Self-soothing, stopping destructive ways

[Not Alone]

The book also says, that, the things we use to self soothe, drink, cigerates, etc. are our substitute for our mother. The cigerates, (any damaging attempt to self soothe), is the mother.
We reach for those things to comfort us, just as a child would normally reach for their mother, we set them aside, and then return to them later when we need comforting, as a child returns to his mother.
The alcohol and cigerates and food etc. etc. provide feelings of comfort that our parents did not provide for us.

We have no internal mothering voice to self soothe with. (We should have a mothers nurturing voice that we internalised that is now our own)

I found this interesting. When I confessed to my therapist my issues with food, he said, "sugar was your mother."

[Blueberry]

Sanmagic

it's because they're often based on logic, and with c-ptsd, there is no logic.

Yes. My brain has always worked logically, and in the past kept my behaviour in check. But now the c-ptsd gets in the way.

Yes, yes, yes.

Although in my case, I'm not sure how logical the logic really was since it was based on FOO's logic - what I grew up hearing, which in itself was often quite illogical and/or emotion-based, but their emotions which weren't always mine at all! Their quite skewed way of thinking.

When I really feel into things with my therapist, the reason behind me acting or thinking the way I do is often not what I'm thinking of as logical. Often this 'logical' is just what people say, e.g. "you're not eating properly in order to make people sorry for you." For whatever reason I'm not eating - it's not that!

notalone, it's interesting for me to read that now about sugar having been your mother. I've been dipping into the sugar jar these past few days AND allowing ICr. to run rampant. Well, ICr. is FOO's voice, especially M's voice. My T suggests I try to reconnect with my memories of the family friend who died because she showed loving maternal feelings toward me when I was a child. It's as if I've been holding these at bay for a week, letting my own M's toxic feelings in and then in order to survive them, eating sugar by the spoonful.

Thanks for bumping this old thread, Digitality!