i couldn't find my inner adult...

[arpy1]

i woke up this morning late, and didn't make it out of bed till this afternoon.  
but in the course of laying there being crazy, and trying to find the wherewithal to get myself going, i was thinking about the whole inner child thing.

i have a problem with it i guess becos i haven't been able to learn how to do the whole 'taking care of my inner child and promising her i am an adult now and i will not let anything bad happen to her' thing that Pete Walker et al advise.

well, i just had a bit of a revelation there, and that was that when i was small, i felt so afraid and abandoned.  ok. but as i was growing up, at the time when i should have been discovering adulthood, i went into the cult. i was 18. still a confused, hurting child, really.  (thinking that i would not feel afraid and abandoned there.  becos that was what was promised... that's how they catch you - it's called 'love-bombing' and it works a treat on vulnerable people and not so vulnerable alike).

well, the whole of the 15 years i lived in the community, i guess i never needed to be an adult.  the whole culture, especially with regard to women, was infantilising.  you had no responsibility for yourself. the elders had that. and no decision was yours to make. you were effectively treated as a child.  in the name of 'submission'.  loads of daddy-substitutes to make up for my own, unavailable one. but always above you, always in charge of your life. we believed it was how it should be. really.

so.  what i realised was that i didn't ever grow an inner adult. i am all inner child.  sure, i could pretend. i had to take on the role of adult when i had my kids, and also when i was caring for my husband (i used to say, 'i live alone with my husband and two children' because he was like having a third child.)

and i had enough about me to make a fairly good job of it for years, but it was never the real me. none of it touched the deepest bits of me. right deep down there i remained a small, frightened, confused child trying really hard to get it right and cope with the uncopeable without anyone noticing how desperately needy i was.  i became an expert at masking, and expert at pretending i was coping.  but i wasn't.

so. i realise that i don't know how, i have no concept of, what it is like to be an adult.  talk about developmental delay... i am stuck at about three years old.  and now, more than half a century later, the wheels have come off.  my life has been destroyed really, and i am at a loss becos i don't have the internal equipment i need to rebuild myself. 

perhaps the only thing i can do now is to pretend to be an adult for myself.  like i did for my kids and for my husband.  fake it, becos making it is beyond my capabilities?

[tired]

i've had brief moments when i am an adult, and all of that makes sense. it doesn't last but having a brief experience makes me feel like it's theoretically possible. how to get myself there and then stay there is a challenge.

what seems to make it more likely:  not talking to my mother. not caring how dumb i look when i put post its all over the place in other words embrace my differences and take care of myself in whatever way i want.  being a better mom than i am.  watching tv shows about people who are good mothers so i know what to do; anything where there is a character that models good parenting. 

the process of bringing out my inner adult seems to start with really being a child without holding back.  most of the time i'm like a child but trying not to be and that's a disaster. it helps to just totally be a child and indulge in that, then somehow i snap into adult mode at some point.

i'm not sure.  i'm a mess most of the time but having even a brief positive experience leaves me with a memory of that success and at least there's hope.  sometimes if i don't know what worked in the past i can say ok when things went well what was i doing? what habits did i have? what actions was i taking? I don't know which of those made a difference but i can do all of them-eat well,exercise, keep things clean etc. maybe all or one of those prompted the positive change.

most of the time i feel alone.  i know that there have been times when i feel like i have myself and that's good,even better really.  but when i feel alone, it's like i want to feel alone.  i don't want to grow up, be self reliant, be an adult. i want someone else to do it and i get stubborn in my head.  i think, why should i do all this myself? It's not fair and i won't do it.  someone has to help me because otherwise, the world is just messed up. 

[arpy1]

i'm a mess most of the time but having even a brief positive experience leaves me with a memory of that success and at least there's hope

yeah, i really know what you mean. trouble is, i guess i have kind of lost hope lately. think it's to do with feeling powerless again.  i always have big trouble with that. 

i spent decades trying to get someone else to rescue me. and finally came to the reluctant conclusion that even the most willing knight in shining armour actually couldn't do it, becos i was wanting them to somehow, by being nice to me and loving me, make me feel whole and not afraid.  it took years for me to accept that no one but me could be my knight in shining armour (and i so know what you mean about getting all stubborn inside and saying 'i won't, someone else should do it like i did it for them'... but i found out it just don't work - the world ain't fair.) maybe that's what being a grown up is? learning how to be your own rescuer?  i don't know, but i suspect it's involved. 

no one else can do my life. no one else can fix me.  people can support what i am doing, but they can't do it. otherwise i might as well have stayed in the cult, and had people to tell me what to do and think - it gave a false sense of being fixed, but in truth, it just kept me a child, and that totally made me powerless.  ultimately that's how i ended up in this mess.

[tired]

I've asked for help in a lot of ways, ex when I hired a maid and it made me realize that I can help myself a lot faster because I'm good at cleaning and why look for jobs as a maid then hire one to help me clean my room?  I've asked people for advice and realized they don't give good advice and I already know the answers (although not my experience here probably because people here have the same problems I do ).  I've had a friend who picked up my groceries and yes that sounds helpful but afterwards I would think , now I have to spend time with this person and I would rather get it myself.

