My journey so far

[Little2Nothing]

Thanks, Aphotic. I know what I wrote was jumbled, I'm glad you were able to make sense out of it. 

[NarcKiddo]

There is a part of me that is stubborn and unreasonable, that pushes people away with the intent of hurting myself before they have a chance to hurt me.

Oh yes, this resonates. I don't tend to get belligerent with them but I have a long history of setting impossible standards for others, especially romantic interests. "If he loves me then he will do/say xyz." I would make these standards even harder to achieve by not actually communicating them to the other person. And then when they failed to live up to the standards I would take this as evidence that they did not, in fact, love me and I should end my relationship at once. At my worst I did not even tell them I had ended the relationship. At the time I convinced myself that they cared for me so little that they would not even notice my absence. In reality I did not want to give them a chance to explain or repair the relationship because what I was actually doing was dumping them before they discovered my deficiencies and dumped me.

[Chart]

I was conceived to save my parents' relationship, literally. My mother became pregnant for this reason, then prayed for a son, thinking my father would never abandon his son as he himself had been abandoned by his father. She couldn't have been more incorrect.

Since, I have tried to "save" everyone around me. Doted with a near magical power to "know" what was wrong with those around me, I've always tried with Herculean force to repair everything that crosses my path. I throw nothing broken away, I keep it and try to repair it, passing into totally unreasonable situations. I do the same in my relationships. Often I "know" light-years ahead of most people what the source of their problem is. I try to tell people, but of course they rarely understand. Sometimes they become angry with me, rejecting me precipitously. Sometimes they understand and become dependent on me. Then I continue, waiting for my turn to be helped. But it rarely comes, or they don't understand what I'm asking for, or they simply cannot do for me what I need.

I collapse, usually by rejecting them from my life. I then am submerged by emptiness and regret. One way or another I have lost.

It seems all of our protection strategies are merely extensions of the dysfunction we experienced. It is a protection that serves no healthy purpose anymore, in reality, today, the world we are now trying to reclaim.

We must re-write EVERYTHING.

Tearing down our own walls is terrible. Uprooting our foundations..? perhaps it's akin to the pain of birth itself.

[Little2Nothing]

Chart and Nk, at the heart of it all I believe that I desrve to be hurt, that, like the child I was, I do not deserve to be loved. I think that explains my self-destructive behavior.

The love and care I long for could only have been given to me by my parents. No one else can ever meet that need. The longing, at times, is intense and brings with it deep loneliness, and the lonliness feeds the longing. It is a vicious cycle.

I want so desperately to connect with that broken part of me and help it be reconciled to the reality of today.

[Chart]

L2, I don't think you deserve to be hurt. But I also feel the EXACT same guilt, and feel the same for myself.

Could we not switch places for an instant? Or see ourselves through the eyes of the other? Somehow...

And for me, through all this, the eternal question: which way should I turn in this infernal labyrinth? Where is the exit?

I'm going outside for a walk. I will think of you and send you peace from deep inside me. In this way you will help me too. This will inspire me to give to myself what I can so freely and easily give to you.

[Little2Nothing]

Thank you, Chart. Much appreciated. 

[Papa Coco]

L2N

Yeah. I know that feeling.

I hope you know that the belief that you deserve to be hurt is coming from the trauma that grips you. It's not real. In reality, I find you to be a kind person who doesn't deserve to hurt. But being that I'm a person with similar trauma disorders, I REALLY resonate with how trauma makes us feel like we deserve pain when in truth, we truly don't.

I read a quick article online yesterday called Betrayal Trauma--The Impact of Being Betrayed. Here's a link: https://www.verywellmind.com/betrayal-trauma-causes-symptoms-impact-and-coping-5270361#:~:text=Seek%20support%20or%20treatment%3A%20It,themselves%20when%20they%20are%20betrayed.

This article made me realize that having been betrayed by people we could not escape from, did the exact damage to our sense of self that you have described here.

You may feel unlovable, but I don't see you that way. I see you as an aware, compassionate man who is dealing with the residual damage done by people who you depended on, who betrayed the trust you placed in them. Good people trust others. You were a good person right from the start. It was the betrayal that confused you, as it did me.

[Little2Nothing]

I was going through old stuff and found a stack of letters from the orphanage. I had forgotten I had them. There were some that I had written to my mom and some from my mom to me. I am trying to get the courage to read some of them.

Just seeing them brought back a flood of memories.

[dollyvee]

The love and care I long for could only have been given to me by my parents. No one else can ever meet that need. The longing, at times, is intense and brings with it deep loneliness, and the lonliness feeds the longing. It is a vicious cycle.

Hi L2N,

This something I have been coming to grips with lately and underneath it all, all the search for relationship and connection, inevitably falls short because they are not my family and don't live up to their standards ie somehow there is a voice in my head (their voice) that says, someone should be like this; they are going to hurt you because of x. I also think that it's because they are not my family, and to let them into my life means I have to let go of my family (or my idea of my family), and that's been the only thing that has helped me survive, or kept me safe as dysfunctional as it was. I'm also writing this and realizing that that's not true, I was there for myself and kept myself safe, but as my t has often said, humans are wired for connection. It is innate in us that we want and crave this attachment. However, there is fear there underneath it. What happens if I let go of that idea of my family? I'm still struggling with these feelings.

