dollyvee's recovery journal

[Papa Coco]

Dolly

I'm sending you my thoughts and friendship. It sounds like you are really working hard on yourself right now. I'm always impressed by your efforts. You are a smart person and I hope that your current efforts move you forward a few steps in your journey to healing.

I tend to learn about myself by what you post about your journey. The words you've been sharing about the shame that befalls us, have given me a lot of great nuggets for my own meditations and readings. Thank you for being so open in your journal. It helps me too.

I don't have much to add, but I hope this virtual hug gives you some warmth.



Your friend, PC.

[dollyvee]

Thank you PC  Thank you for being here and being a friend. It does bring comfort to know that there's someone else who has been through a similar journey.

There's a couple things coming up that I wanted to write about. 1) I think one of the biggest forces driving my behaviour is the idea that relationships mean that someone wants something from me, and distancing myself from people because of "control," that I cannot be an autonomous person around people. That I think they will want to put something on me, want something from me etc and I feel powerless. Therefore, it's better to keep some distance. I am wondering if this came to me and is something I learned watching other people in the family because they had it done to them. Ie my m and gm's relationships with men, that they tried to control them. These are my expectations too and I think I'm trying to change that view, that there can be something else. I don't have to "fight" relationships and people can respect my needs.

2) I never had a healthy way of doing things modelled for me with regards to big life events like buying house or car without some sort of control (my gf not agreeing to something because he didn't like the terms etc even if it made sense financially business wise; my m refusing to cosign a mortgage because it would be for me and my sf wouldn't allow it). The last one in really tough. I know there are a lot of people that don't have help from their family because they're not able to help, but to have them not help as a form of punishment, or because it's something about me, hits very differently. Of course too, he had been doing similar things since I was 7/8. I can understand my mistrust, and level of anger/anxiety over being "controlled." I guess I also very much understand the want/need to be able to do things on my own as a form of safety and protection. I also think that not engaging, or doing these things (aspiring to them too), is a way of not having to deal with the feelings coming up around them.

However, I think the sad (?) thing is is that I've also found people in my life who want to model my sf's behaviour and where I feel again, that part of me is listening to people who are trying to tell me there is something wrong with me. I think my m too, and gf, participated in this behaviour albeit in sometimes more covert ways. Gf was probably an original model for it.

It would be interesting to think what/who is/was behind the 7/8 year old who doesn't have to believe those things about herself. It would be interesting to think too, that she will not be punished for being that person.

[NarcKiddo]

That I think they will want to put something on me, want something from me etc and I feel powerless. Therefore, it's better to keep some distance.

This resonates so much. I find it so hard to say "no" that I would rather not be put in that position. In my case it comes from not having been able to say "no" to my mother as a child. I was made to believe that bad things would happen if I said no, and indeed bad things did happen to the best of her ability. At the very least she was hurt and upset by any recalcitrance which meant I had failed in my job to keep her happy. I could then beat myself up and she didn't have to bother.

The problem with allowing people to respect our needs, I find, is that in order to respect them the needs have to be revealed and we have to be prepared to protect them by saying "no" if necessary. I've been doing that a bit, recently, and the sky has not fallen if I have said "no". Not even when I have said "no" to FOO demands. But it is emotionally such terribly hard and stressful work to say "no" that I fear it will take a very, very long time to build new neural pathways around that word. Ugh.

This is all becoming rather too much about me when all I really meant to do was say point 1 of your post particularly resonates with me.

I am sorry you were punished for being you when you were younger. But you can protect that little girl now. 

[dollyvee]

The problem with allowing people to respect our needs, I find, is that in order to respect them the needs have to be revealed and we have to be prepared to protect them by saying "no" if necessary. I've been doing that a bit, recently, and the sky has not fallen if I have said "no". Not even when I have said "no" to FOO demands. But it is emotionally such terribly hard and stressful work to say "no" that I fear it will take a very, very long time to build new neural pathways around that word. Ugh.

Thank you NK and I hear what you're saying. Part of my mantra when I'm around other people and feeling overwhelmed is saying no repeatedly, that whatever it is, I'm not taking it on and I do find that helpful. I guess it's the part of the brain that's before that state that I struggle to understand and break through to sometimes. I think it's the programmed part of me from a very young age who's responsibility it was to meet everyone's needs and make them feel better. It's like I can read body language and if someone's in distress, I do feel empathy for what they're going through (I think). Or like, that person seems insecure about something, I want to offer kindness. It's such an automatic and under the radar reaction.

