few women, but it's not the same.  And sex seems to just happen, completely out of my control.  I'll go a few months, and then some woman will chat me up and pretty aggressively pressure me into sex.  No intimacy there.  It's sometimes okay, sometimes awesome, but most of the time I wish it didn't happen, or even while it is happening.  I can't think of the last time a woman treated me decently during sex, maybe six or seven years ago.  Basically I become so desperate to feel like someone wants or loves me, I let myself be treated like crap, hoping since they like having sex with me, maybe there will be more about me they'll want.

My Mom is a VERY politically minded second wave radical feminist.  Stuff like my Dad calling her "my wife" was not allowed because "I'm not a f*ing possession!"  "Person-hole cover", that sort of thing.  It still bugs me, when the first test tube baby was born in, I think, 1984.  My mom was at the table and made us all shut up as she read the newspaper article, then raised her arms in a cheer and cheered: "We can finally get rid of all you male barstewards!"  I have so many memories like that.  The newspaper thing was constant.  Any news about a rape was the same thing.  We'd be made to shut up as she read it, and then she'd fly into a hate filled commentary about what men deserved.  No wonder my sisters hated me!

Strangely, although I think there are a lot of idiotic feminists out there, and think the entire concept of privilege is off the mark, I consider myself a feminist and think the movement has been almost entirely positive.  I think my Mom just used it as a weapon, and camouflage, to attack me and others.  I think she saw it, in her APD way, as a good tool to attack people with.  She assured herself she always had the moral high ground.  On the upside, I can see a lot of the misogyny around me, I suppose, even in my own putting women on a pedestal, which is at the very least unfair.

When I'm out with female friends that have new baby boys and feel proud, I feel confused as *, though.  And sort of sad and ashamed of myself because I never had a Mom that felt that way about me, and how broken I must have been, even as a baby.  And then how that was reinforced by my sisters adopting the same view, and my Dad too scared of my Mom so he never supported me either.  Or whenever I see some Mom out with her boy and actually treating him like a human being.  Throws me right off.  It seems surreal.

I'm feeling all cry-ee now.  My eyeballs are leaking!

Writing this out, I can see the absurdity of it, I just can't seem to apply it!  I guess I'm just going to have to keep supporting the little boy in me, and hope this stuff starts to come together better at some point.  And now I'm sad and ashamed for a different reason: I spent forty years believing them all, when I should have been helping the little boy.

Again, sorry for the length,
Meursault
#244
Frustrated? Set Backs? / Re: Demoralized...
August 20, 2016, 03:07:52 AM
Thanks for the comments!  Both of you!  I feel kind of stupid with the irrational belief about women's magical insight.  I even know where it came from.  Women were ALWAYS good, right, pure, worthwhile, internally powerful, lovable, men ALWAYS monsters, scum, subhuman, weak-minded, stupid, disgusting, deserving of death.  It was a constant litany from my Mom growing up.

I grew up with that, so my little kid mind searched inside me and didn't find ANY of that to be true for me, but I was still being abused by my Mom and sisters, so that must mean I was missing something because (as they said) women are always right, and they wouldn't POSSIBLY be abusive unless I deserved it.  It was logically impossible from my little kid thinking.  I desperately tried to introspect myself to find out what they saw as so bad about me that I deserved it all.  I guess I have to find the language I can use to help the little boy part in me understand it, because he essentially went to: "I don't understand, so they must be magical.... Only a woman is allowed to define whether I am being treated abusively or deserve to be, I'm not allowed to know that."  I've wasted so many years believing that!

Sorry for the blathering on...  The thousand heads rising up with this are pretty daunting to me.  I hope people don't mind me posting this stuff. 

I suppose I'll just have to sit with this until the little boy can feel safe enough to trust some more and process more of this.

Meursault
#245
Frustrated? Set Backs? / Demoralized...
August 18, 2016, 02:00:17 PM
This stuff is so damned complex, I can hardly articulate all the different aspects of what I'm working through.  So I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed by it, too.

