What Is this?

[zazu]

I don't know if this is a "symptom" or even what category it would fall under. I'm taking a chance and posting in this forum and hoping it's correct.

EFT has helped a lot of people, and I have tried it quite a few times over the years, with little success. The problem is, the sessions always begin with something like "even though (fill in the blank), I completely love and accept myself."

I just can't get past this. It's actually triggering to me. It feels as if "loving and accepting" myself is the worst thing I could ever do, a betrayal and a sin worse even than murder. Indeed, since I was a little girl, I always had a strong feeling that I had done something worse than murder, but had no clue as to what that could be.

*trigger warning*
It may be pertinent here to mention that when I was older (late teens through early 20's), my mother would frequently rage at me that I was a murderer, "worse than any criminal in any jail", that I deserved to be executed for what I'd done, and that I had committed crimes against humanity. The things I'd done were not always clear, but when they were, they ranged from going to visit my cousin to getting raped, so...logically, there was nothing there that seemed akin to murder (at least to my mind). If I begged her to tell me what I'd done, she'd just say "you know what you did" so no clarification was forthcoming. But as I said, this is when I was older, and if she said these things to me as a child, I don't remember it.

Whatever the case, the feelings have been there since childhood, and the phrase "I completely love and accept myself" really triggers some harsh feelings, even deep anger at myself.
Once I even tried to reason with the feelings, saying "well, if I can't be on my own side, who will be?" and that triggered more anger at myself for even considering betraying this mysterious...law? Force? Command? I don't even know what it is that I feel would be betrayed.

But obviously it's holding me back from recovery in a big way. If anyone has any idea what's going on here, I'd be grateful for your input.

[Badmemories]

  Zuzu:
Zuzu wrote:
The things I'd done were not always clear, but when they were, they ranged from going to visit my cousin to getting raped, so...logically, there was nothing there that seemed akin to murder (at least to my mind). If I begged her to tell me what I'd done, she'd just say "you know what you did" so no clarification was forthcoming. But as I said, this is when I was older, and if she said these things to me as a child, I don't remember it.

I heard that a lot also! As an adult I now think that they were just irritated.. but as a child who wants to please and be accepted it is devastating.
Keep on keeping on!  

[flookadelic]

Zuzu...I once had a sleep hypnosis CD. It never worked because when the narrator used the words "treat this voice as a voice you can trust" I would have a moment of pure, naked panic. Total block. Loving and accepting myself was like...loving and accepting *who* ?

Loving and accepting the screwed up mess of PTSD identified thought and feeling? Errrr....no thanks.

I think we have to look beyond that in order to feel something towards ourselves beyond the trauma.

All I ever knew about myself before 2005 (some 30 odd years of CPTSD) was hate. I hated myself...or rather I hated who I thought I was. I would tell myself many, many times a day how much I hated myself. Probably for not being able to handle the unhandleable as a child. I saw myself as weak and as guilty as * for not being impossibly strong. That was my idea of myself and I couldn't love it. Accept it. All I could do was look at it and try not to throw up.

Since then I have discovered that we are only who we think we are. That self is a very fluid, adaptive creature. And that we create ourselves from intent, deeds, aspirations...I was kind of lucky as I had such a severe implosion that my sense of self lay in tatters and the lack of that self, and even the lack of any other clearly defined self felt more like freedom than being lost.

Over the past few years my inner critics statement "I hate my life" has become "I hated my life" which is interesting. Perhaps if sometimes we do feel groundless, self-less we can see if that can feel liberating rather than scary? Perhaps.

I learned to love the mess and the pain and the ugliness not by seeing it as me but by seeing it as a wound. A wound to be healed with love.

[schrödinger's cat]

Hm, the problem is, what IS love? I always believed that my family "loves" me. Maybe they do. But I'm not sure they like me. I read a memoir a few years ago. The writer had a difficult childhood, and he says he now can't trust the word "love". His father beat him, but the son was expected to think that his father "loved" him, that he was only chastising his son "out of love". His mother never really stood up to her husband about it, though she sometimes snuck her son food behind his father's back. And of course, the official truth was that both parents "loved" their son.

So, what is love?

Or "acceptance". Of course my mother accepts me as I am. She simply can't get along with what I'm truly like, and she has so much advice for how I should change for the better, and she knows how I ought to dress and what my hair ought to look like, and really, she'd rather avoid me. But yes, she "accepts" me.

What is acceptance, then?

Maybe we need to find different words. I've been trying to reword "love". I had to. We're told to "love" our children, and that sends chills down my spine. Why EVER would I do THAT to my precious little BABIES?!

So I've tried to find out what this would mean, loving someone. Enjoying their presence - that's a good start, I think. (As opposed to avoiding them, or looking deliberately patient and stoic whenever they enter a room, which has been known to happen in my FOO.) Believing their side of the story. When they're in physical discomfort, doing things to make it better. Finding out what they're interested in, what their hobbies are, what they enjoy doing or reading about, and then making sure they get enough of that. Knowing their favourite foods and then providing those regularly. Spotting what they did right and acknowledging it. Not making too much of a fuss about mistakes: fix it, move on, end of story, no rehashings and prolonged parental sulks.

