My journey so far

[Little2Nothing]

Thanks everyone. 

I appreciate everyone's response.
 Narckiddo, you did not overstep any boundaries. I'm grateful for your input. 

Thanks for your encouragement DesertFlower. 

Armee, thanks for the hugs. 

[Chart]

I know that much of what I did was for survival and I know rationally none of it was my fault. But somewhere deep inside of me there is an image that is twisted, broken and crippled. It is the person created by the circumstance. He refuses to die. His voice is louder than my rational mind. He seems to always win the day. I can only subdue him for a short while and that battle is exhausting.

Like NarcKiddo I deeply identified with this... For me it's a horrible "voice" that blathers incessantly in my head telling me I'm no good, I'm no good, I'm horrible, I am wrong, everything horrible is because of me. This voice is truly thunderous and drowns out all sense from my rational mind. I wake to it every morning and can only phase it out with certain actions, many of which are dissociative (and thus I'm trying to avoid). Facing this voice is the hardest thing I have ever done. I hear what you are describing L2N, I feel it deeply. Thank you for sharing.
 

[Little2Nothing]

It has been a while since I posted on here. Though I do read what others have written and empathize with the struggles of many. I also rejoice in the victories others have experienced. 

The following is a discussion about religion, so I will add a *TRIGGER WARNING* here. 

Up until I was 19 years of age I wallowed in the darkness created for me by others. Though I added to that darkness by my own poor choices. I was a broken young man with no hope and no future. I kept myself inebriated as often as possible and surrendered to my violent impulses constantly. There were times of restraint, but only when restraint best suited my needs. It wasn't out of conscience but our of a sense of survival. 

At the age of 19 I came in contact with a family who showed me great compassion. They were kind and patient. Seemed unfazed by my outbursts of anger and less than exemplary lifestyle. The mother knew I didn't have a home and would feed me and offered me their basement to live in. The basement was better than the street so I accepted. They treated me with respect, something I was not used to experiencing. 

This was a Christian family. They would invite me to join in their family prayer sessions. The first time I ever heard my name mentioned to God in prayer was in their home. Eventually I went to church with them and became a Christian.

I know many have had horribly negative experiences with religion. This is not an attempt to deny that experience or minimize it, i just wanted to share an important milestone in my life. 

The discipling and structure that the Church offered was something that was lacking in my life. I had no discipline nor did I have any structured path for living my life. From my church experience I learned the value of prayer. I learned to have compassion on others who had suffered great loss and pain. I learned that all people deserved to be respected and loved.

That all sounds utopian, but it wasn't. The struggle inside me was still alive. Though I had a new perspective on life I still had to deal with the demons of my past. At first things improved for me, but over time the abuse of the past took its toll. 

Sadly, at that time, the Church didn't believe in therapy and looked down on the use of it. The church also failed at understanding the impact of years of abuse on a person's life. In the spiritual realm they offered consolation and hope. In the brokenness of one's life the application of the spiritual was missing. It was a prevalent thought that one's connection to God would cure everything and nullify every vestige of the past. I found it didn't work that way.

In my inward struggle I was left to fend for myself. Such advice as, "Quit living in the past" or "You're not trusting God" only increased the weight of self-loathing and guilt. I found great comfort in reading the scripture and exercising myself in prayer, but little comfort from those who were in the rank and file of the church. 

Because of the callousness of people in the church many have cast off faith altogether, I understand this. If it hadn't been for the consolation I received when I moved from atheism to Christianity I would have been discouraged as well. I wasn't raised in a religious home so I wasn't taught to reject it through the hypocritical example of a dysfunctional family. 

There is no inconsistency, in my mind between joy in faith and the psychological struggles of CPTSD. There are many times that CPTSD overshadows faith and renders it inert. Though I take comfort in the stories of Elijah, Job, Jeremiah and even Jesus himself who each suffered under the burdens of life. I have read and reread the struggle of Jesus in the garden. The weight of fear and anxiety brought him to sweat blood. His humanity was not subsumed in His divinity.

So, I continue to wrestle with despair, aloneness, self-doubt and self-loathing. Nightmares, flashbacks and dissociation are a part of this struggle. I believe we are all spiritual beings. Bodies with souls. It is our humanity that amplifies our suffering. The weakness and imperfection of our understanding, magnified by the abuse, meanness and sometimes brutality by others as broken as we, they makes life hard.

I will continue to pray and read the Bible. I will continue to attend worship and fellowship with others who share common beliefs. I will also continue to hope for and end this painful existence. And for now I will struggle on trying to make sense of the unthinkable. Struggling to lose this weight that presses me down. Weeping in the night over the loss of love and tenderness I should have enjoyed as a child, feeling detached from the happiness and laughter of others.

If you made it this far thanks for taking the time to read. 

