Flashback, shame and recovery

[Bruised Reed]

As a child I was slightly overweight...5-10 lbs, but nothing major. NM frequently me feel bad for it. Around 11-12 years old..an age where a pre-teen should be developing a healthy body image and self-esteem..she told me that I was too fat and no one would ever want to date me or marry me. I remember with vivid clarity where I was and I am in my mid-40s now. I have always had issues with body image and believing I was pretty or attractive, no matter how many times I am told.

I did go on to gain a significant amount of weight as an adult. I believe it was a result of her treatment, but did go on to lose it and get healthy. Over the past two years, I have been through some significant medical trauma and have now gained some weight back. I'm lucky to be alive and am not able to exercise a lot at the moment. I try to walk around my neighborhood when I can. I have to be careful in what I do because the wrong thing will leave me passed out cold on the ground.

Two nights ago, I was hit with an intense feeling of shame about the weight gain. All I could think about was my NM telling me how I would never be acceptable or lovable because I was too fat. It doesn't matter everything I've accomplished in my life. It doesn't matter that I have a wonderful DH and DS. I have a wonderful group of supportive friends, people I consider family.  I haven't even been able to tell DH and I tell him almost everything. He knows something is wrong. I haven't been able to shake it. I just want to hide in our bedroom in the dark and never go out in public again so people don't have to look at me.

I know this isn't real, but how do I shake it?

[Indigochild]

Hi,
Im sorry this happened to you. No wonder you struggled / struggle with your body image...its not surprising.
Sometimes it doesnt matter what you have in your life, or what you have accomplished when you are feeling this way...the bad feelings are still there. 
Thats ok. It just means those feelings are particularly overpowering. 
With this sort of thing too, its normal to get sucked in...i think this is what they mean when they talk about *tunnel vision*.

I understand about not being able to tell someone about it. There are many reasons for this i believe. The shame for one doesnt help.

Im so sorry i cant offer any advice. I have come out of an ef that has been going on for the past week...and nothing would shake it.
The only thing that did was finally telling my boyfriend what the problem was...after being so afraid to. i took a risk as we were not speaking..and he kept asking.
I kind of thought that whilst this flashback is so bad...me leaving in a rage or getting upset would also be terrible and another ef...but what else do you do...tell and it be awful or live in fear and it be awful.

I don't have anything else to help you....i have no idea how to sort these things out.
Can you let yourself get angry? Can you cry it out? These may or may not help but it may ease it? just a little?
I know feeling emotions is hard...and that you might not want to go there. (the case for me)

Im sorry i cant help you....i hope you managing...

[schrödinger's cat]

Hi, Bruised Reed. I'm sorry to hear that your mother said such an awful thing to you. My mother made a few remarks on my looks, but they were a lot milder - and I still felt profoundly rejected. For a long time, I couldn't really remember many details of my childhood and teenage years, but I always, always remembered those things with crystal clarity, down to her matter-of-fact tone of voice, even where she stood while she said it. It's got to be so much worse for you.

So we're in the same boat.

It's making me feel really pissed off at both our mothers. Good grief, couldn't they have kept their mouths shut for just ONE moment? If they're insecure about themselves, fine. But to project all that insecurity onto a kid is just such a petty, thoughtless, cruel, enormously * thing to do.

I'm not sure I've got advice on how to shake it. I had a flashback yesterday, comparatively mild but long-lasting and unsettling, so it's not like I'm all that good at shaking them off myself. If I have time, I sometimes go to a coffeeshop and journal a bit, because getting the whole situation down on paper somehow makes it less... how do I put it... less like this brainwashed alternate reality I'm stuck in. Instead, it becomes something objective, something outside of myself, something I can look at and think about and grieve about.

Another thing that's helped is finding out just where I first had this feeling. So, yesterday I felt anxious, afraid, profoundly unsettled. Still do. But I'm now starting to realize it's because my father was ill, and my mother was very afraid and unsettled, and trying desperately to find a cure while also struggling with financial troubles a few times, and she was completely on her own and people around her hindered her instead of helping - but she never told us. So all that reached me was a sense that we were hovering over a black abyss and could fall at any moment. So that's the feeling I had yesterday. Knowing that doesn't fix things, but it makes it a little bit easier to remind myself that this isn't real NOW. It was real THEN. It's a window into the heart and thoughts of my past self.

I guess the next step would be to use self-mothering strategies, but I'm very very new to using those.

Lastly... I don't know whether that'll make any difference for you, but for me, it was a profound relief to realize that I DO have the right to grieve. I used to feel afraid of my fear, and ashamed of my shame, and I used to be sad that I was grieving so often - like the shame and grief and fear were problems I had to fix ASAP, and when I couldn't manage to do that, I felt like it was a sign of how defective I was. But now, I'm seeing it as belated grief. Grief work. I've got a right to grieve, and I'll move through it and out the other side.

I hope life will treat you kindly now, and that you'll feel a bit more at ease soon.    You never deserved any of those remarks your mother threw at you.

[rtfm]

Lastly... I don't know whether that'll make any difference for you, but for me, it was a profound relief to realize that I DO have the right to grieve. I used to feel afraid of my fear, and ashamed of my shame, and I used to be sad that I was grieving so often - like the shame and grief and fear were problems I had to fix ASAP, and when I couldn't manage to do that, I felt like it was a sign of how defective I was.

Thank you for writing this down, SC.  Except for the "used to" I could have written this if I'd had the words and the insight.

The shame and grief and fear were very much problems when I was a kid.  If I felt them, if I showed them, I was told immediately and in no uncertain terms how much of a problem they were, so I learned that it was in fact a sign of how defective I was.  Tonight I had a very bad, very destabilizing EF, and instead of allowing my partner to comfort me, I apologized for being crazy, for being so unstable.  I feel ashamed, I feel silly and stupid and untrustworthy.  And now I'm hiding because I only feel safe when I'm completely alone.  I'm grateful that my partner understands this, but I'm tired of it. I'm almost 40 years old and am quite safe.

I think to myself "this is absurd" but it's what you said - that you felt it wasn't OK to be grieving so often.  That it isn't OK to be grieving at all.  I feel that it isn't OK to feel so unsafe still, to be so upset still.  That's an ah-hah moment for me.  I confessed to my partner tonight that I'm having flashbacks and intrusive thoughts / memories daily still, and that I fear the quiet rumination time of showers or walking to the office.  I face it every day, and I keep it to myself...I keep it hidden, and I'm ashamed of it and won't tell anyone.  I'm terrified it won't ever go away.  It's so reflexive that I don't even think "maybe I should tell someone that my flashbacks are still really frequent." 

Anyway, thank you.  Every little insight hopefully provides new coping skills, and tying the silence about the EFs to shame is a big revelation.