Healing - I keep crying whenever people are nice to me

[Keirshy]

Hi all, this is my second post here. Following a string of terrible relationships the past few years, I'm reading Women Who Love Too Much by Robin Norwood. The last relationship I was in caused me to become suicidal three times, the last being severe. For context I've only been suicidal twice in my life, under extreme stress from social anxiety and dealing with mom who caused my CRTR.

This last ex love bombed me, devalued then discarded me, textbook narc abuse cycle. Now he's hoovering, and I suspect getting a mutual friend to report on me as I've blocked him on social media. He has a sick need to make you beneath him. When he flirted with a woman in front of me for 3 hours, he blamed me for not speaking up. For context, he'd threatened to leave before if "he didn't get a good social time", so that's why I ignored it. He also claimed he couldn't learn not to flirt, even though he's doing a PhD.

I feel so enraged and humiliated. Before I met him, I was working a good job and my self-esteem was getting so much better. I was meeting new people, learning to avoid bad ones, and generally opening up. Then here comes this love bomber, and I thought all was well. But as soon as I'd committed, he started blaming me for his insecurities. It was so awful! I felt confused and there was literally nothing I could do to fix it for him! He refused to take responsibility or any blame for anything wrong. All he wanted was to feel superior in every fight. I think he was so abusive.

I feel it's so unlucky that when I opened up I found such a horrible human being to attach to. But at the same time it's hard to find good people who won't abuse me. I know I have a pattern of hiding my feelings, but so many people who are good to me I find hard to open up to. I am doing that now, bit by bit, but it's so hard. The good people are immediately validating, kind and empathetic. It's so foreign and unsettling, I don't know what to say to them - thank you? I just feel like I don't deserve it.

Whenever I experience this goodness, I just want to cry. It feels like all my suffering with my ex and abusive mother was optional. Why did all that pain happen? I feel like they hurt me, over and over. Even now my ex is trying to hurt me with hoovering (lies, stalking, all to end up treating me worse than before). I feel like all the suffering they did to me, all optional, and it makes me depressed.

I just don't know why I was treated so badly by people who said they loved me. And then why now I am treated well by people I feel good around. It's all so confusing. My body feels suddenly less tense and I don't know how to deal with it - I keep dropping things now haha. But I just can't accept being treated well, and yet I'm so self-aware of why I can't do it that I just want to cry. Every time I cry I can't stop. I just keep feeling so sad and sorry for myself. Letting go feels good, so why do I keep crying? People are so nice to me, they're there for me emotionally, they help out, I feel safe with some of them. It all feels good so why do I keep crying? How long is it going to be that I will find it so hard to accept good people and things in my life?

[blue_sky]

Hi Keirshy,
Firstly I'm so sorry you had to go through all that terrible stuff. I wish there was an answer to "why" these things happen to us and how come we are the ones to suffer while they live such a normal, happy life. I used to also question a lot of "why" my B did what he did. (CSA)

I think through years of therapy, I have started learning that there might not be an answer to my whys. Instead I could focus that time and energy on how to get better and love myself instead.

I am very familiar with crying when someone is nice to you. We were moulded into so much negativity that a ray of positivity would scare us and the unknown making us cry. It took quite a long time for me to break that wall that I had built layer by layer around me.

I think the first step I did was love my inner child, hugged her and told her she deserves better. That it was unfortunate what she went through but there are definitely better people in the world and she deserves all the love and care.

gentle  if that's okay. If you want to cry, I can just silently sit by you while you cry, that's okay too. We understand.

[Keirshy]

Aww thank you so much for the comforting words blue_sky. And I'm really sorry you had to go through CSA. Nobody deserves that. Ever.

I know I should just stop asking why, and I've seen the benefits first hand of building a happy life for myself.

However I catch myself being afraid of letting go of that old identity. If I'm not a traumatised person, then who am I? What do I spend my time doing, if not to please someone who cannot be happy? What do I think about, if not to psychoanalyse and worry about my abusers? I know it is bad and shameful, but I admit I just have no idea what a normal, happy, mutually fulfilling relationship feels like. And I don't know what to do with myself - what good am I to them?

I know all these are fears my Parts are harbouring. They're afraid to let go. What if, what if, what if!

At least I'm doing the things I want to do now. Sometimes I genuinely feel happiness, sometimes even for days at a time. It makes me realise I don't need to suffer to "deserve" happiness. That whole thing isn't how it works anyway. I hope it will fully sink in one day, and replace my old programming.

Did doing all the things you liked replace your traumatic programming? Or was there anything else you tried? Hope you have a good day today

[blue_sky]

Sometimes I genuinely feel happiness, sometimes even for days at a time.

Isn't this great? I know how precious these moments feel! Hopefully we all have more and more of these....

I think I also felt scared of letting go that old identity. But I think for me it has been feeling more like a transition from a CSA victim to a survivor slowly. I am more in limbo so that feels even scarier i think. On good days I feel like a true survivor, strong and so proud. And on bad days I feel like my progress has been all lost, like I have to start from Ground_Zero again. However, I definitely do feel much comfortable being a survivor than a victim.

Trauma processing via EMDR has definitely been helping although I am still in very early stages. EMDR is quite pricey where I am currently living so I can't get as many sessions as I would love to so my journey is very slow and can lose momentum from time to time but I can see small changes in trauma programming. We have to remember that we were programmed a certain way when we were very young and it was programmed for years. So it will take time to unlearn and relearn all the programming codes in our brain. I try to persevere.

Another thing I have been trying is to be NC with my perpetrators (brother and cousin) which is the most challenging one because they are still a part of family and it's quite difficult. I have also not been to the houses where those incidents happened for nearly 3 years now. I do want to be able to face those places one day when I'm in a better space but for now, it's okay for me to stay away.

[Keirshy]

Thank you for the reply Blue. I'll take those into consideration! Definitely gonna keep doing more EMDR.

[Bert]

Hi Keirshy,

My heart goes out to you, and I hope that this forum can help with your recovery.

I think what has caused my CPTSD is perhaps a bit different from yours (except for the damage that a narcissist does...). However, I wanted to respond to the "keep crying when people are nice to me".

I'm not much of a cry-er. I couldn't ever really afford to show tears in my childhood, or any emotion for that matter. But as I've recently "woken" up to the harsh reality that my childhood and early adulthood has been anything but normal or acceptable, I have been an emotional wreck.

As well as a lot of tears of grief and deep sadness. I have found that the most simplest acts of kindness offered to me have had me reduced to tears. Even small acts of kindness made towards myself (which are scarce) has had me sobbing just recently.

I'm very much "waking up" to my reality, circumstance, and to CPTSD. After a childhood of being abused and gaslit... I guess, it really is okay to feel soft on yourself. Especially when realising that not everybody is cruel...

Hope to see you around

[Keirshy]

Hey Bert

Yes it's the exact same situation for me. I believe it's the awakening that's triggering all these big emotions. It's so difficult to be a normal person...Kizzie has an interesting thread on CPTSD as leading to acquired neurodivergence, which is what it feels like to me.

Even when I want to be close to people, I'm afraid. I've associated intimacy with rejection and this fear it a lot. It's so awful. I don't even know how to rewire my brain, other than noting times I'm genuinely happy. But it's so profoundly exhausting work. I feel like I should be on benefits or something 

[Keirshy]

Here's the thread

https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=15488.msg135335#msg135335