[NarcKiddo]

Thank you for sharing, L2N. I am glad you have been able to find some comfort and direction from religion. The family who introduced you sound like true and good Christians, doing their best to live a good life. My late FIL was also one such. He was terribly misguided in some ways, I think, but he did genuinely try to be a good man, and I respect that. He is the only person I have so far come across who was genuinely prepared and willing to meet his maker when he fell terminally ill. My own family experience is steeped in hypocrisy and I steer clear of religion myself.

[Little2Nothing]

They were really good people. I am fortunate to have met them. 

[Papa Coco]

L2N

Your post is very well written. Thank you for sharing from the heart as you've done.

[Little2Nothing]

Thanks PC. 

[Little2Nothing]

I seriously believe that the impact of trauma is a conundrum to those seeking to help trauma survivors. This might be the reason why there are so many different therapies and approaches to the issue. I have come to believe that there is no "cure" for childhood trauma. There is only mitigation. The severity of the mental, emotional and moral injury can only be suppressed and minimized. Obviously, the memories never die. Though we may be able to learn to react with less severity the battle for inward peace is never ending. 

I have been in therapy on and off for the last 10 years. Much of the therapy has been unhelpful. My recent therapist has done the most to help guide me through this wilderness. I have learned many techniques to try to calm myself and pull myself out of dissociation, etc. Though those things give some respite the underlying cause is still present. The trauma always seems to captivate my mind. 

This is not meant to be a reflection on those who have dedicated their lives to helping trauma victims. It is only a recognition of the frailty of human understanding. The damage done to me is hidden. It is a not visible to the eye. The part of me that was broken by my tormentors cannot be set like a broken arm. No medicine can blunt the pain, no surgery can correct the damage. It is a purely subjective battle. The therapist only knows what I tell her or what she observes of my body language, words and attitude. The heart of my problem is an enigma to her as much as it is to me. In most instances I haven't the words to remotely describe what I'm feeling of needing. She has to work off of conjecture. It is obviously a flawed and inexact process.

This doesn't mean I have no hope. Although, hope is a commodity that is hard to come by. If I lose hope then I am lost. When I first started therapy I had hoped that I would get better, that the pain would be gone forever. I'm not sure that will ever happen. I am looking for something more practical, I believe. I am looking for the ability to recognize the pain and channel it into something better. I want the suffering of my childhood to make me an empathetic and caring person. I want to let the pain remind me of how blessed I am to be alive and enjoy my wife, children and grandchildren. I want it to remind me that my children have been spared the same fate. If I can achieve this then I will feel victorious. I'm not there yet, but I am moving in that direction.

[Papa Coco]

L2N

I couldn't agree more with everything you wrote here today. There is barrage of techniques emerging, and most of them only provide temporary relief.

I see you as a person with a deep and open heart. I can sort of feel your search for connection, which gives me a sense of closeness with your writing. Your heart is open. That is so obvious to me. I see you as an innocent soul with a wide-open heart just simply asking for connection with other souls, and I can't help but find that beautiful.

After trying to get help from 7 different therapists over 45 years and finally finding the one who doesn't rely on strategies and techniques, but who prepares himself before each client, and connects, heart-to-heart with each of us as we enter into our hour with him, I'm able to see that I'm finally, actually moving toward healing from my traumas. I'm not "healed," and may never be completely healed, but I'm so much more stable and in control, even during EFs, today than I was even just a few months ago, and certainly more so than a year ago. My pain was in how lonely I always felt, even when with loved ones. I don't feel lonely anymore. I feel like people really can see me now. I have to credit my therapist for this by his showing me what it feels like to be respected and seen, at the heart level, not just the intellect and emotions. When I'm in his office, I feel like he truly wants me to be there. He's more like a friend first who just happens to also be a highly skilled therapist, and it takes BOTH of those angles to reach into me and help fill the loneliness.

7 previous therapists, even the kind ones, were not really connected with me. Some were kind and polite, but nobody really made me feel like I was as important as they were. I was the patient, and they were across the room as the doctor. No matter what they helped me with, the benefits were temporary. Within a year of them "curing me" with their book-learned tricks and techniques, all my problems returned, but just a little more serious than when they'd left. I'd connected only intellectually with them. The problem is that my intellect is already fine. It's my heart that is reaching out to the crowded world in search of connection. So, any therapist who wants to help a trauma survivor, has to connect with the heart. The heart is the opening to our damage. When my current therapist connects with me and guides me into a feeling of being important to him, I start to find my way out of the emotional and heady chaos that has defined me for 6 decades.

What he does was taught to him by someone somewhere, and I believe he now teaches a bit of it to other therapists as well.