It's like I FINALLY found someone who cared enough (last therapist, and maybe the current one) and believes me how bad growing up was for me, and thinks I'm worth something, and doesn't think I deserved it, or laughs at me, or invalidates me, or dismisses me with simple fixes or platitudes.

Someone gets how much my Mom, sisters, and Dad hurt me growing up.  And now I feel sort of nihilistic or something.  "Now what?"  I've wasted my whole life trying to maintain the belief I didn't deserve that and was actually treated badly, expecting everyone to invalidate that.  My entire way of thinking is defence against that attitude.  I guess maybe it's a need to grieve for everything I could have been, everything I lost, and everything I never had.  It's not huge, but it's constant... this sense of the waste and futility and lost time.  What does anything even mean?  My fundamental assumption that I'm unlovable may be wrong, and I feel like King Lear coming back to his senses to discover how his kingdom fell to pieces during his phase of madness.

I've been having the Tennyson line: "...though much is lost, much abides..." go through my head quite a bit.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do next.  I still get triggered, I'm still fundamentally terrified, especially of women.  All the emotional responses are in place, but now I can accept that maybe, at my foundation, I have worth and am lovable.  Maybe it was just all the abusiveness and hatred of my Mom that makes me think I'm worthless and expect the same from everyone.

Basically, I think I lost a core belief, and feel kind of tetherless.  What will that all mean?  My Mom hated me not because I deserved it, but because she had her own issues.  My Dad took it out on me because he wasn't strong enough.  My sisters were abusive to me because they also believed my Mom that I was worthless. 

Mostly, Women since have not  wanted me.  Lots of one-night stands, but rarely any intimacy.  Could it also be because of what I was taught I was worth, and not them seeing through me with some magical, feminine insight to see I am just garbage and disgusting?

The emotions haven't been processed yet, but the world view I adopted to survive growing up looks like a lie to me now.  I'm feeling like a f* up, but also kind of scared about not knowing what to do next.  And then there's all the stuff about my Dad's death which I can't even look at yet.

I think it all started by learning my therapist loved the boy still in me, and I did too.  She showed me how I was allowed to feel about myself.  This stuff seems like I'm trying to herd a bunch of greased cats, though!  It's all so emotionally charged and fundamental in my psyche.  Ugh.

Anyhow, mostly just venting, I guess.  Feeling demoralized.

Meursault
#246
Good to hear, sanmagic!

I don't know, maybe other people can connect with this way of looking at things to help sort out all this chaos.  I have a long way to go, but I'm doing way better than I have for many years.

I find I am aware of BOTH of them more now.   I can untangle the "father"-y part to look after the "boy" part better, which helps me actually do the things that are constructive, and untangle the "boy" part better to know what is hurting/scaring me, and the traumas I need to address and grieve.  I'm still exploring, but I noticed this was helping me pretty quickly.

Meursault
#247
I agree with sanmagic.  You mostly quit when you are ready, IMHO.  How can you get yourself to be ready then?  Probably varies quite a bit from person to person.  Recognizing there is a boy in me who didn't deserve all he endured and deserved to be protected was the basic shift for this in me personally.  This is helping me...

I think the book Sienna read is on the right track...
When I want to turn to coke or chocolate bars or whatever, I kind of have fun with it now.  I talk to myself like I'm the father with a little boy DYING to have chocolate.  I promise him he can have some later, but let him know I am only limiting him because I know he will be happier in the long run.  I'm basically being the parent I never had: respecting the need, validating it, and then doing the thing that I think an adult would do to protect the boy.  I don't force it, though, and if I cave and get that chocolate bar, I don't beat myself (aka the boy) up for it.  SO I'm basically using an internal part of me to soothe an upset internal part, rather than looking for something external.  (Unfortunately I don't do that for my relationship and intimacy needs yet!)

