Love is the secret ingredient to making therapy work

[Desert Flower]

Without having read your entire post - I will do that later, but I should really (try to) be sleeping - , just so you know Papa Coco, I never thought you had anything against gay people either. Please don't worry about me (or others I should think) thinking that anymore. 

[Papa Coco]

Little2Nothing and Desert Flower, thank you for the confirmation that I didn't insult anyone with my post. It calms my nerves more than you might realize. My fear of hurting anyone's feelings is my Achillies heal. My greatest fear. My kryptonite. I thought maybe I was overdoing my explanation, but to calm my nerves I had no choice but to write out the whole explanation.

Sleep well.

[Desert Flower]

Hello again Papa Coco, I now read your entire post. There's so much in there, it would be impossible for me to respond to everything.

Mostly, I just wanna say you're such a wonderfully kind and brave person. 

Thank you for sharing your story, it is quite gripping. Sharing it is very powerful. It is our way of getting the recognition we need after all. You must have been such a sensitive and kind little kid. It's horrible how these perpetrators can sense that I'm afraid. And how they work their way in. And how they make you feel there's something wrong with you, just put any label on you and then persecute you for that. It just has nothing to do with who you are really. And to have to find out who you really are through these feeling is quite the challenge.

It's part of our condition actually, I once was diagnosed with an 'identity disorder' because I had no idea who I was.
- Trigger warning -
My abuser had done his part of telling me for years every thing that was 'wrong' with me, so many things I can't even begin to mention, trivial things and big things, hours and hours on end. And everything was always my fault. And looking back, there was actually nothing 'wrong' with me to begin with at all.

I would just like to share something a Buddhist monk shared with me last night, after I shared with him something about my troubled mind. He said: Yes, we go through this turbulance but it is through that turbulance, that we can make progress. It is uneasy, but this helps us see how things really are. That helped me.

I wish you would not worry about hurting anyone's feelings. I understand such a fear. I have one too, that is to have done something or many things 'wrong'. And I can really get stuck in that as well. When really, this is just life. We live, we make mistakes. And that's okay. I just very recently shared some of my fears with my husband, and now he's helping me not say sorry all the time for anything I do but say F*** IT!

So that's what I wanted to say in response. Take lots of good care Papa Coco. I hope this will help you feeling a little bit better still. You're not alone.    Sending you all the support you need.

[NarcKiddo]

Papa C - I already knew your backstory and I know you from the zooms, so I was already totally aware that you have nothing against gay people. Even so I don't think you said anything that could leave anyone with any misunderstanding as to that. I was horrified about that therapist suggesting you try it out. Not, actually, because there is anything necessarily wrong with the suggestion in circumstances where it has become pretty clear the person may be suppressing their natural inclinations. But that is not the case with you. The therapist suggestion actually brought up some uncomfortable feelings for me because my own mother was very insistent that women must engage in sexual activity with men and like it. As soon as I hit 16 (age of consent in this country) there was this weight of expectation. Even when I was only 15 she started trying to engineer dates for me with older men. So I know what it feels like when a person in a position of power or influence pushes you in a direction that you are not ready for (and may never be ready for).

 

[Chart]

Ditto L2N, I never have doubted an instant your integrity PapaCoco. It's struck me that that Psy who giggled nervously and suggested you experiment with men was actually hoping you might do that with him. He seems to me to have been testing you for the possibility of furthering his own desires.
Just a thought...
PapaCoco your story fills me with sadness for all the things you have suffered at the hands of malignant people. I don't know how to express the extent of my sympathy and compassion for all you've been through. I deeply hope and pray you find the peace and well being you so deserve in this life.
Sending love, hugs and support, Chart
 

[Papa Coco]

Desert Flower,
You have the ability to make me chuckle a lot. I love the way you write. You keep it respectful and real, yet you throw in a few things every now then that add some tasteful humor to the seriousness of the topic. The way your abuser spent YEARS telling you how wrong you always were, drove a need for you to chronically feel sorry for anything you ever said or did. I am respectfully laughing as I read about how you say "F*** it" now instead of "I'm sorry". I want to jump in with "YESSS!" Changing the narrative feels like a great release for your ingrained sense of apologetic living. I'm very happy to read that you have such a supportive husband. My wife is like that too, and having a spouse who respects what we're going through is really helping with our healing paths.