It's the perception that I need help. The perception that I'm a child and I can't function. The way out was to spend time with other people and see that a lot of them are more childish than I am.

I have one friend that helps me. He has ptsd and knows what works and what doesn't. One is plenty. Someone who doesn't treat you like a child but more like someone who is on the same path as you and together you pull each other along. Like we do here. 

[tired]

It's funny how when I respond to your post I feel grown up and helpful and when you respond to mine there is a feeling of role reversal!

[arpy1]

i agree!  that's exactly how i feel too! still, at least we can access somebody's inner adult when ours are offline!!

[Butterfly]

Just wanted to share this link I found the other day.
http://liveboldandbloom.com/09/relationships/embrace-your-inner-adult

[arpy1]

that's really interesting, thanks 

[sunnyday1]

Just wanted to share this link I found the other day.
http://liveboldandbloom.com/09/relationships/embrace-your-inner-adult

Hmmm... that is an interesting article.  Thank you!

[pam]

I'm just realizing that I don't have an inner adult either! I never thought about that. I know I have several inner children, but no real adult.

In my last session with my counselor in Dec he said at the very end, "I wish you wouldn't be so dismissive of the adult thoughts you have now."  I felt like "Wait, what?...you think these are adult opinions?!?" What i actually said kind of under my breath was, "That's weird."

It WAS weird! (and an insight) because I sure don't think of the things that come out of my mouth as being from an adult at all. I still feel like a child or teenager waiting for permission to feel what I feel, think what I think, and see things the way I do. Guess he doesn't know that. He thinks I'm an adult. Oh that's funny...joke's on him. I'll tell him that next time maybe.

[Sienna]

Hope its ok that I'm jumping in on this thread.
Arpy1 and Tired, I'm so sorry you have these struggles too, as I'm sure many of us do here on the board.

After X breaking up with me, i am realizing that i repeated a childhood pattern, - same story with the narcissist in my life.
And i also make the same trauma sinareo play out because of my own defenses (fear of intimacy).
I am grasping the magnitude of needing to fix the inner child, needing to help her, in order to live a life worth living, and to stop attracting and repeating unhealthy people and the pattern of what happened to you.
Ignoring things- it doesn't work.
You just repeat over and over.

I have been trying to listen to her, (inner child), and i have been speaking to myself in second / third person- (i have dissociative parts)
i suspect the person that talks to her is the parent i tried to create to myself that i never had, when i was a child.
Im so scared to feel all this stuff.
I relate so much to wanting others to fix you.
I had a huge earth shattering realistaion the other day, when i was looking up repeating patterns.
I knew i had done that with the narcissist, but with my boyfriend of eight years???-
I knew sort of, but not with the magnitude i realize now.
I have never *felt* it properly before, only i do now.
Its devastating because my whole life hasn't even started.
It has been ruined because of my childhood, because of my abusive parents.

So basically, hearing about the cult,-
hearing you say that if you let others fix you, you are not learning to think for yourself, so you might have well stayed in the cult.
If i don't do this for myself- it won't work- known can fix you-
but also-
i might as well have stayed with my abusive mother in that case, or with the narcissist, or with my X of 8 years who has narcissistic traits.
It helped to read that.
it helps to find more reason that one, to do this yourself.

And i relate so much to it being unfair. It is unfair.
Do you guys think that angering, and grieving about how unfair it is, will help you to move forward and be able to give everything to your inner child that they never had, and that they need?
Because, I'm thinking that it is the inner child who feels this unfairness, this anger and injustice at having to do everything yourself.

Im trying to now, even if I'm afraid to feel.
Im letting her know that I'm afraid to properly hear her, and that I'm sorry for that, that i never learned how to help her, that i don't know what to do, and that that isn't my fault, but it isn't her fault either.

[Butterfly]

You raise the thought of angering and that topic along with verbal ventilation is something Pete Walker discusses in his book on cPTSD. Verbal ventilation is not just lashing out or venting to others, I was reading about it the other day and it's quite a helpful topic. Not sure you have the book or if there's something online on this but it is supposed to help process trauma and pain.

[Danaus plexippus]

I can't help it. When I was a child I took the Peter Pan oath, so now I have to keep my word to never grow up. Thank God for my inner Wendy or I'd really be up the old creek without a paddle. if you believe in fairies.

[Sienna]

Aww, Danaus.

That sounds like a really nice oath to take.
I dont think that your inner child has to grow up. They might complete the developmental stages they missed, and they might work through the trauma with you that they endured, but they may always stay young and playful.
Your inner child may develop more creativity and playfulness, if that was something due to trauma that they were not able to fully submerse themselves in or enjoy to the fullest extent that they should have been able to.
ps. i like that you have an inner Wendy   

[Boatsetsailrose]

I can really relate to the lack of inner adult, this is what I have been realising lately ..