When it gets complicated is if I don't do that and unpacking that I'm not a selfish or bad person for doing so. I think this is an automatic reaction as well. That person feels uncomfortable now, I must have done the wrong thing. And, if that person doesn't come back from that, if they don't respect a boundary, then there is a loss I guess. For example, in dating I guess there is a part that attaches, or thinks that maybe this acceptance means I'm not the person I was told I was, and when that is taken away, I'm left with the original feelings. However, because of how deep the wound is, I think a lot of this is buried. I mean I guess surface wise, I know that people need to get to know each other and it doesn't always work out, but I think there's another part active. It's either they want something from me, or are they going to be safe, which I think is this idea (maybe fantasy of what I didn't get growing up?).  There is another part that is willing to be giving and open (though I also don't think this part is respecting my boundaries (?), or blocking out information about who people are, what they have done -nothing dire most times, just who they are as people ie angry etc) because I have to see the "rosy" picture, or it's my responsibility to take that on. There is no other alternative to this. I think this is a very deep part and likely dissociated. Kind of like what came up the other day about my gm, that any other idea of her other than being a loving person was shot, or guilted, down.

I think part of my modus perandii is to not create any waves. I always try to be as waveless as possible because I don't want to stand out, I don't want an opinion that I have to defend. But also the crazy thing is is that I am very much opinionated and am willing to go out on a limb with things. Though maybe for ideas and not with people if that makes sense? Hmmmm I think I may have just unearthed some oppositional parts (can't remember the exact IFS term right now edit: polarized parts). So, thank you for response and helping me work this out 

(the other thing that's interesting is that I think on some level I'm aware that this is going on with other people and feel some level of shame (?) in going through it around them. For example, with romantic interests. I would love to not put any of this on other people and to deal with it "on my own," but I guess some part of me is involving them and "putting them through the ringer" because I feel like they want something from me. Also, of course is how do we vet people when we were never allowed to have boundarie?

____________________

Kind of along the lines from above but I did a larger macro dose the other day, which I haven't done in about a year. I felt quite sleepy (though didn't sleep the night before very well which has been happening recently), but also felt good. I had a feeling of all of "me" and how much I need to control (though I don't know if that's the exact way to put it) and all the negative self belief/anxiety, but underneath there was something solid (though dark/unknown) and strong. I was thanking my protector parts and wanting to connect to this other part, trying to bring this underlying part out more. I dreamt that night I was in a room, scraping layer of old plaster off the wall and wallpaper too. I said about the wallpaper that it will be difficult to get off. When I looked up taking down wallpaper in the dream dictionary, it said "beginning to let your guard down; revealing aspects of yourself that have been well hidden." I guess it would be interesting to think that those aspects of myself that have been well hidden are not bad (parts).

____________________

I also had an interaction with someone yesterday where I felt like I was being challenged (in my mind unfairly so). What I noticed was that it brought up a freeze response (like what did I do wrong, what have I done), but I could also see (I think) that it linked back to what I spoke about before with my sf and how his behaviour made me feel, and all of a sudden I am back in that place (having to stand up to people). I guess this time I'm not in that place, and the adult me can say that that person's behaviour is not about me and I don't need to react (or feel the same) as before.

[NarcKiddo]

I could have written so much of that myself!

The wallpaper dream is interesting. My hunch is that the hidden parts are not bad parts. Partly because (and I know very little about IFS theory, so I am winging it here) I don't think any parts are bad per se. They have developed for a reason and they react according to that. They may now be unhelpful or even harmful to us, but at one point they were needed. However what I really suspect about hidden parts is that they are probably good and almost certainly very vulnerable (or make other parts more vulnerable), which is why they are hidden away. For instance, you mention the part that likes to be giving and open but in the process does not respect your boundaries.

I'm glad to read that adult you can stand firm and say other people's behaviour is theirs. And that you can recognise where your initial response is coming from, which means you can consider how you want to behave rather than just being a victim of the knee jerk emotional response. Good for you!

[Hope67]

Hi Dollyvee,
I am hoping to come back and read what you've written - because I see you've written quite a few things that I relate to - and I want to digest what you wrote.  I've only skim read what you wrote this time, but hope to pop back and read properly. 