I still have to put all this in practice when it comes to me, though. It just feels like I'd be taking up too much space, like I'd be getting ideas above my station, like it's nothing but hubris. Maybe kind of sidling up to all that really really gradually would work best? Baby steps. Like trying to befriend a spooked and freaked-out squirrel, maybe?

[smg]

Zazu,

Oh, yes! I recognize that experience. I would start crying at that phrase (if I wasn't already), and that would trigger shame and self-hate. I'm still not sure what the underlying emotion is.... Why does that phrase hurt so much? Partly it's because I know it's not true, and I see that as my fault. Pete Walker's Human Bill of Rights is equally triggering (although I've posted that on my wall, it gradually got easier to look at, and now it can be comforting in some situations), and his Self-Parenting Affirmations (especially the first one, "I'm so glad you were born") are too difficult for now.

My voice would seize up at the point of repeating "I love and accept myself" or sometimes I just wouldn't say it. I think I convinced my former councillor to use it less, and it also got a bit easier with the experience of her empathy and positive regard. Anyway, you can do EFT without that phrase, and it may or may not work for you. So, instead of "even though (fill in the blank), I completely love and accept myself," you can just tap on the "fill in the blank" part. For me, the blank is usually that I'm feeling some emotion that my critic says I shouldn't have, so just the practice of acknowledging the feeling is good for me, and the tapping does remove some of the charge.

And incidentally, I get the most use out of the very last bit of the tapping sequence on the hand, when you roll your eyes in big circles.

smg

[flookadelic]

What is love to someone whose experience of it is as twisted as it gets?

Love for me was unrelenting pressure to believe stuff that made no sense to me whatsoever. And then being rejected, and much worse for it. Love as approval and acceptance was a stranger to me. So yes...I grew up into an adult that got love very wrong and mixed up.

About ten years ago I was offered a definition of love that really made sense to me. Not least because it compared love to what I thought love to be. It came from a Buddhist monk. He simply stated "love is wanting someone to be happy. Attachment is when we want that someone to make us happy."

I love the simplicity of that. What we went through was "love" in name only. I was there only to make others feel holy whilst I spiralled into *. No wonder we got love so wrong...because we were taught that "love" was anything but a wish for our well being and happiness.

Acceptance is key. As we are. I believe no matter how screwed up mind and even behaviour can be, our intentions are often right...and that we should respect that sincerity of heart. It's a starting point....

[Brandy]

EFT has helped a lot of people, and I have tried it quite a few times over the years, with little success. The problem is, the sessions always begin with something like "even though (fill in the blank), I completely love and accept myself."

What. Really? Is this meant to be like a "fake it till you make it" thing? I think I could do this now and probably mean it, but definitely in the past if I'd managed to choke that out I wouldn't have been able to keep the sarcastic smirk out of my delivery. My first impulse would still be an incredulous look. You want me to say what?

What I used to call love was actually fear. Knowing this helps with the word itself, though what it really means is still a bit of a mystery.

[zazu]

Oh, wow, thanks for responding to this thread, 'cos this is something I've really been struggling with for the last couple of days.

This all makes me glad my NPDmother never used the word "love" and indeed, she admits that she never loved any of us (she's proud of this - as if love was a sign of weakness). So, luckily, the word "love" hasn't been tainted too much. Also, thankfully I was able to grasp the difference between attachment and love after undergoing my first serious heartbreak as a teen. (I had wailed to my shrink "But I need him!" and the doctor said "need isn't the same as love." That was a lightbulb moment!) So that's two misfortunes that had eventual benefits - yeah, it would have been better if those situations had never happened, but since they did - well, I might as well consider myself lucky.

Identity is the struggle I'm having lately. What Flookadelic mentioned, finding some identity beyond the trauma.  As mentioned in the Butterfly Hug thread, I've been processing a lot of stuff, maybe enough to start uncovering the person behind the all the symptoms. There is a sort of blank "who am I?" feeling there.

It's becoming clear that I'm still so afraid of my mother and any other authority figures (or anyone who behaves as if they are an authority) because it feels as if they can rip away whatever fragile identity I have, twist it into something ugly, then place it back on to me and I must be what they say. Of course this feels terrible and awful, as if it's some kind of soul murder and I've no right to a defense. This causes intense self-loathing and a "freeze" response. But...it also occured to me that if it hurts so much, then there must be some small, buried part of me that is protesting - and that protesting bit must be the "real me".

Hopefully, I will be able to uncover that buried person, even if it's slowly. I may have to process loads of this stuff before I can get to love and acceptance. Maybe the butterfly hug method is working so well for me because it doesn't require such an affirmation of love and acceptance to start with.

smg, it's interesting you have Pete Walker's bill of rights posted on your wall. I don't have it, (it's uncomfortable for me as well) but I do have a copy of Martin Luther King, jr.'s "I have a dream" speech posted on my wall. I've never had to face racial injustice, but the demand to be treated as human, with equal human rights, is something that deeply resonates with me. I think about the civil rights protesters in the 60's and how they stood up to generations of institutionalized injustice. It must have been frightening and I wonder where they got the inner strength. I barely have the strength to stand up to my mother and she's just one woman - an especially pernicious woman, mind you, but still just one woman. I try to let that inspire me.

