Cutting my tormentors down to size

[bluepalm]

I dreamt last night that I was still with my former husband and suddenly realised very clearly that the marriage must end and I accomplished that almost immediately ; in that I asked him to go and he went out the front door and, after turning once to threaten to punch me in the face,  he walked away. In real life, nearly 40 years ago, it had taken me many many months of painful turmoil to convince my husband that our marriage must end (a marriage in which my husband said he felt 'complacently happy') and there were many moments when I felt I would not survive the process. Certainly I knew that I could not go on living if I had to continue living with my husband.

Waking from this dream this morning, I have felt a new freedom and realised how I have inflated my tormentors in my mind for so many years.

Recently I have been talking with my therapist about how the pattern of abandonment, neglect and abuse that I experienced with my parents was carried on through my marriage and then carried on to my life with my adult sons (although not with my sons during their childhood, thank goodness). It has been a long and reluctant process for me to acknowledge that my adult sons display characteristics and  behaviour towards me that mirrors that of my husband and my parents.

It is painful to acknowledge that my adult children distress me, trigger me, in ways that infiltrate every day of my life. This is not how life should be and it's hard not to feel ashamed of my urge to run away from them to escape the threat. After all, they are still my babies, my life has revolved around caring them and I know that they have limited control over how they are as people, given that we are all creatures of our DNA inheritance through the ages.

This dream has somehow allowed me to realise how I have inflated my husband and my adult sons in my mind so they have the size and presence of my huge parents, looming over me, threatening and frightening me when I was an absolutely helpless infant and tiny child. 

Something about my ability to get my husband to walk out the front door in my dream has allowed me to realise that I can cut these people 'down to size',  I can release the sense of looming threat and shame that I carry inside when I think of them. It's a holdover from the trauma of my infancy.

I feel this freedom to see  them at a 'normal' size will be good for our relationships as well as for my peace of mind.

However, because I'm not sure if this sense of freedom will last, although I dearly hope so, I wanted to record my realisation here on OOTS to see if that will help me hold onto it.

And also to ask if anyone else has had a realisation that their tormentors in adulthood loom in their mind with the same enormously inflated size as the tormentors of their childhood.

[Blueberry]

  on cutting your ex h down to size!

[colourme]

Hi Bluepalm
Can I start by saying I find your writing hypnotising, almost melodic. I don't want to stop reading what you say and I want to learn more about your life and experiences.

You say;

And also to ask if anyone else has had a realisation that their tormentors in adulthood loom in their mind with the same enormously inflated size as the tormentors of their childhood.

I say most definitely. Recently it occurred when my husband showed a spell of angry projection identification. He was expelling his feelings of frustration onto me and getting more and more explosive that I didn't respond the way he wanted.
There have been a handful of times in my life I have reacted strongly in the opposite way and I found it shocks my tormentors (it is not long though before they deride, chide, humiliate, scorn for another round).

I think this is something to do with being in the child- like frame of mind when observing tormentors collectively as one like this. It may also be Regression back in time and Dissociation/floating or spacing out.