Sending you a hug too 
Hope 

[dollyvee]

Thanks NK - I'm glad you could related to what I wrote. Parts are an interesting one and while I totally agree that there are no bad parts, there is also a question of who's parts are they? Something I've come to realize is that legacy burdens are parts that are not yours that you (or a part of you) has agreed (or perhaps needed to out of safety which is a form of agreement) to take on in some facet. So, for example, 70% of the part could be someone else's, and passed down through the line (ie generational trauma/beliefs etc). For me, it has been a process I think of understanding that there is dissociation around parts sometimes, maybe partially in the form of allowing myself to even believe that the things I am experiencing/feeling are true (when I have had my reality "corrected" so often growing up), and then beginning to understand the parts and where they come from, and then finding the ability to connect to them (perhaps some dissociation here as well though I think it's related to being "allowed" to believe they are true).

As for the part that "likes" to be giving and open (people pleasing behaviour I think), I think it's perhaps related to a very young part that was conditioned to behave like that and likely does so out of safety. For me, it's behaviour that is difficult to access and "control." It's like a switch flips and becomes hard to settle around people that I feel are "selfish," for example. I feel that people also take my "niceness" for weakness and just perpetuates the cycle of being hyperaroused, feeling in danger, feeling the need to protect myself and then feeling like I did something wrong/am not nice etc. It's also interesting that apparently our primitive brain is wired for connection and a sense of loss of connection is perceived as a threat to survival (when we needed groups to survive; and likely a mother to depend on as an infant). Anyways, I'm rambling.

Thank you Hope    Yes, I have written a lot haha. Had the need to work some things out. These are just my thoughts though. Sometimes it's just helpful to put what's going on out into the ether.

So, I had a though yesterday about having to show someone that I was bullied growing up and it brought up a lot of shame. It brought up tears, but I think it's shame behind those. Just a feeling of I don't want to show people, or be vulnerable and have to tell someone about that. I think, to even write it on here, feels quite "exposing." When my sf would treat me a certain way, my m would say don't show him that it bothers you, or something to that effect. I think it has been the toughen up/lock it away method around certain things since then.

[Papa Coco]

Dolly,

I think a bit the same way as you. Authors who write the books like It Didn't Start with You, and a good number of spiritual and psychological experts corroborate that we are sometimes home to some leftover parts from our ancestors. Sometimes when I'm exploring my own IFS population, I start to think there are possibly hundreds of them in there. At least sometimes it feels that way. And I even explore the notion to ask, "Am I sharing parts with anyone else?" It sounds crazy to me, but I think it's always okay to at least ask the non-traditional questions.

I have had a few instances during therapy with my DBT therapist, when I hear what sounds like large groups of IFS parts screaming in my head when I get too close to a memory that I normally avoid. It sounds like an amusement park where a hundred people are screaming from the roller coaster area.

I don't know if anyone has ever commented on how many parts we can have, but it would be interesting to hear some expert thoughts on that.

I'm good at accessing my fawn parts now. Fawning and being a people-pleaser was my go-to protection mechanism for my whole life. I guess I still do it today, but I'm kind of getting a little bit of control over it. It still happens though. It's sort of like being held-up by a mugger. If someone threatens me I first look for a way to make them like me before I'll defend myself.

[dollyvee]

Thanks PC    There is a list of questions that Ann L. Sinko asks parts to help define if they are legacy burdens or not. These are from Innovations and Elaborations in Internal Family Systems Therapy:

Table 10.1 Client Statements That Indicate a Possible Legacy Burden
• My mother (father, grandmother, etc.) had this too.
• It's always been with me.
• I will be bad, if I don't... (caretake, accommodate, be nice, follow the rules, etc.)
• It's unsafe to shine.
• I always knew it wouldn't be okay for me to get too big for my britches.

Table 10.2 Questions to Ask to Identify a Legacy Burden
• Does the severity of your symptom fit with your life experiences?
• Do your symptoms make sense to you?
• Do you feel like this energy belongs to you and you alone?
• When did you start to believe this? (If the answer is always, keep an ear out for a legacy burden.)

