Another attempt. The critic won last time.

[Gentian]

Thanks Three Roses and Sanmagic.  It's deeply embarassing to talk about this stuff even anonymously.  Trying to go about my life like I haven't done it. lol.  Just these two little stories, and I'm fighting the urge to bolt from this site daily.   In fact have been avoiding responding out of embarassment.  I hope you understand.

I'm sorry to hear you got similar treatment Three Roses. It's a terrifying way to live.  I've always felt that she affected me more deeply than even the sexual abuse.  Though I have absolutely zero interest in talking about that so maybe I'm fooling myself.  lol. 

[sanmagic7]

ya know, gentian, i totally get it, the embarrassment thing, but i also wonder to myself (i've felt the same way at times) why be embarrassed about someone else's bad behavior?   i remember having a party and my hub#1 got real drunk and decided to streak the party.  i was so embarrassed.  when i think about it, what did i have to feel embarrassed about?  he's the one who did it (and did it badly - he tripped and fell in the middle of it).  at the time, i couldn't even face my friends one more minute, and i got in the car and drove around for awhile, hoping everyone would go home.  i didn't want to see anybody because of what he did.

why is that?  i don't understand the underlying dynamic of it, at the same time i understand the feeling.  i didn't do anything to be embarrassed about, and from what i read, neither did you.   yet, that's exactly what happened.  that's the part i don't get.  do we think that we're responsible for the behavior of others to the point where, if they act badly, somehow it's our fault?  i don't know.  but i've had several instances like that in my life, too. 

anyway, i'm glad you haven't bolted.  it sounds like you've been holding onto a lot of mistreatment that doesn't belong to you in any way, shape, or form, and you're beginning to let some of it out.  this stuff is hard, no doubt, but as we go at our own pace, small steps, taking little chances (like you have) recovery will happen.  you're on your way.  i certainly hope you keep posting.  you're worth it.  big hug.

[Gentian]

Thanks San, that makes alot of sense.  I suspect as I progress that what i call "embarassment" is actually shame. 

[Gentian]

I woke up early again this morning with that terrible feeling weighing me down.  I hate waking up because of it.  It feels like the most tortured grief I've ever experienced, amplified within my torso somewhere.  It is painful, as though someone died, and I have just forgotten who.  I am so foggy and  confused at first, trying to orient myself around it and running mentally through my recent history trying to figure out what happened.

But there is nothing.  There almost never is.  I am blessed to realize no death, or breach of relationship.  No explanation.  Just a hollowed-out, painful center.  I've always launched  frantically into silent prayer (begging) at this time, or else mental distraction via books, tv or the internet.  For the first time, I tried to lie still and just feel it instead.

It  hurt, physically.  My chest region mostly, like my core had been hollowed out and my own susbstance replaced with this pain business.  It actually migrated from my chest down into my abdomen.  It was relentless and solid and exquisitely painful to just lie in bed with it, thought-stopping the inner critic that was screaming that I was going to die a horrible and premature death, leaving my grieving preschooler an orphan in foster care; my critic used to be about self-loathing and mockery, and was quite cavalier about whether I lived or died.  Now that I have a dependent whom I love more than life, it has turned quite vicious with visions of horrible things happening to her if I should die, and it turns every little ache or abnormality into cancer.

I don't know long I lay with it, but I didn't run from it, and I somehow actually fell asleep again.  When I woke up for the day, it was gone like it had never been.  This is it's m.o; ambush, then disappear.  This is the first time I've stopped running and turned toward it, though. 

I've always been (ignorantly, I'm sure) envious of people who experience depression as feeling nothing, because mine has always been so painful.  That's before I knew what it actually is, though.  I thought I was just innately flawed mentally, and accepted my diagnosis of major depressive disorder. But CPTSD makes so much more sense and gives me something to work with. Thank you, Pete Walker.

[sanmagic7]

shame rather than embarrassment.  somehow, that does ring a bell.  once again, tho, why should we feel shame for the behaviors of others?  is that something innate within us, or something we've been taught?  i don't really know.

gentian, what a dreadful feeling you describe.  i wish you didn't have to go through it, but i'm glad it goes away and doesn't stay with you all day.  kudos to you for staying with it, staring it down, as it were.  i believe you're taking some of your own power back.  well done!