[flookadelic]

I am really pleased that you are finding this thread to be helpful Zazu!

There is an excellent book about feelings of groundlessness, of uncertainty written by a Buddhist nun but very much in the self-help style of writing. No arcane scriptures or deep philosophy involved. It's called "When Things Fall Apart" by Pema Chodron. Like all the best works it seeks to change perspective. In this case how we look at our own moments of groundlessness differently.

[alovelycreature]

Do you think your M was gaslighting you? Have you read Will I Ever Be Good Enough? By Karyl McBride? Rain suggested it to me. The book helped me notice and accept that I have can't accept myself or be self compassionate and why. She also goes through steps to heal from those negative messages from our mothers. Hope you find the healing solution that works for you.

[neenonee]

Zuzu your reaction seems normal to me given just the little bit you posted about what you went through. Sometimes hearing what parents have done to their kids, it's almost like did they intend to mess with their kids' minds? Because some of the things I've read here that parents have said to their kids, they couldn't have hurt them more if they set out to do it.

[voicelessagony2]

Wow I'm so glad I stopped to read this thread. I have the exact same blockage when it comes to "love and accept" myself. It's always been a very perplexing and upsetting topic, and I always felt alone, like it must be only me that doesn't get it, since sooooo many people - every self help book, every therapist, ever - repeat it like a broken record. And my internal response is always the same. Love myself? How??? How do I even begin to love myself, when I don't remember ever feeling anything but disappointment when I wake up in the morning and the first conscious awareness is crushing disappointment that I am still just me.

But now, honestly, after reading just these few posts, I see that every one of you understands this struggle, and each of you have finally given me, perhaps, some options for ways to approach this VERY important and very profound aspect of healing.

[flookadelic]

It is an excellent thread, and I'm grateful for it being here myself. Clarified stuff for me.

[C.]

EFT has helped a lot of people, and I have tried it quite a few times over the years, with little success. The problem is, the sessions always begin with something like "even though (fill in the blank), I completely love and accept myself."

I just can't get past this. It's actually triggering to me.

*trigger warning*
and if she said these things to me as a child, I don't remember it.

But obviously it's holding me back from recovery in a big way. If anyone has any idea what's going on here, I'd be grateful for your input.

That is so sad that words which ought to bring comfort and joy triggers anger.  I'm sorry that was your experience.  I'm relatively new to the forum, but a "seasoned" participant in life...I have some activities and words that "ought" to be positive, but trigger unpleasant feelings for me instead.  I've been learning to remind myself that triggers are a blessing in that they can point me towards a "start", but if I'm feeling too much pain I also cannot focus on healing.  It seems to me using other words for the technique that you mention would be entirely understandable.  No sense in torturing yourself with words, whatever they might be, that cause pain.  Are there any similar "words" that don't cause such pain?  Like from the I Have A Dream poster?  Such powerful words of a "dream" and of "freedom."

(possible trigger?)  Also, I think that you can safely assume that although you have no memory of similar words when you were younger, that your mother didn't change much.  It sounds like she's been consistent with this hateful message.  So she communicated that message to you when you were younger.  When your were an infant, a toddler, a child.  When your memory was mostly emotional.  Perhaps that's why the words simply bring up a strong feeling.  It takes you to that nonverbal, unpleasant place.  Toddlers are great at displaying anger.  So maybe you're tapping in to an "angering" response to an inappropriate interaction with you mom?  Many toddlers would be furious with a person who lashes out in such a hurtful way.

Finally, I've had times in my life when I've felt "love" for the person who I am.  Right now I don't fell that much at all, but I decided that, just like I might want to "woo" or "court" a potential suitor, I'm going to "woo" and "court" myself.  Sounds strange but it works for me and allows for little steps.  Like if I hear a love song on the radio I'll pretend it's me singing to me...It sounds like your Dream poster is a bit like that for you.  Your are "free" to be a noble being.

Anyway, there's a lot of wonderful ideas on this thread and you've given me some food for thought and healing as well.  I wish you continued peace, strength and success on your journey.  I see that you have, are and will continue to take steps forward.

Cheers to reciprocal healing.  Thank you.

[flookadelic]

The problem is, the sessions always begin with something like "even though (fill in the blank), I completely love and accept myself."

I just can't get past this. It's actually triggering to me.

If I may come at this from another angle...not that the previous posts have not have been helpful or even sorted this out entirely!

Is the keyword here "myself" - if we are taught that we are worthless, bad, wrong...by endlessly being judged, condemned and attacked, then being "ourselves" is equivalent to being "wrong". If the "myself" is the one that was judged then accepting it you are, by association, accepting the criticism and hostility to that self; and thus rejecting it immediately via a triggering.

Obviously this is just off the top of my head...