Innovations and Elaborations in Internal Family Systems Therapy (pp. 166-167). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

I resonated with some of these when I met a part before. It just didn't feel like mine. However, I can see aspects of me that are also in this part, but I don't think it's mine. Listening to one of Bob Falconer's talks, he's described people with hundreds of parts (if I'm remembering correctly) where they had them all in a safe place on the beach and would go the beach during morning meditation and ask, "does anyone need attention," and access their parts that way. I had, maybe let's call it a fear, that I had numerous, endless parts and perhaps it was overwhelming, or I thought that I was doing something wrong, or probably more likely, that I was wrong because I might have all these parts. However, I can see that this is maybe a skeptical, controlling, or judgemental type part at work who is maybe worried about perfectionism etc. If I have hundreds of parts, I have hundreds of parts. But this is just my experience.

I didn't also understand my dissociated parts either when I first met them, but vividly remember the feeling as if there were "layers" of parts, but this is something different.

It's funny you mention groups of loud parts screaming because I felt that the other day when I thought about dating again, and like you mention, I think it was because I was getting close to something. That the shame I have been feeling in relation to intimacy and dating is closer to the surface and that experience would bring it up.

I am reluctant to say that the people pleasing parts are fawning parts because they feel much closer to freeze than fawn under the surface. For example, the part freezes first because it feels it's in danger, and then perhaps tries to correct the situation by being "nice." Though I can understand how it might be taken for a fawn part, I don't think it's the underlying motive if that makes sense. For me, it's as if something is frozen in the first place and unable to react. I think it's probably a very young part.

[NarcKiddo]

Your final paragraph is very interesting and gives lots of food for thought. I suppose I have always thought that people pleasing = fawn, but once one considers the underlying motive I think my response is also born out of freeze. The motive is protection and (in my case too) it stems from a very young age. At that age fight or flight were simply not available options. Actually playing dead, as it were, in a total freeze response was also not an option, but I think I essentially froze, in that I froze myself and anything I might want or need. The focus was then on the appeasement. But I don't think I ever wanted her to do anything other than stop being horrid. I don't have any memory of wanting cuddles or her brand of love (though I must have at some stage, I suppose).

The legacy burden is also a fascinating area, since so much trauma goes back for generations.

Thanks for discussing these aspects. I know that the purpose of a journal is not to be an interesting read for others as such, but yours is.

[Papa Coco]

Dolly, I have to agree with NK about how your journal entries are interesting reads. Your research into these IFS parts has been a key driver in my learning to explore my own IFS parts.

Thank you for sharing so openly about it.

And as for dating, whoo-boy! For me, dating is 90% trust, and 10% everything else. Nothing will ignite the screaming in my IFS community like fears of knowing how and when and who to trust.

I hope that when you reach the point where dating begins, that everything you've been learning through therapy and research will get its chance to practice in a newer and more positive way. You know more now than you did in the past. Maybe when you start dating again, all that you've learned about IFS Parts will make for a better experience than when you were less educated on spotting your triggers and parts.

I often find comfort in Maya Angelou's words, "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." This quote always helps me to forgive my own past struggles and gives me confidence that maybe I know enough now that I actually will have a better experience going forward.

[dollyvee]

Thanks guys - I learned a lot about IFS when I first joined the forum from reading other peoples' journals (Hope, Snowdrop and Owl), and it inspired me to look into it and try it, even if I didn't fully understand everything that was happening. I'm glad to pay it forward and continue the "tradition." We're all helping one another learn about ourselves.

NK - I think that rings true for me, and that as a baby I couldn't fight, or flight so froze instead. I don't thikn the fawning came until later. I'm also leaning towards an identity issue. That when I have that feeling of closeness, or perceived closeness (ie someone wanting to get to know me etc), I think my immediate reaction is that I won't have space for myself. I won't be allowed my identity, which perhaps as a baby, felt like death or annihilation. So, there is a panic that someone wants something from me (I can't be myself and therefore it's like a death). I really wish there was more about fearful avoidant attachment out there. Maybe I just haven't found it yet. When looking up books on FA recently, someone suggested Healing Developmental Trauma. I may have to go back to that.

For myself, I think it would be useful to notice when these feelings come up and to try ask the parts to step back for Self a bit. It can be quite zero to 60 with emotional reactions, but I'm noticing little improvements I think.