Narckiddo,
Some of the stories you tell of your mom's odd behaviors have a humorous edge to them, but what she did to get you to engage with older men at only 15 or so is not in the least comical to me. That's an insidious behavior with no upside in my opinion. Knowing you as I do from across the pond, I am always impressed by your resilience and how you live with very few blind spots. You see what's happening, and you tend to be quick to interpret the world in a pretty straight-forward, eyes wide open perspective. I'm mortified at any mother who would try to get her daughter into sexual relationships, for...god only knows what reason.

Chart and L2N,
I really feel the love and hugs and support that you send my way. You, and all the people who are responding to this thread are people I feel a sense of trust with. Your sincerity, along with the others, is what I come here to the forum for.

All--everyone who is reading this
As you can imagine, and as most of you have already lived through also, the love that came to us from our Narcissistic others, was fake love. Conditional love. It had barbs and hooks on it meant to trap us into taking on their guilt and shame, and also to paint their houses for them while they drank warm beer and talked on the phone (Okay, that sounds specific because it is exactly one of the things my sister was able do to do me when I was in my 20s. I helped raise her kids, I painted her house, I cleaned her house, all because it was the only way I knew how to feel any love from anyone...do stuff for them and they'll love you). But you are not like that. You people, the people of this community...one major thing that we want from each other is to feel connected and cared about. You all give me that on a daily basis and I...truly...come...here...for...that...very...thing. And you...always...deliver. I couldn't be cared for any better than through these heartfelt connections that we make with each other.

I just got off of a zoom with a person who occasionally interviews me for her doctorate as she's working to become an addiction counselor. She's interviewed me 4 times now over the past six months. We're getting to know each other by now. She is learning, partly through our interviews and my books, that when therapists and friends add true care to their interactions, that they transform clinical therapy into gifted healing. Whether we call it love, or compassion, or care, or corroboration, it all means the difference between hearing healing words and experiencing healing for real. The people on this forum give me a sense that we care about each other, which is why this forum is a great addition to paid clinical therapy. Our bond can often fill the gaps that a clinical therapist isn't providing along with their words. I support therapy, but I also support a multi-pronged approach to healing. Therapy gives us healing. And friendships with sympathetic others gives us healing also. They work well together.

As for CBT therapists who administer treatments to us on a strict agenda with pre-determined milestones, I just say this: some people know all the words but can't hear the music. People on this forum may not know ALL the words that a trained therapist knows, but we can hear the music. I need both. I need to know the words and I need to feel the music. With your help, I can now feel the music while I'm learning the words to healing and healthy living.

The people here on the forum hear the music and so we flow together the way a good band plays instruments in synchronized harmony. We are part and parcel of each other. Anonymity keeps us feeling safe with each other so that we can love each other without becoming a threat. We are not therapists, but we are able to bring the love to those whose therapists are missing that piece while in therapy.

PS: I'm babbling a bit. I'm in an ever-increasing emotional Flashback state that is promising to become more painful each day. I expect it will last through August and that the most difficult days are yet to come. I know this from experience. August is a very touchy month for me. Emotions are right at skin level and I'm prone to falling into crying fits or sudden, massive depressions at the drop of a hat. So I'm going to just stop typing on my keyboard now, because if I don't, I'll  just keep writing until my fingers bleed.

I love you people. All of you. I need you and you are there for me.

Thank you for that.

Papa Coco

[Chart]

Thank you PapaCoco.
 

[Desert Flower]

That's a great post Papa Coco. I love what you wrote about the different ways we need healing and what this community here does for us. I feel that too, very much. It's helping me tremendously. Thank you Papa Coco. Thank you all. 

[Denverite]

I think you're absolutely right, PapaCoco. Love is what makes us - or the lack of it breaks us - as demonstrated by C-PTSD. That's also what makes this condition so insidious; generating some sense of love for oneself feels impossible, given the sucking void inside of us. Yet the void is proof of the lack of love that we deserved rather than our unworthiness to be loved.

I see love in my own life as giving up the fight with myself. The self-hatred and criticism. No longer feeding that beast. I even externalize my story, imagining a child next to me who has gone through what I have. How could I not have compassion for, and strive to protect, someone like that? How could I abandon that person to the critics, inside and outside? 

[Chart]

 

[AphoticAtramentous]

I can't read everything sorry, don't have the energy for it. But I've appreciated what I've read thus far.
Actually just recently I was thinking about the complexity and universal nature of love. Truly our life becomes so much more when we provide the time and care into what we do. It affects our hobbies, our work, our relationships... and love itself comes in so many different forms. Your post has helped put some things into perspective for me, thank you.

Regards,
Aphotic.