[DecimalRocket]

I just registered on this site and I received a warm welcome. It was heartwarming until I flashed back.

I don’t remember the exact memories that flashed back. But I remember the panic attack. I remember feeling the outright depression at feeling unloved as a child. I remember the intense hatred and shame I had for myself.

I remember the inner critic.

It told me I didn’t deserve to be helped. That I deserve to be criticized, beaten and killed for my lack of efforts in life. It told me I was just whining. And whenever I told things I’ve accomplished, it told me I should have tried harder. Tried harder until I was aching and crying and exhausted. It told me that I wasn’t some child in a wartorn country or some guy in Africa dying of hunger. It asked me what kind of first world problem it is to have flashbacks like this?

Right now I’m not feeling much of anything. It’s not even emptiness. It’s more of being disinterested yet somehow calmly content. It’s gone, I guess. I try to remember the memories I had when I was younger. . . and barely anything’s coming up. Whenever a single idea, picture or sound of my childhood pops into my mind, it quickly disappears. 

I think I might have just forgotten my entire childhood.

[AphoticAtramentous]

You do deserve help, Decimal. Remember, pain is relative. You shouldn't compare your pain to others, and certainly not listen to that inner critic, or whoever has told you before that your pain means nothing. Wish I knew what else to say, just want to let you know I'm listening and wish you all the best.

[ah]

Oh, Decimal, sounds awful... so incredibly painful. If it's okay I'll imagine I'm sitting with you in silence this that bl**dy voice gets quiet and leaves you alone. You don't deserve IT!

I know the power of the inner critic telling you that you don't deserve help, or love, or hope, or kindness, or anything at all. That you're a broken machine because you aren't good enough and never will be.
For me, I go into long periods of time where the voice talks and talks and it's like I'm giving myself some ridiculous imitation of control by letting it do this to me, till I'm all empty of emotion. From anxiety I go straight to exhaustion and numbness and seeming calm because I'm too tired to take any more so I feel emptied. I feel temporary relief, till the whole cycle starts again.

Learning about trauma and cptsd is the one thing that has recently begun helping me see what this critic is doing and why. No, not the "why" I always believed (that it's doing it because I'm worthless, evil, waste of oxygen) and still believe much of the time, but the real reasons. The things that were done and said to me, which I internalized. Even if I don't remember them, having this vicious critic in my head means they happened. I don't need to remember them to weaken the critic. I try to focus straight on it in the present. Slowly, reading books and thinking them through one page at a time. It's hard for me but worth every second of effort.

I have enormous holes in my memory too. I remember far too much I remember traumatic things I desperately wish I could forget, but not in sequence. And many things are gone, or distorted. My whole life is one big trauma, one big wound, totally hazy. Childhood, also as an adult, everything is as though I'm in a deep fog till just recently. I try to catch memories and they slip away or seem illogical, chronologically impossible.
I guess I'll never really know my life, but I can know who I am here and now.

Glad you're here.

[sanmagic7]

hey, dr,

i think it's a positive thing that you were able to feel that heartwarming feeling come over you.  to me it says that the part of you that intrinsically has known from the time you were born that you deserve help, care, comfort, love, and kindness is still alive, if only a spark.  still, that spark can be fanned into a brilliant flame.  by coming here, you've taken the first step in fanning that spark.

we were born knowing what we deserve, and we were very vocal about getting those needs met.  it's the messages that were louder and stronger than our own that drowned out our own knowing.   i believe we can defeat this c-ptsd beast with love, and everything love entails.  it will restore our knowing as we keep moving in recovery.

so glad you're here.  sending you a hug filled with gentleness and nurturing.

[woodsgnome]

My inner critic is horrific if I let it out of its box. It finds lots of ways to get out, though. One tactic that might sound counter-intuitive is to befriend it. Whoa! That might sound self-defeating, but fighting it only seems to encourage it.

So we seem to have this inner voice, and it may even have helped us avoid something we needed to avoid...once upon a time. But it doesn't seem to understand boundaries, and keeps returning for attention. So, give it some! Say something like "Hi, thanks for trying to protect me, but that's not what I most need anymore; you can go. Thanks, and remember--you're not in charge here."

Sorry if this personalizing of the inner critic sounds silly--for me I think it works more often than not (but not always; new habits take time). And if it still sounds silly, sometimes that's exactly what's needed, as the more conventional coping ways aren't failsafe, so maybe it's time to think out-of-the-box. Having this cptsd stuff can call for extremes when it comes to coping stragegies; after all, it often stems from even crueler extremes.

[sanmagic7]

nice spin on that, wg.  i agree that battling this stuff is sometimes exactly what we don't need to do.  good one!

[DecimalRocket]

Hey guys, thanks! I really mean that.

 I was emotionally numb at the time I first read these. But I could feel a lot of tension in my body. A heaviness, and even some exhaustion.

So I tried WG’s advice on being kind to the inner critic. It kept repeating crticism over critcism for each kind word I said. It complained. It screamed. It spat on me. This kept going on for who knows how long.

Until he asked in disbelief, “Why all this? What did I do to deserve all this? I’m being horrible to you. What’s wrong with you?”

Then my emotions began flowing out. I felt a lump at a throat at how touched the inner critic was by my kindness. I felt a sadness in my chest at not being given this treatment enough by myself. I felt curious by how life seems to work. I felt angry at how crappy my childhood was and who factored into these. But most of all — I felt a strange relief.

I supressed them since I was in public, but once I got alone I said the same words to my inner critic and tried this visualization technique of imagining healing white energy to tense parts of the body. I was shaking for several minutes straight and making crying sounds. Several memories came back — major memories I often thought of and even some minor memories that happened long ago I don’t even remember being distressed about.

 I was exhausted physically and emotionally after but I felt lighter somehow. More relaxed. Though, I still feel a bit of a mixed set of emotions in me.

I should do this more often. It feels horrible yet it’s so . . .  relieving.

I’m glad I found this site.

Well, I better give my tired self some rest now.

See you around.

[sanmagic7]

wow, dr,  i'm so glad you found some relief.  yay!  that's the best news ever.  kill 'em with kindness.  yep.  i swear this beast will be defeated by love, in the truest sense of the word.  sending a hug filled with rest and release.

[ah]

I agree with every word sanmagic said.
Can't write much right now but wanted to say how touching it was to read what you felt, DecimalRocket.
woodsgnome, that's beautiful. maybe you ARE fighting it, you're just not using its weapon of choice? You're using yours, using something it doesn't have. It's using cruelty and you're using kindness. Cruelty can't understand kindness but kindness isn't so limited.
It's thought provoking that cruelty doesn't always win in battle.