More on being alone

[Finding My Voice]

Today I had a fuller reaction to the memory of my BPDm coming in my room to be emotionally abusive (either criticizing me or wanting me to comfort her).  She used to say, "Knock, knock, knock!" in this cutesy "I'm just pretending to knock because we're so close we don't have boundaries" voice or say my name with this annoying "I need you to do something for me" inflection to it -- it still makes me cringe to think of it.  Even though I spent a lot of time alone, I couldn't truly get away from her.  I had the physical ability to lock my door but I knew that I had to let her in any time she wanted to talk to me.  And it's like I can't ever be alone enough or be far enough away from her.

Being alone is the only time I feel safe to be myself.  I spend a lot of time alone and rarely feel lonely; I think I suppress feelings of loneliness so that it's hard to recognize.  When I'm around other people, my mind tends to go blank and I semi-freeze.  (I don't think I'm hypervigilant, but maybe this is my version of dissociating rather than being vigilant?  Does anyone else do this?) If I'm talking with someone (especially party/large group conversations or on the phone) I tend to wait for them to dismiss me when they're done talking to me, as if they're BPDm.

[Compassion_accountable]

I enjoy being alone. My h travels for his job and although there are times when I wish he didn't travel so much if he is home for an extended amount of time I will find myself wishing he would go out for a few days. We both need our alone time and we've had the conversation that I don't think either one of us could handle a traditional marriage of together every evening every day. I miss him when he's out but I think it makes our time together better.

When I am with people I sometimes have blank outs where I can't think of a single thing to say. It's kind of like a mental freeze. It's gotten better since Ive learned about mental health but I still notice it particularly in larger social settings.

I think it's the nature of the beast known as cptsd.

[schrödinger's cat]

Yes, that was the worst: never truly being alone. I could close my door, but if I locked it, my mother would demand an explanation. She'd knock before entering, but only once, and so abrupt and loud it often made me jump. She'd barge right in. She was so hideously overworked, she had literally no patience left, no gentleness, no time for chit-chats, so she'd stride in, look down on me, face grim and serious: "Homework done yet? Your room's a mess, tidy it up! Where's that pair of jeans I told you I had to darn?" There were no boundaries, or none that applied to her. Everything was under her control; everything was open to her interrogation. I remember wishing I could just hide between my desk and the wall. The only reason why I didn't was, she'd have certainly hunted me down. She expected me to find me at my post. Making her look for me would have been a crime.

Does that mean my CPTSD now wouldn't be so very bad if only I'd have been allowed to lock the bloody door?   

Rain, I like this concept of emotional safety. I never thought of it like that, but that's precisely what was lacking. It's what's still lacking. I'm hyper-vigilant in social situations. The first itty-bitty thing goes wrong and that's it, the situation's officially become unsafe. Being alone means being safe. Once there are no people around, then there is no danger around. I can be around people, but it takes energy. We had visitors just yesterday, and I'm still sad and frustrated by how easy it still is for me to get EFs.

[Rain]

There actually ARE people out there capable of LOVING us, and looking at us with caring ...honoring our boundaries.   And, we hide from them too.....   

[schrödinger's cat]

Yes, I knew that traumatic memories cause PTSD or CPTSD especially and particularly when they're associated with a lack of control. But it's still another thing to connect this to my own life. It's still so easy to think that it wasn't bad. After all, I was never hit.

My mother was hard, that's true. I think she lived all those years as if we were having one long emergency, where it's quite alright to focus only on the most important tasks. It's a pity. She's a good woman. She just can't like me, I think. Love in an abstract sense, yes. If our house ever burnt down, she'd be here in a heartbeat to help. But liking, not so much.

A big eye-opener was reading in Pete Walker's texts how emotional abuse and neglect also means there's no one there to share good news with, no one who welcomes us, no one we can go to if we want to chat about things that interest us. I never realized before how much I'd missed that as a kid.