After a deep search on Amazon, I just took delivery of a book called Relational and Body-Centered Practices for Healing Trauma, 2nd edition, by Dr. Sharon Stanley, PhD. I've never heard of her, but the book looked like it spoke to what I find to work, and lucky for me, the second edition came out just last week, so I've gotten her most updated information. In the rapidly evolving landscape of trauma, and Trauma Informed Care (TIC), her book, released a week ago, is about as up-to-date as it could possibly be. (As the old TV commercials used to say "The only fish that's fresher is still swimming in the sea"). TIC is evolving quickly, so the fresher the information, the better.

I just finished the long introduction and will start chapter one tonight or tomorrow. I can't believe how lucky I am to have stumbled onto her work. The book appears to be written more to teach therapists how to put down their textbook tricks and gimmicks, and truly connect, empathetically, with their clients. I can't be certain, but I think my therapist might have learned what he does from the same people she learned it from. I'm going to show him the book and ask him that next week when I see him again. so far, everything she's saying about a therapist being more of an empathetic person than an intellectual doctor is tracking exactly with my experience with my therapist. I will be surprised if he says he hasn't at least heard of her books.

The thing he's been giving me with his approach is a feeling that I'm as welcome in the game as everyone else is.

I've long believed that the most insidious cause of my CPTSD was the crushing loneliness from feeling unprotected, unwanted and unwelcome on the earth right from birth. My need to be connected with the people around me was treated like a joke, and I have always felt like I've been standing on the side of the road with my arms open just hoping someone would finally love me.

I think that what's helping me to feel less in my head, and more in my heart, and connected with others is that my current therapist cares more about me being a person than me being a patient.

I've told him that I worry he'll retire. His response is, "Why would I retire when I love what I do so much?"

I just had a thought: As a boy I had two favorite celebrity heroes. Victor Borge and Red Skelton. As a small boy of only about 6 or 7 years of age, I would watch them on TV and listen to their jokes, and I could just tell that they truly loved their audiences. Borge, especially, was extremely talented as both a pianist and a comedian. But what made me want to go into comedy myself was his and Skelton's obvious love for the people who came to enjoy an hour with them. I think that might be what I see in my therapist's demeanor. He loves his patients the way Borge and Skelton appeared to love their audiences. And I really, really respond to people who can squeeze in through my loneliness and who will open their hearts to share an hour with me.

I think, next session, I'm going to tell my therapist how he makes me feel the way Borge and Skelton did. If I were younger, and just a little more stable, my therapist might have motivated me to become one myself. It's a little late for me to go to college for that, AND I'm still not certain I could do the job. I still have a few too many ghosts walking the halls of my haunted brain.

On my public email, my signature block reads, "The shortest distance between two people is a smile" --Victor Borge, 1909-2000. L2N, if you could see my face right now, you'd see that smile. You're not actually alone. You may feel alone, but that's just trauma playing its tricks on you.

PC.

[Little2Nothing]

PC,

Connection is something I long for more than anything else. I am discovering that the problem I have with connecting to others is not because of others it is because of me. Like you, my inability to connect, even when I am with people that I know love me, produces an excruciating loneliness. I don't believe that I have the capacity to actually know what healthy connection is. 

I believe the deep emptiness I feel is directly connected to the loss of connection as a child. I was denied that connection when my basic needs should have been met through touch, embrace, and tenderness. When I hurt I was not comforted. When I'd cry I would receive punishment. There were no cooing words, no wiping away of tears and no gentle kisses to mollify my fears and sorrow. I think that loss of connection is the poisoned well from which my other troubles have sprung. The moment to meet that ingrained need is past forever.

I have been told that need can be met by me. That I can comfort and nurture that part of me that languishes in isolation. This seems foreign to me. The need is predicated on a primal desire that was denied. It cries out for maternal connection. I, who have no real ability to connect, would be a poor substitute for whatever past needs had been neglected. 

Out of this loss has grown a self protective layer. It is a force field that has organically grown around me. Inside of me the thought of being hurt and rejected again is frightening. I never learned what real loving connection actually consists of. How do you open up completely when a vital part of you has been violently crippled? I'm not certain I will ever find the answer.

The part of me that is wrapped in darkness is forever stunted. It cannot be healed. At least I don't believe it can at the moment. Maybe at some future time I will see things differently. The only thing that could heal the broken child inside of me is a mother's love. I shall never have that. No one can be a surrogate for that, not even me. 

There are days when the emptiness and aloneness I feel is so strong that I feel lost. It is oppressive, a tyrant that crushes my soul. I know that sounds dramatic, but I don't know how else to describe it. It is a merciless enemy that will not allow me to rest or find comfort. Some days are far worse than others. Yet, this thing is my constant companion. 

The EMDR is helpful, although I haven't had consistent weekly session because of my dysregulation. The emotions are difficult to deal with. My T has been a blessing to me. She doesn't push nor does she ever appear impatient. I have to say that I have grown to trust her and look forward to our session. 

