Medical trauma

[bring em all in]

*****Possible triggers???*****

I didn't see this listed under causes of CPTSD on this forum, unless it comes under "general," but I see nobody has posted there since September.

Part of my CPTSD stems from being born with a cleft lip/palate and having numerous surgeries from near birth to my mid-teens. Anticipatory fear and the physical pain aftermath made for chronic traumatic experience. Especially the time the anesthesia didn't work right. I could not move or speak or feel pain, but I felt pressure on my face, the sounds of the instruments, and the things the surgeon and nurses were saying.

Having cleft-lip/palate also led to severe bullying in school, as children mocked my physical appearance and my speech impediment, as well as teasing me for having to leave class for speech therapy through sixth grade. It was so pervasive and yet when I complained my teachers said I was being overly-sensitive and "letting normal teasing get out of hand."

So I learned to stuff my anger and internalized the kids' criticism. After years of bullying I wanted to tell them, "You can stop now! I can beat myself up, thank you very much!"

To this day I earnestly, viscerally, believe that I am ugly and broken and "not a part of the human race." I'd like to be, and I can intellectually tell myself the kids were wrong and I don't have to feel this way anymore, but my self-image is unshakably negative-impervious to any and all rational efforts to budge it. Quite a few things have happened in my adult life that have actually served to confirm my negative self-image. But I know some of this comes from being self-conscious and emotional flashbacks.

One time when I picked up my wife (now ex-wife) from the dating service where she worked, I was asked to move from the lobby to a back room because they didn't want women coming into the lobby and thinking they might get matched to someone who looked like me (this was overtly stated-not a misinterpretation by me). Last Tuesday my car was in the shop. After two hours of waiting the service manager insisted I take a loaner car and come back when the car was done. He said, "because you have been inconvenienced enough." What I heard was, "We don't want someone who looks like you sitting in our waiting area all day." Of course what I "heard" was nonsense, but such is life in emotional flashback land.

Meditation, reading about self-esteem, therapy, medication, affirmations, etc... all roll off my self-image like water on a duck's back.

Have any of you made the journey from self-loathing to self-acceptance? If so, how did you do it?

[Three Roses]

I'm working on it. Some days I have a lot of self esteem and other days I don't even want to go to the store.

[bring em all in]

I know what you mean.

My wife gave me a self-help workbook and one of the first things it asks is:

"Describe your beautiful body."

That alone sent me into an emotional flashback- there is nothing beautiful about my body. I honestly can't think of one thing to write in response to this question. And it's not just me- other people (adults and children) have commented negatively on my appearance. My body is broken/imperfect in so many ways. The few things I could do to improve my appearance don't seem worth it because of the major things I cannot change.

The best I can come up with for myself is that being physically ugly is something I have to live with and do the best I can to make it through this life.

[MyselfOnline]

It makes sense to me. An life-defining illness or injury that was not shared by others marks a person out as different. A powerful experience that cannot be spoken of properly. Feeling so different is like being outcast.

[silentrhino]

I hate my physical body, it's true.  I was mocked for it's deformity from childhood on.  In my twenties I was injured by an incompetent nurse.  I think its ok to hate your physical form than to move past it to realize the physical form is just that, a physical form. the essential being is entirely separate.  I don't always remember that but I'm trying to learn acceptance.

[Candid]

After years of bullying I wanted to tell them, "You can stop now! I can beat myself up, thank you very much!"

Very well put. Wish I'd thought to say something like that to my mother, last time I saw her. But we don't dare, do we?

To this day I earnestly, viscerally, believe that I am ugly and broken and "not a part of the human race."

[...]Of course what I "heard" was nonsense, but such is life in emotional flashback land.

I felt similarly contemptuous of myself and, just like you, had a way of looking for the subtext. Certainly never believed any compliments!

Have any of you made the journey from self-loathing to self-acceptance? If so, how did you do it?

Early days for me, but I've started giving myself lots of positive self-talk throughout the day. I know you've tried that along with everything else, and I don't know how I can tell you to flip the switch. I had a major crack-up 10 days ago, crying and telling my husband I wanted to be dead. To his credit he didn't leap in with solutions or try to drag me home from the public space we were in; he just sat with me not saying anything until I'd got it all out.

I was still sombre and irritable the next morning when he dropped me off at my Living With Brain Injury meeting, but sometime during that meeting I realised I was ready to fight for myself.

I have blocked horrible memories of what I suffered with my FOO. They still come to mind, wondering what they're doing now etc., but I don't allow any of them to speak in my head. If you're still going over and over what the playground bullies said to you, it's time to tell them all to go to *.

I've realised what my FOO did was wrong, and what mother in particular did was unbelievably cruel. I've stopped wondering why she chose me as her scapegoat, whether it was something I did, could my abandoning siblings have been right to leap to her defence, and so on. They did what they did, ostracised me, didn't tell me when my dad died... but that was no reason to hide myself from the rest of the world and reject genuine offers of friendship for fear of being cut off again.

I look over the decades of suffering from my own wholly unjustified self-contempt, and I'm proud of having survived it. I feel compassion for that young woman who didn't have a clue how strong, smart and beautiful she was, and was so afraid to take up opportunities that could have made for a much better life now.

Mostly I focus on where I am now and what I can do to find satisfaction and pleasure in the future. I like who I am. At regular intervals I ask myself what I can do now for my health and happiness. This has given me a to-do list that I still balk at carrying out, at which point the old me would have thrown up her hands and gone right back to the helplessness of that Tuesday afternoon. Instead, I say it's okay, rest and relax, get to it when you get to it.

What we tell ourselves about ourselves is everything.

[Blueberry]

Luise Reddemann, a German doctor and therapist, invented various imagination exercises, which I've found useful. Unfortunately none of her work has been translated into English. One exercise involves going through your body and finding which body parts have given you joy, e.g. with your eyes you can see beautiful colours, with your ears you can hear melodic sounds, your feet can take you interesting places etc etc whatever occurs to you. The idea being to learn which parts of your body you can tolerate or even like and focus on them.

Another method a body therapist did with me years ago was to have me draw a life-size outline of myself. I drew a crippled starving child with no hands. Although I was "only" emotionally crippled.
Then, using a different colour, the therapist drew my real outline, while I stood against the paper on the wall. So I could compare and realise that the picture i'd had in my mind all these years was not reality. Maybe some modified form of this would be possible for you, bring 'em all in? Especially if you can find a therapist to help you with it. 

I remember my eureka moment when I realised: I'm more than just my physical body!