It's all pretty jumbled, but I have an idea of how an honourable and loving father should treat his kids, and I try to do that now, even if I don't feel like it.  I'm probably successful over half of the time! 

Meursault
#248
AV - Avoidance / Re: Remembering names...
August 15, 2016, 02:48:40 AM
Sometimes I'm comfortable doing that, and that's generally the way it goes!  I think I could take two lessons out of that:  1) I'm not being so heavily scrutinized that I'm that memorable and 2) People are more forgiving of my mistakes than I expect.

Meursault
#249
Good going Dutch Uncle!  You're really doing lots of work.  Wow.

Meursault
#250
AV - Avoidance / Remembering names...
August 13, 2016, 03:41:40 PM
Hi all,

I was just thinking about something, and it seems kind of "well, duh!" now that it's occurred to me.  I'm terrible with people's names.  Like, I'll be introduced and shake hands, and I literally have NO IDEA what their name is ten seconds later.  I've noticed I feel a surge of panic during the introduction, but just always thought I was kind of awful and selfish for my lack of consideration.  I just realized that I am having momentary dissociation going on.  And when I think about the sensations now, that level of dissociation, just sort of a numbing, disconnected from the physical world, and an empty, thought-free mind, is pretty standard for me in multiple mundane situations. 

A few months ago, I had mentioned that a lot of my female friends hug me as greetings/good-byes, and how I just "go away" when that happens.  She suggested being mindful, and asking them to give me a moment to collect myself to try and remain present before the hug.  So, now I sometimes ask for that.

I think I ought to start practising the same mindfulness during handshakes and introductions.  Just thought I'd mention this in case anyone else can identify.

Meursault
#251
I decided to try and address it again at session yesterday.  I had it written down because I didn't feel strong enough to talk about it.  She apologized and said she screwed up.  She said she didn't intend to spend her own time devoted to immersing her "therapist mode" brain in it, as that required a lot more than just casual reading, and it wasn't really fair to her to have to do that, nor to me to not give it due consideration.  She said she just sort of glanced to see if they were requiring some crisis response, and otherwise thought I'd address it the following session and we'd go through it if it was important to me to do so.  A bit of a cop out, I think.  She admitted to screwing up communicating that, at least, so maybe this is salvageable.  And to be fair, she did read a couple of them completely.  And to be more fair, she also read a comic I had printed out and lent her about my past (ugh... I THINK she did...)

She said we need to work out a way that not only can I gte that need met, but I'm not asking more than what she offers (I rightly read that as meaning she wants to be paid for reading these things.)   I'm a little concerned she intends that I'll be paying for an hour a week to do this, and paying it whether I send something or not.  I guess I'll see when we discuss this next week.  She had mentioned how we'd schedule a regular slot for reading what I send!  I'm thinking about it...

Looking at it, there were a total of 6 emails over a couple of months before she mentioned not reading them all: two solicited by her, two in crisis, one on the anniversary of my Dad's death, one a PDF of a comic book I made dealing with inner child stuff.  All the emails combined (not counting 18 page, sparse text comic) total seven pages of text when I put them together, four, if I don't count the ones she asked me to send.  I don't know I consider this to have been too onerous for her to have taken the time for, nor worth my effort or money in the future.

I had a coffee today with a woman I've known for 25 years or more, I went to high school with her, and told her about it.  My friend was one of my therapist's instructors at one point, and she was NOT impressed with what I told her.  Her advice was to think about going elsewhere... actually she explicitly said to leave.  A couple of things I mentioned the therapist saying got her a bit mad, even.  I just don't know.  I'm really thinking the therapist doesn't see the degree of how badly this is screwed up.  I think she is probably a very good therapist for people with single-instance shock trauma, but is out of her depth with the more complex trauma I'm dealing with, which is piles of developmental trauma, shock trauma, dissociation, attachment and object needs, and extreme difficulty in trusting .  I just don't know what's right here.

