I’m disgusted by my younger self.

[DecimalRocket]

There's a part of me that's calling out now.

It's the voice that tells me how annoyed it is about not having attention. The one that's absolutely pissed at people for not putting the effort to pay attention. The one who's resentful of everyone else who gets more attention. The one that hates others as much as it hates itself.

I remember back then I heard the advice that to heal, you have to open up and trust people to see your weaker side. And how did people who I asked help from react to that side of me? Disgusted. Shaming me. Ignoring me.

No one ever praised me for being honest when I used to lie about this. No one ever praised me for being vulnerable when I thought people would be disgusted, and they were. No one ever thought that I had spent years trying to do something about it and asked.

What was the use of getting people to love and care for that side of me? What was the use of trusting people?

I don't know.

[woodsgnome]

This is one of the most frustrating parts of this path--knowing "the past is passed" but feeling it gnawing on one's being well into the present with fears it will stretch into a forbidding future too.

I experience almost nightly bouts with this, and yet I've also told myself for years that the old period is over and I'm safe. And then...all * breaks loose and I feel like I'm back in the storm. In this instance, it tends to happen while I'm still awake, trying to get to a sleep that's interrupted by all this old life material. And all the old messages that no one cared then, there's no one now, and why bother anymore stay as fresh as ever.

It takes loads of gumption, patience, and self-compassionate love to settle into the reality of now--I seem to have patience aplenty but the other two are long and tiring prospects and I get desperate over how they've hung around me. Perhaps this is a part of what's called arrested development, but whatever it's called it's gruesome in the hold it has on the mind.

It will take some doing to tackle this. It can be discouraging, but the path of recovery isn't a straight one--it can meander all over and back again. About the only thing I can say to you is to use your keen intelligence to stick with it. Perhaps you shun this, but your ability to rebound has been shown in many of your writings here.

[sanmagic7]

d.r., this is where the idea of inner child works often steps in.  when we recognize the little children in us who didn't get what we needed, what we wanted, what we deserved as far as attention, caring, nurturing, and love are concerned, that's when we can begin the work of re-parenting  the little me inside who's parents let them down.

i don't know if you're familiar with inner child work, but if not, i don't doubt you'll begin researching it and learn what it's all about, what it means to recovery, and how it works.  it can be pretty powerful stuff, often shown us by a therapist.  i don't know if you see someone for your traumatic wounds, but it might be something to consider. 

our little inners have bottomless holes that can't be filled outside of us.  instead, we usually need to begin learning how to nurture them, reassure them, let them know that now they have all the attention they may need cuz we won't abandon them like we were abandoned in the past.

in the meantime, you will get as much as anyone can give you here, but i know it may not always feel like enough.  sometimes people here are just not able to respond as we'd like them to, or as much as we'd like them to.  you'll be ok, d.r.  you're making progress, and that's what counts.  love and a big hug, sweetie.

[DecimalRocket]

Hi. W.g. Thank you for relating to me and making me feel like I'm not alone. Sorry this is happening to you too. I know how hard it can be. I know gumption or resourcefulness, but patience and self compassion needs some work.

I am using my own intelligence to stick with this though. Instead of just pointing out my kindness over my inner critic calling me a monster, I go research actual monsters and see what they're like. Tyrants, criminals, manipulators, and so on. Somehow it affirms to me that I'm not like them.

Thanks for believing in me, w.g. I'll remember this.

San, thanks for showing me and the younger me some kindness. It's only when I see others being kind to me does it become easier for me to be kind to myself. 

I do know about inner child work, and I use it often. I have all kinds of recovery tools I never or rarely mention around here because they would be too detailed to mention all at once.

I do have a therapist for trauma. The thing is I find it hard to trust her to open up about my emotions. It's not her — she seems willing to listen to any crticisms or requests I have. It's my own suspicions now. I can only say more surface problems to her, and this actually helps me open up to people more in real life.

Though with the issues that run much deeper, I only have this place that I can trust.

I'm still hurting and confused though, so if anyone passes by to provide more insight or support to this thread, please do.

[Three Roses]

I don't have any thing to add to what's been said, but want you to know I am glad you're part of this community! Glad you're here 

[Dee]

I believe there are safe people you can open up to and be vulnerable.  However, not everyone is okay.  Thanks to you I just realized something.  Last time I was in therapy I shared a drawing and then couldn't speak about what I drew.  She thanked me for being vulnerable.  I think it is a matter of finding the right person.

So image your friends in a circle and two rings around that.  There should be a few in the center.  Those are the ones you can be vulnerable with.  Then a few in the next circle, that you are close to, but maybe not vulnerable with yet or ever.  Then on outer ring those that are acquaintances. 

I think we need to know those we open up to if we are not going to get hurt.  I may have just had that experience, I'm evaluation.  I have a good friend that is in the middle and I can tell her anything without being shamed, blamed, or judged.  That kind of friendship takes time.

[DecimalRocket]

Thanks TR for the well wishes, and Dee I've been taking your advice.

I had to come to this thread again for a reason, because I find it hard to care for my younger self.

When I was young, I thought empathy and love were useless. This is because when I bonded with someone, I never really felt an emotional connection with them. The only positive emotion I could find was in learning, and so I cared more deeply about that - my only reason for living.

I suppressed the need for relationships, really, because they never seemed to work. I'd talk to them, but I'd feel empty and distance myself. I wasn't hurtful, but I wasn't really kind either. I rarely ever experienced empathy as "compassion". I experienced it as pity in a way I saw others as pathetic and a burden. So in a way, I didn't understand how love could work, and I thought deep inside, people felt the same about me too.