Thank you PC - It's really tricky. I guess the best I can do is show up for myself and your Maya Angelou quote illustrates that perfectly. I don't know sometimes what trust is I think. I have in the past not trusted myself and the information I received about someone only to be disappointed later, by "trusting" in the person to be as open or forthcoming as me. I guess it's the delicate balance of allowing myself to take up space and ask questions (fearing that rejection/that things won't work out and realizing it doesn't have anything to do with me being a "bad"person etc) when things don't feel right. I also don't want to be the Spanish Inquisition either and allow people the benefit of the doubt. It's also really hard because ideally someone would understand, and give you space /let you figure things out, but people have their own working parts too. So, yeah whoo-boy!

Thanks for listening and responding though. I appreciate that what I am going through resonates with people.

[Papa Coco]

Dolly,

In reading what you responded to NK about how as a baby, you couldn't fight, I am quite sure that is absolutely true.

According to Van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score, our trust issues begin as infants. We are born with a survival instinct. We are biologically wired to rely on our "herd" or "family" to protect us while we're too small to protect ourselves. Our survival instinct is to cry, which was designed to bring mom and dad to our rescue. That's how we're originally wired to survive. In a perfect world, our protectors respond to our cries by holding us when we're scared, feeding us when we're hungry, and protecting us from predators and natural dangers. But for those of us who cried at a week old and were left to cry until we just gave up, that's when we began to learn that our instinctive survival wiring didn't work as designed.

So, we began our journeys to finding alternate "workaround" ways to trust ourselves instead of our protectors. (Or even how to protect ourselves from our protectors). Some of those alternative ways of protecting ourselves aren't serving us anymore. So now we need IFS therapy to try and fix that.

I've been meditating on trust a lot lately, and I'm beginning to see that trust, by itself, isn't the issue for me, but the feeling of being safe is where my life's trust issues live. I don't care if I distrust someone who can't hurt me. But if I distrust someone who CAN hurt me, that's when my feeling of not being safe confuses my trust issues. In reality, no one can be trusted at 100%. Everyone lies or makes mistakes, and becomes, by definition, untrustworthy. So, for me, learning how to feel safe around myself, and around my own thoughts and around other people, is how I need to build up my ability to learn better who and how to trust.

Naturally, I don't know if what works for me is right for you too, but I figure if I at least share my thoughts, maybe some of what I say can help. I sometimes think I'm just one hungry creature telling another hungry creature where I found food. Your posts help me, so I hope that I can return the favor by sharing my reactions in return.

My T repeatedly coaches me to just hold my IFS Parts and to be the parent they are still crying out for. I don't always have to understand the part's thoughts or motives, but by just saying, "I've got you," and really allowing myself to just hold them the way an infant wants to be held by their parent, brings some of my parts to merge in with me better. That's trust that I'm building within my own parts. As more and more of my parts get held when they cry, the parts feel safer with me, and as a result, my own lifelong trust issues begin to grow beyond my skin. I still have a ways to go. But I'm making progress.

[Hope67]

  to you Dollyvee.
Hope 

[dollyvee]

Thank you PC & Hope 

PC, I think that's a good point that no one is perfect and it's about how we trust in ourselves if someone lets you down that you will be able to cope, and that it's not a reflection on you. I think I was expected to "know" things and to not make mistakes, but we can't ever fully be sure that someone won't let us down, or let's say cheat/leave us in a relationship (or whatever ignites our abandonment trauma). What's more important is our trust in ourselves that we will be ok if it ever does. It's such a deep (young) reaction that I think it takes so much time (and trust) to begin to step back and process it.

Your post also made me think of the Ideal Parent meditation by Dan Brown that I bookmarked ages ago, but never got around to watching. I think maybe I was vaguely aware of the feelings it would bring up and just blocked it out. Or, as happens, it left me with a sense of being "angry." I think I also felt like I didn't know what ideal parents would look like (or maybe it was a sense of feeling like I didn't deserve that, or like it would never happen anyway). I went back and watched it today, and there were a lot of tears, but I feel like the awareness that has come up around shame recently has helped a lot, and it didn't feel as fuzzy. There was some anger (?) or maybe uneasiness around attunement as I think people (gm) probably attuned to me but it was with an agenda. So, there is a lot of protectiveness about someone being aware of my internal state because they might somehow use it against me, but at least there's an awareness of (somewhat fuzzy) people who wouldn't do something like that. I think I will watch it a few times.

If anyone else is interested this is the meditation here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2au4jtL0O4

He's an interesting guy and has done a lot of work with SA survivors and proving the false memory theory to be false I believe at trials ( ). He's also wrote a book on the A-Tri meditation cycle which is interesting to me.