It's still something I routinely keep to myself. I started purposely sharing some of the sillier, more inconsequential bits of "good news" or things of interest with dh. And what do you know, it does help bring you closer to someone. I never knew.  I'd thought I was doing him a favour by keeping it to myself. It's given me a new appreciation for the fact that dd loves to share Star Wars trivia with me. I have no interest whatsoever in Star Wars, but I have an interest in her, so I'm listening a lot more actively now, asking her questions about it etc. And hey, it's brought us closer together too! Amazing, isn't it, this thing called "relationship" that apparently I didn't get in my FOO.

[Rain]

By chance, do you have German, Scandinavian heritage, cat?

[schrödinger's cat]

Oooh yes, plenty of Germanic heritage, and therefore plenty of stoicism and emotional constipation. I'm in Central Europe, near the part where cuckoo clocks come from. (There are all kinds of novelty clocks invented in that area about... one or two centuries ago?... One where, on the stroke of the clock, a tiny figurine beheads another tiny figurine - but for some reason those never really caught on.)

I agree about the 4F defense. Sometimes I'm wondering if whole cultures can go into a 4F defence. It's probably safe to say that some cultures or subcultures value one of those coping styles above the others.

[keepfighting]

No boundaries, no knocks, no locks --- that sums it up for me. Worst memory regarding this problem: When I was doing my A levels, my parents were pre divorce (father overt NPD, mother covert NPD and VERY passive aggressive) and both used me as their confidante. My father was absent from the house as often as he could - and so the b@$tard would come into my room and wake me up at night to talk about his problems - sometimes stark naked!  YIKES!!!!!! (I was never sexually molested by anyone but this was horrific for me as a teenager and he kept doing it even when I asked him not to).

The first time I ever enjoyed being alone and literally just revelled in 'the sound of silence' was when my DD started pre school. I had made a million plans of what I would do while she was gone - and all I did was sit in my living room, on the couch, and ENJOY the silence... I think it was the first time in my life I was ever consciously 'alone' - in my head as well as physically. Pure bliss!

Nowadays, I enjoy company as well as alone time. Both are necessary to my emotional and physical wellbeing.

(There are all kinds of novelty clocks invented in that area about... one or two centuries ago?... One where, on the stroke of the clock, a tiny figurine beheads another tiny figurine - but for some reason those never really caught on.)

Our parents were not loved themselves.   It is the only conclusion I have ...their own 4F defense, and it crushed us.    On and on it goes.

In fact, mine were not abused and I know for a fact that both my grandmother's had longed for and cherished the children they got. I think my mother might have been subjected to passive agressiveness by her own mother but there was never any physical violence (I checked and checked with various sources in an effort to understand). My father had a brief stint with his birth father when no one knows for sure whether or not verbal or physical abuse occured but apart from that certainly nothing. (The divorce laws were quite complicated at the time and my father seems to have spent a few months living with his father before my grandmother could arrange for having sole custody of both her children.) Quite the contrary: He seems to have used and abused his mother as well as her twin sister even as a teenager/young adult (the stories start when he was 17).

Whatever their own childhoods were like or not like: It can only ever be an explanation, never an excuse for the way they (mis)treated us.

But, it stops with you ...

That's it! The cycle of abuse stops with us!

We can't change our own past or our family legacy, but we can change the present and the future family legacy!

[Kizzie]

That's it! The cycle of abuse stops with us!

      

[Rain]

No boundaries, no knocks, no locks --- that sums it up for me. Worst memory regarding this problem: When I was doing my A levels, my parents were pre divorce (father overt NPD, mother covert NPD and VERY passive aggressive) and both used me as their confidante. My father was absent from the house as often as he could - and so the b@$tard would come into my room and wake me up at night to talk about his problems - sometimes stark naked!  YIKES!!!!!! (I was never sexually molested by anyone but this was horrific for me as a teenager and he kept doing it even when I asked him not to).

Horrific is an understatement, keepfighting.     It is likely emotional incest as he used you do discuss his adult problems ...and, well ...they say when parents expose children to pornography that it IS sexual abuse.

