Taking on someone else as a part of me - TW/(C)SA

[Desert Flower]

I could have put this in my journal as well but what I'm going through at the moment feels so strange maybe some of you have some reflections on this.

I thought I was on my way out of this EF, but it turns out I'm not. Please only read if you're up to it. And if you've had enough of me spilling my guts here, I can totally understand.

I should actually be working right now but it's no use.

(I know there's another thread going on about Parts and dissociation, that maybe this relates to, but I cannot concentrate enough to read it.)

- Trigger Warning -

I've noticed how two Parts of me have now finally come into light, that I'd been working very very hard to suppress, to a point where they were making me sick. They are Accomplice and Slut. Very hard writing this. Accomplice feels she had to cooperate with the abuse to prevent things from getting even worse. And I've been punishing her very hard for doing this. While she was really trying to protect me. And I had not been able to even look at her, until I read 'Life, Reinvented' that explained her good intentions. And I feel so bad for her now.

And the Slut Part is the part that did some very shameful and stupid things, while she was re-enacting what she knew and at the time she was totally alone and frightened to death and that's why she did it. And that ended badly is all I know, because I can't remember what actually happened.

- Highly Triggering -

So this would have been enough to deal with, but now the trouble is I was reading the news today and there's this case of horrific CSA all over it and it is so hugely triggering I cannot but be dragged into it. The case ends up with the boy being murdered and I cannot help but feel how this little boy must have suffered so immensely and intensely it would have been too much to bear (I hope he dissociated). I was stupid enough to read some of the details of the case some time ago and they just keep coming back. And the thing is, I cannot shake this feeling. And now that I've been working with the Parts of me that I just described, I feel there is only one way I can deal with the suffering of this boy and that is to take him on as if he were a Part of me too. I now feel I need to take care of him. Because he keeps crying out to me, screaming in terror. And when I take him on and hold him close he seems to calm down. I do feel I'm going a little bit crazy here but this is the only thing that seems to work.

I feel a little calmer now that I wrote this.

[Armee]

I bet what's really happening is the little boy IS a part if you. That his story is so similar that a forgotten part of you is trying to help you see and feel what that part went through by identifying with that little boy. I might be wrong. Sometimes reading things in the news helps me in a similar way because first I feel the emotions of what that person went through as an outsider just taking in the horror of it and feeling so much empathy for what they went through, and then I realize that those things are things that happened to me and then I feel them very intensely for myself for a short little bit, where normally I keep it all at an unemotional distance.

You're overloaded right now with flashbacks and the like. You might want to be really gentle with yourself today, maybe take a walk and listen to some music that soothes you. Or something that feels good and helps settle your nervous system.

[Desert Flower]

I think you may be right Armee, that does make sense. I'll take care of the little boy as a part of me. That feels right.

And I will try to take it easy because I do feel flooded and wobbly at the moment. I'm seeing my therapist on Thursday so that's good to. I'll focus on feeling grounded for now.

Thank you. 

[Blueberry]

I bet what's really happening is the little boy IS a part if you. That his story is so similar that a forgotten part of you is trying to help you see and feel what that part went through by identifying with that little boy. I might be wrong. Sometimes reading things in the news helps me in a similar way because first I feel the emotions of what that person went through as an outsider just taking in the horror of it and feeling so much empathy for what they went through, and then I realize that those things are things that happened to me and then I feel them very intensely for myself for a short little bit, where normally I keep it all at an unemotional distance.

 

For me, it's less things I have read in the news, but yes I've taken on Parts of other people before too. So you're not crazy. I think it's referred to as resonance.

Maybe when you're soothing the little boy, you're soothing some inner part of yourself that you can't otherwise soothe (yet)?

[Desert Flower]

Thank you Blueberry, I'm glad you said that.
And it makes sense too.

[dollyvee]

Hey DF,

I feel like I this used to happen to me a lot, and it still does to some extent, but perhaps not as overpowering. For me, I was always expected to be the one to take care of other people and not have boundaries, which I think happened from infancy. So, as a baby I learned it was life or death to do this. Now, it's, or was, a very automatic process where there is no "filter" at times, and it's as if a switch gets flipped. To not take care of people (over myself) = death/not surviving. If I didn't reach out with empathy, I felt like I would be a BAD person. Who wouldn't have empathy for someone like that? Only a bad person (in my mind).

One of the things t and I have been going over is the idea of a healthy sense of selfishness. Sounds wild, right? Selfishness (only for me of course) wasn't allowed in my upbringing, or there is/was some intrinsic part that was aware it wouldn't be safe to have that. So, perhaps this empathy for other people and being allowed to feel their pain was, as others stated above, my way of feeling my own pain that I had to suppress because it wasn't allowed growing up. Ie my actual needs were too "selfish" for others, so I had to find a way to cope. It's still very difficult for me to express that I have needs to people and that that is "allowed" and healthy.

This is just my experience FWIW, so take or leave as needed.

Sending you support,
dolly