Breakthrough - Healing Is Humiliating

[plantsandworms]

I had a breakthrough when talking with my friend last night. We are both C-PTSD diagnosed from childhood traumas and abusive FOO's. But while she's been able to throw herself into healing (personal affirmations in the mirror, meditation, yoga, mindfulness journal, social support, etc etc) I have been very much stuck in a rut and something in me has been unwilling to even try some of the techniques my therapist recommends and assures me are scientifically proven to help. My friend was helping me ask the "why" questions about my resistance and all of a sudden I said "because it's humiliating!!!"

The memories of being abused all my life and mocked and degraded by my bio parents makes my attempts to heal feel humiliating. It's like I'm admitting to everything they stole from me, and how badly I hurt. It's humiliating to admit that I feel unloved, unwanted, unvalued. It's humiliating to think of myself looking into my own eyes in the mirror and trying to love myself after what has happened to me. In my mind's eye, I imagine my parents seeing me make these attempts to love myself and laughing at me. But you know, so what? Why am I allowing the echo of their cruelty to stop me from even trying to feel whole? What's so humiliating about doing everything in my power to reverse the damage that I did not deserve? What's so humiliating about wanting to be loved? I'm going to try to work through this.

[woodsgnome]

What you say here resonates closely with my own discoveries. There is a breaking, and in the attempt to recover it seems...well, almost pointless at times. The damage was done, and it's very hard to overcome the theft of one's soul that leaves us alone and scared to sort out the pieces and repair the hurt.

Recovery revolves, once we find the strength to undertake a route through the pain, around the questions you pose. When we can answer those honestly, then we allow ourselves permission to begin to find ourselves strong enough to take our lives back. It's still sad, it can seem forced, but when we can persevere anyway we can find those breakthrough places.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

[sanmagic7]

i echo what wg said about giving ourselves permission to do what's important for us to heal.  sometimes that's the most difficult part of this, i think.  still, we are the only ones who can do that at times.  other times, however, i've gotten that permission from others, and for some reason it opened a door that had been locked to me.

so, for what it's worth, i'm sending along to you the permission that i've received to take on a new perspective with all this, to allow yourself to give to yourself both what you hadn't gotten or what had been taken away, and to feel empowered rather than humiliated by doing so.   it's your right as a human being.

sending love and a hug full of permission to take back your life.