[bee]

FMV -
My mother also did the verbal knock while simultaneously opening the door. I thought nothing of it until I read your post. really she had me that brainwashed. See she went on and on about how she was a great mother because she allowed me to have my door closed, she didn't even have a bedroom door, she said. I discounted how I felt about her barging in, because she over-layed those feelings with her 'you're supposed to be grateful' feelings. Wow. Just wow.

I too love being alone. I've asked my T about this several times, thinking that it might be wrong. She assures me, that as long as I'm happy to be alone, there is nothing wrong with it.

I remember the best times growing up were when I was a teenager, and my parents would finally leave me alone in the house. It's like the whole house exhaled when I surreptitiously watched their car leave though a slit in the curtains (to make sure they really were gone). Then when I heard the car engine on the street, as it slowed to pull into the driveway, all the anxiety came flooding back in.

It's hard to describe what happens to me with groups of people. It's kind of like tunnel vision, but it applies to all my senses. I am hyper aware of my immediate surrounds, but a cyclone could be happening in the next room, and I might not notice. My mind slows down and speeds up at the same time. I can take in tons of clues in my immediate surroundings, but verbal ability is greatly reduced. I think this is what Peter Levine describes as freeze. He says when the amygdala activity goes up, the activity in the Broca(language center) of the brain goes down.

[schrödinger's cat]

Horrific is an understatement, keepfighting.     It is likely emotional incest as he used you do discuss his adult problems ...and, well ...they say when parents expose children to pornography that it IS sexual abuse.

Absolutely. There was definitely a line crossed, and it was crossed twice over after you asked him to stop. Nakedness plus emotional incest - I can't even imagine how hideously unsettling that must have been.

Honestly, with all our stories here... developping a taste for alone-ness was probably simply good sense. A proof that some of our self-care instincts were alive and well. It's probably rather thin, as far as silver linings go, but still. Here's to us! 

[Sasha2727]

I just want to say thank you to all of you, I look forward to alone time and crave it but then once I have it ... I'm lost and kinda down. It's no good when you have a family because you save certain chores for these days but chores trigger me because ... Well you all may know what a bpd mother does if your chores aren't done " the right way " . Emotional abuse does things to a person, I now see that I'm highly suggestible easp. When I'm dissociated. Pete talks about inner critic induced flashbacks and I myself call them " shame " attacks. It's like a panic attack but with hopelessness vrs a racing heart. Anyway, it's my day off and I'm going to say outloud " I'm an adult I'm safe, no but me is here and I AM NOT IN TROUBLE!" Lol outloud 100 times if I must!!!

Ps. About Heretage! I just got an awesome bit of info, I love in a heavily PA Dutch place so that's German and something else, I just was in a class for work and they talked about how our little town is very much it's own little world. Shame based culture, very private, go to work and work hard, stick close to the family, don't laugh at yourself, keep your head down, don't be special or stick out...etc. just a lot of inferiority and narrcessit deffensiveness, religious bigotry. You make it we got it lol

Well I found out that pa Dutch originated in a very small town outside of Germany, a town that got wrecked often due to being small with no allies. Apperently in that town if someone came walking through and they where of a different race or looked taller or more muscular just if they where clearly not from around.... Chances are they had an army with them ready to pillage and attack. Really no relevance but I gleaned some insight from it and thought it really painted a picture of all the enmeshment and shame I see in my little towns culture. Plus we have a large Amish population around here wich cannot help matters lol

[Sasha2727]

Also at finding my voice, thank you for sharing, I relate so much to what you say and your voice is herd here on this site for sure! It might be so confusing but your posts are awesome!

Rain, S's Cat , Kizzie abd , Bad memories, I have no clue who any of you are, but things you have said to have made me personally feel more heard now then in a long time. It's so nice to express a feeling and not pay a price, the price now being hours of scattered memory and not being able to get anything done lol you guys really know your * about a lot of stuff. Thank you thank you for all of your responses!

[Rain]

  to you, Sasha2727.   You are heard, and honored.   We are all learning from each other.   Glad to hear you; glad all our words here help.   OOTS is a great support forum, for sure!

My thanks to everyone here, also!!