Strangely, this issue is sort of proving the point.  I left there feeling like she was completely reasonable, and felt optimistic and cared for.  I felt... mainly: GRATEFUL.  That has diminished quite a lot already.  That object constancy is evaporating!  Explaining it to my friend, and now writing it out here, is making me feel like I'm not really getting treated right.  I was pretty dissociative and panicky during session.  Maybe I felt good afterwards because she didn't tear me to pieces at least...

Meursault
#252
I find this very true for me as well.  I had coffee with a woman who's about my best friend a couple of days ago, and I mentioned that I have problems with object constancy, and as time away continues, it starts to progress into me feeling I'm hated, I've done something wrong, or I'm being rejected/abandoned.  I said I know logically it's not the case, but emotionally it's my reality.  She said she's aware of that and keeps it in mind.  Thought that was really supportive of her.

I've also been having issues in therapy.  My last therapist allowed me to email whenever I wanted.  She virtually never responded, and rarely brought up any of the stuff I wrote in session unless I did.  It actually took a lot of encouragement to get me doing it in the first place, as I expected it was a way she would use to reject and get mad at me.   I would generally only email once, between sessions, sometimes not at all, sometimes several times.  I discovered it kept her attachment based therapy functioning.  Without that each session was like starting from scratch learning to trust her.

Imagine a graph where my sense of being acceptable/lovable/worthwhile peaked in session as we talked about things.  I'd leave, feeling pretty good about myself, calm, not incoherent or panicked, capable of healing, but as the week progressed, the curve would deteriorate, since I don't have this sense of worth internalized yet.  Bad events would cause the line to descend quicker.  Ultimately, I'd get below a certain level and I was existing just in trauma brain.  I'd barely function at the valley of the curve for a day or days before the next session.  Then I'd go back, and with her as my "mirror self" object, that trauma state would be recovered from in session, and the attachment would give me a secure base again.  Then a repeat of the slide the following week.

I found that just being able to express myself to her during the week, even without a response, would cause the curve to "spike" upward again, and cause me to remain in a mentally functioning state long enough between sessions.  I joked with her that it was like I was a baby crying, and just knowing that she could hear me was enough to soothe me, that if it got bad enough , she'd be there for me.  It was a reinforcing of my attachment object, basically doing maintenance on the constancy of that object, before she disappeared and had to be created anew the next week.

I don't know if that makes sense to anyone, or if it's just my crazy thoughts, but that feels like what was happening. 

I'm not doing as well now with my current therapist.  I'm working just as hard or harder, but I come in terrified of her, and unable to predict if she's just going to drop an atom bomb on me each session.  So the sessions are spent subconsciously integrating that she is "not going to attack" rather than "she supports".  She has had no problem with me emailing either, she said, but on several occasions she has admitted to not reading what I sent.  We had a big discussion about that last session and we are attempting to find some way to resolve it.  I don't know.  I don't have the sense that there is going to be any point.  As soon as I leave the session, I'm still optimistic, but within a couple of days, I've basically given up again.  I'm currently at mid-week, and I'm debating not going back again.  The object constancy was built with the last therapist and I STILL feel it months later (I can go back to her a bit before XMas).  I KNOW that that therapist cares about me, thinks I'm a good and worthwhile person, and at a fundamental level, has a degree of love for me.  She's just helped me find the most basic and fragile foundation of a real self, one that was stomped to nothing by my Mom growing up.  It has to be built and maintained for a while first.  I just don't have that with the new therapist, and I'm pretty sure based on what she says that she considers it an imposition on her time.  I even offered to pay her for the time it takes to read what I wrote the last email I sent. 

But I need that thread to remain consistently un-severed for a while until I have internalized my object of her enough to maintain it on my own.  I just don't have that object constancy yet, so I get unbalanced and the trauma brain dominates instead.

This is all DEEP psyche *, AFAIC!!!  I think I've been swimming in the "deep end" of my psyche -- trauma, attachment, abuse, object relations, structural dissociation.... for the last year and am starting to actually have a coherent idea of what's going on with me.

Meursault