Protection in FOO

Started by Blueberry, November 03, 2018, 05:10:39 PM

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Blueberry

At the therapeutic healing weekend the Ts suggested it might help me to repeat a sentence to witnesses: "I deserve to be protected." It felt OK to say it, but didn't move much in me. I said I probably most needed to direct it inwards to my Littles. So that's what the others did. They were standing all round me in a circle and each and every one said to me "You deserve to be protected." I stood there looking at them all, one by one, hearing something quite unbelievable and feeling emotions I never felt before. ?? I deserve to be protected?? Really??!

One of the Ts went on to suggest that the group should show me physical protection in one of two ways, neither of which 'said' anything to me because the whole concept is so novel to me. So the T decided, they would all turn their backs to me and make a defensive circle around me. I could sense the protection. I commented on it too - along the lines of: "this feels totally novel". Some people in the outer circle spoke about how they felt: like they felt as a member of the circle it was easy to protect me.

I realised while standing there how difficult it was for anybody in FOO to protect me because of the lack of unity in FOO. My parents weren't on the same page. Both of them tended to turn to their parents instead of each other in times of need or just in order to slag each other off instead of trying to work on an issue. My grandparents obviously heard negatives about their SIL and DIL and got involved in these disputes too instead of suggesting my parents sorted them out themselves. In all this negative quarelling mess, who was there for a little girl who needed protection from the quarreling mess itself as well as from M and the older B and the weird pronouncements of both GrM?

I realised too, I felt almost viscerally, how things could have been so much different if I'd felt that protection from day one. While the protective circle was around me, I felt warmth and safety. I think I might have been able to develop and flourish more as a child if I'd felt such protection, instead of creeping into myself, making myself as small as possible and often being cold and not moving much.

I know this type of therapy does go a certain way to healing those old wounds, it can give us as adults what was so desperately missing in our childhoods. It's a form of Re-Parenting.

I deliberately put this here and not in my Journal in case it inspires somebody else to write.


Three Roses

QuoteI realised while standing there how difficult it was for anybody in FOO to protect me because of the lack of unity in FOO.

I literally felt my stomach drop, like a brick hit it, when I read this. Now I'm getting teary. This has hit a spot in me I didn't know was there, gonna go process. Thank you BB!

Kizzie

I'm so glad you had that experience for you and your little ones BB, we could all use that.  :yes: 

QuoteI think I might have been able to develop and flourish more as a child if I'd felt such protection, instead of creeping into myself, making myself as small as possible and often being cold and not moving much.

I think this is spot on! I've been seeing more and more discussion about resiliency or balancing factors in childhood trauma and one that looms large is connection with even one caring adult, a grandparent, coach, teacher .....  That relationship gives the child a sense of safety, protection and care that is lacking and makes the world a place to come out into rather than hide from.

Not only do positive connections seem to mitigate trauma in childhood but it seems like it can help in adulthood as your experience has shown so tks for sharing . :hug:  Hearing things like this can help us to open our hearts to the possibility of connecting, trusting and uncurling from that tight little ball we pull ourselves into.  :thumbup:


Blueberry

Quote from: Kizzie on November 04, 2018, 02:23:28 PM

QuoteI think I might have been able to develop and flourish more as a child if I'd felt such protection, instead of creeping into myself, making myself as small as possible and often being cold and not moving much.

I think this is spot on! I've been seeing more and more discussion about resiliency or balancing factors in childhood trauma and one that looms large is connection with even one caring adult, a grandparent, coach, teacher .....  That relationship gives the child a sense of safety, protection and care that is lacking and makes the world a place to come out into rather than hide from.

You're spot on here too Kizzie! When we lived in my parents' country of origin, I came out of my protective shell and acted a bit like a normal little girl and later like a semi-normal teenager. But apparently it wasn't enough to mitigate years of.... And then when we went back to the country we normally resided in, things seemed worse than ever and I went back into my protective shell.

When I was a teenager in my parents' country of origin, I could suddenly do math, after struggling for years. It was as if a blind lifted. Then when I was back in normal country of residence, the blind fell back. I never really understood math again. I struggled and struggled but it was as if there was a vital part of understanding wiped out. I mention this because it was something I had no control over, it just happened with those moves from country to country.


LilyITV

Such a beautiful post and very illuminating for me.  It really helps me to understand how important it is as children to get our emotional needs met.  For so long, I have not recognized how important it is for children to feel protected and safe.  Just the recognition that we have a need to feel safe and that we never felt that way as children really helps me understand C-PTSD.

I was physically safe as a child(aside from corporal punishment), but emotionally, I was totally on my own.  If I was sad, there was no one to I could turn to.  Wouldn't it have been nice if instead of making me feel ashamed whenever I was sad, my parents had given me a hug, wrapped me up in a blanket with some chicken soup and told me everything would be okay??  Instead of berating me for every single misstep, giving me the encouragement I needed that I could do better the next time??

It also gives me hope that although we did not get what we needed as children, we can still reparent our child parts and still become whole human beings. 

Kizzie

Although it is getting better, I've found it difficult to reparent myself mainly because I didn't really have any positive role models except for in TV shows, movies and books which aren't particularly realistic. 

Not to hijack your thread BB (and if it gets off track we can split this off and move it),  but I've had this kind of crazy idea in the back of my head for a while that if we had access to surrogate parents/care giver in adulthood we would do so much better faster. I'm think of orgs like Big Brothers and Sisters or the Samaritans except it would be for adult trauma survivors who need to experience a feeling of support and caring from safe adults outside of therapy. So many of us have difficulty finding people like this on our own.  There's a group in the UK called Stand Alone that is for people who are estranged from family and they are overrun with response at the moment which speaks to the need for such groups.   

When I think about how many millions I suspect there are of us who suffer from Complex PTSD it's not really all that crazy to think it would be worth the effort/investment in getting an organization like this up and running with chapters around the world.  The Return on Investment would likely significantly reduce some of the cost involved in providing treatment, services and support for trauma survivors.