Maybe once the EMDR has been fully explored and I have learned to regulate myself better I will sing a different tune. CPTSD is a horrible thing. 

[Papa Coco]

L2N

You are very articulate. The way you describe what you go through is clear and easy to connect with.

I understand what you're saying. I'm grateful that you know that people really do love you, and that people (like me) really can see you and can feel your need for connection. I am also glad that you are aware that the problem is internal, and by how you describe it, I would agree that you seem to have a strong understanding of where it came from and why it haunts you. 

I have been trying to define what "cured" means in own life, and your posts are sort of helping me to find the answer. Today I realize that I don't need to feel like life has no problems. I don't need an easy life, and I don't even need to never feel threatened again. What I NEED is to gain the ability to feel the love that comes my way. I think that's what I'm learning here right now, thanks in large part to your posts on the subject.

Ever since you joined the forum, I think my loneliness has sensed the similarity with yours. Birds of a feather recognize each other in a crowd, I guess.

I assume you talk with your therapist about this. In my case, I wasn't aware of myself enough to know why I felt generically "bad" when I started therapy. It wasn't until one session about 5 years ago, when I told my therapist how I was feeling, and he said, "That sounds so lonely." It hit me like a flash of light. I'd never considered that the hollowness and inability to connect with the people I loved was called "loneliness" but that is exactly what it is. Once I identified my generic unhappiness as loneliness, I started working with my therapist to tackle it, and we are starting to make some progress. Finally.

I'm starting to feel a tad bit better at allowing myself to accept people's love. I have a long way to go, but for now, I just like sharing with you that loneliness and difficulty in accepting love are my own personal struggles also. And some days are better than others.

It seems we both know that we're loved and lovable, but we struggle to feel it. So, that's our shared challenge: to feel the love we haven't yet developed the skills to accept.

We both may feel lonely, but we are doing it in the same lifeboat together.

[NarcKiddo]

I have been told that need can be met by me. That I can comfort and nurture that part of me that languishes in isolation. This seems foreign to me. The need is predicated on a primal desire that was denied. It cries out for maternal connection. I, who have no real ability to connect, would be a poor substitute for whatever past needs had been neglected. 

This resonates, and happens to be something I have been touching on with my therapist in recent sessions.

She often says that I can be a mother to my inner child, and that being so is the safest way to nurture myself. Even the most loving and reliable people in the world have their faults and when we have no experience of what "good enough" looks like it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that a mistake by another makes them dangerous or is proof that we are unlovable.

I come at it from a slightly different direction to you because for me "mother" is a loaded and dangerous word. I hear others here express the wish for a mother, or say that they cry out for a mythical mother figure who could love them. I have no desire to cry out "mother" for fear a mother may appear!

However, I have been having some connection with my inner child recently. It felt very weird at first and initially even just recognising that something was coming from the inner child was hard to acknowledge, let alone respond to. If I actively try to "be a mother" my inner child does not want to know. But if I respond to her as adult me might to an actual child, or anyone vulnerable or dependent such as a dog, I get on better. I can recognise when a desire is coming from the inner child and am starting to be able to respond in a caring way. Sometimes I feel able to indulge the child even if adult me would rather not do whatever it is, but sometimes I feel able to explain nicely to the inner child that we cannot do xyz but maybe we can do it later, or something else. For sure it feels weird to be negotiating with myself as if there was a separate child present but it has actually been very helpful for me in recent months.

I totally understand what you are saying, and why, but you know how to nurture others. You know how to love them. Of course it won't be perfect because you are human. But I firmly believe that you can nurture yourself. No, you cannot be a mother - but not having that title does not mean you cannot provide comfort to little L2N.

[Little2Nothing]

PC, 

As always thanks for your reply. Sorry I hadn't responded earlier.

We are comrades in sorrow. There is much that we have in common. I suppose trauma infects us all in similar ways. The aloneness that I endure, at times, is much more that just feeling sadness. It is a visceral pain that gnaws at my heart and soul. It is a deeply held sense that I am cut off from everything around me. Gratefully, it is not a constant impression, there are times of respite. When it comes, however, it is a crushing weight. My whole sense of being is thrown into turmoil. There is nothing that can assuage it.

Sometimes it can linger for hours. As I'm sure you know it is an agony that is unrelenting. The tools I've learned for grounding seem to have little affect. Though this thing is an impression from the past it dominates the present. I am hopeful that EMDR will help in lessoning the impact. 

Thanks for your kind words. I felt a kinship with you the first moment we interacted. I deeply appreciate your insight and wisdom. I'm glad we are friends.


NK,

Thanks for your response. The inner child concept has been a very hard thing for me to process. I am not closed to the possibility that it will benefit me eventually, though. I think I will have to give it time. Right now it just seems untenable to me. Maybe the real reason is that that child is broken and deformed and I'm not ready to really look at him yet.