I don't know if it's for everyone, but his talk on fear is always illuminating for me to come back to. We become attached to the idea of who we think we are, and that is the painful thing to let go of. Though I don't necessarily think, at least in my case, that these ideas are "mine" and are passed down to a certain extent, they are still hard to let go of. As an infant, you really don't have anything else except that fear of annihilation and the unknown. I can grasp what he's saying that it's only our expereince of the unknown without love that is an issue on an intellectual level, but trying to communicate that to preverbal parts is quite different. This is something that's helped me along me along the way, so take and leave as needed as it's relevant for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn0g05e8QIs&list=PLaSy-g6A5sG3Jvh8Ru5k--D_0VUlZPpEw&index=18

Sending you support,
dolly

[Little2Nothing]

Papa Coco, thank you for the encouragement. I always appreciate your input and wisdom. If good can come out of trauma then in my case it is having the privilege of interacting with people like you. Thank you for sharing the article, it was very helpful.

Dollyvee, the worst part of trauma is how it eats at your soul. It strips you of joy or any sense of personal value. I think you are right that fear is at the heart of this struggle. One of the first things I told my T was that I was afraid I wouldn't know who I was without this deep inner pain. For me, it is a slow process, but I have hope that I will eventually get better.

[Papa Coco]

L2N,

Wow. I remember feeling that same way: You said,

One of the first things I told my T was that I was afraid I wouldn't know who I was without this deep inner pain. For me, it is a slow process, but I have hope that I will eventually get better.

Hold onto your hope that it will eventually get better. I am proof that it can get better, as long as we keep forging forward in our healing journey. (In AA we used to say, "the program works if we work it." And in this situation, I'm proof that relief comes if we work at it).

Up to this morning, I had forgotten that I had felt that exact same sentiment so strongly, and not that long ago. Maybe even one year ago today I was still living in the fear of letting go of my identity by letting go of my past. I used to say, "without my pain, who am I?" For decades, I held onto my fear of letting my little, broken hearted, inner child die by no longer feeling his pain with him.   

For me, what I'm beginning to realize is that by letting my sad inner child go, I'm not abandoning him, nor am I killing him, I'm letting him go into the light. His pain is ending because I'm letting him go. He isn't being betrayed by me, he's being allowed to move on himself. I never would have expected this to happen, but in hindsight, I think my abused inner child is in a much better place now that I've been able to stop hanging onto him.

It's taken a myriad of books, medications, and practitioners to get me past my fear of letting him go, but, somehow, today, I realize that at some point, without realizing it, I've been able to get past that connection to the pain. 

A few months back, I was telling my T how I was unable to let go of my remorse for everything I'd ever done that hurt anyone's feelings. He said to me, "It serves nobody to hang onto remorse. It doesn't serve you, it doesn't serve the person you feel you've hurt and it doesn't serve the world in any way." Somehow, by saying that to me on that day, he got through to me. Today, months later, when I start suffering from past memories, I say that to myself, "It's good to learn from my mistakes, and to remember my mistakes, but it serves nobody for me to wallow in suffrage over them."


If I have any encouragement for you today, it's this: Keep pursuing release from those feelings because the more we accept healing today, the more our past begins to fall away. I'm proof it can happen. L2N, you need to trust that I suffered very, very deeply in an inability to let go of my tortured past. If this release is available to me, it's available to anyone.

Big hug, my friend.
 

Papa Coco

[StartingHealing]

L2N,

I feel you.  That idea of "who am I without X".  Can be scary as allllll get out.  I know that for me, getting to where I could see events that happened to me isn't the "me" that went through those events helped a great deal.  Took me a long time to get there.  Each step I made towards that was like a cat on glass.  For me I run into the whole thing that my head "gets it" but my heart doesn't.   Something that I have done is to intentionally change the language that I use around things.

Instead of saying I'm divorced, which has negative connotations that slip past the conscious filter and which also implies ownership { I am } and bringing up the emotions related to the connotations which reinforce those lower vibrational emotions and place it into the present, I say I'm single. To me, stating that I'm single has a better "feel" to it that the other statement.  It can be challenging to catch our languaging and change it in situ.  However, us humans listen to ourselves and we end up programming ourselves into certain ways of being.  "The power of life or death resides in the tongue" I believe various sacred texts have stated in one way or another. This is part of why I think the gratitude practices are so powerful. We hear ourselves say I am grateful for _______, Thank you for ________, and after a certain amount of time, generally speaking, more things show up for us to be thankful for.  Even if there is a pool o crap that we are still working on ridding ourselves of.

For me taking a look at the labels I use on myself and changing those of a lower feel into ones that have a higher feel has helped me. I'm not 100% by any means. It's also not a one and done thing either.  Part of a holistic approach to dropping that which no longer serves.

Wishing you all the best