It's the start summer vacation now here since finals are done, and I understand why I feel so . . . empty. These days were the loneliest in my life away from classmates in school, where at the very least I'd feel a slight connection to people. Where I never trusted my parents to communicate how lonely I was, and how I just gave up on the idea of love.

I didn't really get why I felt this way. To me, it was all my fault. Maybe I didn't feel happy because I didn't deserve it.

I have people to talk to this time in summer, but something about this time of the year depresses me compared to the rest.

I wish I can love that younger version of me. I wish I could.

[DecimalRocket]

Anyone?

[Blueberry]

DR, you can still talk to us on here even if it's the summer holidays in your part of the world.

If you're missing your classmates, then that sounds as if you're making progress 

I haven't read all this thread (it's past midnight in my part of the world and I've been doing Mod work and not posted own stuff yet) but when I read that you're 'disgusted by' your younger self, I wonder if it's really you who feels disgusted or if somebody used to project their disgust onto you and now you're feeling that about your younger self?

You wouldn't be the first with CPTSD to react that way. Children learn self-love, self-esteem because their parents love them and care for them, praise them when they do well, help them to do their best etc. Children who don't experience that, like lots of us on here, may learn self-hate instead. When our parents ignore and neglect us or show hate to us or contempt of us, that's what we learn and that's what we feel about yourselves and about our younger selves.

I don't feel disgusted by you DR and I can't imagine why I should feel disgusted by little you either. FWIW.

[DecimalRocket]

I've been reflecting about what you and others said for hours now.

Not blaming myself meant I have to recognize that it was other's fault I was this way. As a kid, I grew up with messages of saying I could do it over and over, so if I could do something, that meant it was all my fault. Teachers praised me for intelligence, and they never praised me for effort. I held the idea that if I was smart enough to figure this all out, and when I couldn't, that meant I wasn't trying.

But my self then and now is a lot more powerless than I thought. I have belief in my ability to accomplish things, but not a belief that I'm worthy of love and support. To gain more of the latter, I had to sacrifice some belief in myself. In reality, there's so much I can't do. So much I can't ever learn. So many things I'm terrible at.

I didn't want to believe that I was just a human being.

[JuniperShadow]

It's the voice that tells me how annoyed it is about not having attention... The one who's resentful of everyone else who gets more attention.

...I saw others as pathetic and a burden.

Hi DR. I'm not a therapist, and Blueberry probably said this better, but it does sound like you've internalized someone else's narrative for you.

A child's need for attention and affection is real, genuine, and valid. It sounds like someone who should have provided that attention thought that you were disgusting for wanting that very basic human need. (This sounds very much like my mother's narrative for me. She, too, was disgusted by my human need for connection, and I began to see people who needed other people as 'weak' or 'childish.')

So, if a computer was programmed that 'attention seeking is disgusting' and then someone sought attention from that computer, the computer would classify that person as "disgusting"... or maybe "pathetic" or a "burden"?

My question would be what did you initially feel about seeking connection? What did little you naturally feel before that narrative was imposed on you? Could you believe that again and "reprogram" that definition to "attention seeking is natural and good"?

(Sorry for the computer metaphors. I program.)

[DecimalRocket]

Eh. Computer metaphors are fine. I program too. I bet there's an if then code in there where if someone tells me I'm deserving of attention, my inner critic responds. Then it plays a loop of all the reasons I'm to blame, and prints it out in thoughts in my head.

I don't remember much about little me getting to have attention. Sometimes when I have flashbacks I can't place a specific memory, I have this strange feeling that it's a flashback when I was a baby.

I remember kindergarten me though. A pretty active kid who was pretty playful and full of humor while being blunt and argumentative at the same time. I often questioned teachers and all kinds of things adults say, and many of them disagreed or ignored what I said without explaining why.

[JuniperShadow]

A pretty active kid who was pretty playful and full of humor while being blunt and argumentative at the same time. I often questioned teachers and all kinds of things adults say, and many of them disagreed or ignored what I said without explaining why.

Um. That kid sounds awesome.

Also, classic gifted kid.

--

let empathy;

if ( negativeThoughts ) {
    for (var negativeThought in negativeThoughts)  {
        return ( isSelfCritic ? "ignore" : "evaluate");
    }
}

[DecimalRocket]

Everyday, I regret on what I did when I was younger. When I lacked more self awareness. When I lacked the ability to make the best choices, and have compassion for myself and others. When I was more stupid, more insecure, more cold, more harsh, more lazy.

Even then I was focused on growing as a person. But did I do well? No, I didn't. I was always sloppy. Always full of too much pride or too much shame. Always completely jaded or hopeful to naive degrees.

What's worth liking about younger me anyway? Little me was terrible, and so was the me a few years ago or even a year ago. I never did anything right, or tried hard enough.

[woodsgnome]

Two things come to mind regarding your last commentary.

One, no matter what your opinion of the actions of younger self, it can always change. I had crippling guilt feelings about how I was in certain respects, especially in a choice I made. Now enough time and thought has passed that I realize the bad vibes around that choice wasn't neither wrong nor my fault at all; that I did the best I knew how, and that it indeed is left behind, in that old story. No matter what you think of how you were then, you're no longer there.

The second observation is tied into the first. Which is just to shower all the kindness you can towards younger self. This compassion doesn't mean you have to approve of what you did or how you were. It's not any easier to do this, I've learned; but when you do so, it at least clears up one's foggy perspective and brings one back to what's today like, despite the perceived judgements about what might have been.