Hi. I am new.

[Lonewolf86]

Lonewolf,

Welcome to the forum. You really got to me when you talk about how you are filled with love. What a beautiful thing to be filled with. Of course, I feel like the people who are most filled with love in this world are the same people who are prone to being traumatized by the cruelty of others. C-PTSD is common in truly good people. That's why there are so many truly good people on this forum. A lot of love is expressed between the good people here.

I value love over every other thing in the Universe. Being able to accept it and live within its warmth has been something I've only just recently begun to succeed at. I was diagnosed with trauma disorders in 2005. But that was my 7th therapist in 30 years. The first 6 just kept telling me to scream into a pillow and that would cool my rage. (Of course, I see it the other way around: Fighting rage with screaming is like fighting fire with gasoline...but hey...it's what their antiquated textbooks taught them years ago, so that's what they teach today.)

Love is gentle and kind, not raging and screaming into pillows.

I was forced to go full No Contact with my FOO in 2010 at age 50. I was rescued from suicide while on my way to jump off a bridge because of the flurry of lies they were all propagating about me. That was the beginning of my understanding of how much damage they'd done to me over the years. I left them to save myself. Being codependent on a family that constantly belittles and lies and gaslights their most loving members was something I couldn't understand until I got away from them and broke out of the spell of codependency.

Thank you for having the courage to publicly say that you are filled with love. Not a lot of men feel safe to say such words.

I'm glad you joined. I'm sorry you needed to, but very glad this forum is here for you, me, and all the other members who've found friendship and validation here.

Looking forward to reading more from you.

Papa Coco

Papa Coco, I went back to read some of the posts today and I realized that I didn't convey my intended appreciation for your reply to my first post on the forum.  Thank you for sharing about how you arrived at the understanding about the 'truth' of your past and I'm so glad someone got to you and saved you from jumping off the bridge.  I agree with what you said about how love is the most important thing.  I agree that it is and I have given more thought to my original statement that "I'm filled with love" - I wanted to elaborate a bit .. this doesn't mean I don't feel hate- I definitely do.  I can actually have feelings of love and hate at the same time but ultimately the love I feel that I'm filled with is God's love. It's love that understands and accepts things as they are - I'm thinking maybe it had to grow there inside me to balance out the love i wasn't getting in my life.  I hope you're well!

[Dalloway]

Another random thought is that this isn't the same for every person.  Some are much worse than others and sometimes I'm just in a little bit of a better place. 

I feel that, too. My theory is that if I talk to someone who´s personality is "safe" for me (they are kind and patient and open), I feel it intuitively and then I feel comfortable in their presence.

[Papa Coco]

Lone Wolf,

I understand that we are filled with Love, but also with emotional baggage at the same time.

The way I see it, fish don't know they swim in water, and we humans don't really grasp how we swim in a Universe of pure love. Shame and fear are part of the human experience that overlays our ability to see through it to the love that is there for all of us. Sort of like if you're in a cabin in the woods. Even though you're in a cabin, that cabin is in the woods, so you are in the woods while you're in the cabin. Here I am, living in a Universe filled with the love of god, but I find myself thinking that the anger and shame I feel has removed me from the love. It hasn't. It's just hiding me from seeing it.

Fish are in water whether they know it or not. I'm in Unversal Love whether I know it or not. The trick, for me, is learning how to let go of my emotional baggage, one tiny portion at a time. Each time I successfully release an emotional pain, Love seems to quickly rush in and fill the spot that my emotions had just vacated. It's a progression, not an on off switch. Every year I can look back and see that I'm a bit more filled with love than I was the year prior. I still rage at bad neighbors, bad drivers, bad politicians, but I don't rage at them nearly as severely as I did a year ago. Personally I feel like we are here on this earth to progressively, carefully, intentionally remove those negative feelings from us.

I've been learning a ton by reading and rereading Letting Go: the Pathway of Surrender, by David. R. Hawkins. As I release my emotional baggage the way he teaches, I am starting to feel myself connecting more with the Love of God and less with the baggage and rage and anger and fear and shame that has covered me. For me, it's less about trying to get better and more about accepting that I was hurt and that I've used suppression and distraction to keep myself from releasing the hurt. The more I release little bits of shame and fear and trauma each day, the more Love fills my heart. But, for me, it's a progression. Baby steps. They're working. I'm becoming happier and more connected with Love and forgiveness each day. A little a time. Slow and steady wins the race.

The shame and loneliness of my childhood still sometimes makes me curse my parents' names, and the church that abused me in so many ways, but that cursing doesn't feel as poisonous to me today as it once did. Somehow, through reading, treatments, and friendships on this forum, I don't feel like what they did to me was quite as permanent as I'd always felt. My rage at my family and church was far more poisonous when I felt like I couldn't heal from it. Now that I feel like I can get a little bit of healing each day, through meditation, learning, and connection with others who feel similar things as I do, every day is a tiny bit better than the day before it. And that's good enough for me right now. Improvement is improvement and I'll take it!