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Ok so reading this morning about emotional abandonment from infancy and here's where I need help sorting. Maybe this should be three separate threads but my mind needs to sort all three.

First, the period of time I felt abandoned was after I was school age and family tragedy took the adults away emotionally. So as an infant I'm pretty sure I received some normal attention and actually have some fond memories of just before school age. So the thoughts about early infant abandonment don't connect with me. Is anyone else feeling that way?

Once school age and I wanted to be an individual human is when my personality disordered mum really got twisted up and abusive so besides the tragedy making a mess she couldn't handle having me separate. Yet my presence angered her. Which lead to trying to please and comply and be perfect but at the same time struggling to be a separate person. She was always angry, always on edge, this is when her passive agressive manipulations really came out on me. I lived in fear and terror every minute I was home and only at peace when out of the house or in a closet. Then when I became a teen she wanted an instant best friend and I was all too happy to enmesh thinking this is a normal adult mother daughter relationship. So don't feel emotionally abandoned during teen years, in fact much to much emotional connection to mum during those years. It's like my life was in stages, does that make any sense?

Here's the thing, through it all I had my younger sister and we were always close, we escaped together. Plus during the time I felt most adult abandoned she was old enough for us to be close and play. Mum was all too happy to have us out of her hair and we were all to happy to not be there get hit. We'd disappear or hide for hours only coming out when necessary for food. Does having a sibling help lessen the emotional abandonment? Is EA worse in an only child?

Lack of control, poise = EF that's how it feels, just off. Here's the book definition:

Emotional flashbacks are sudden and often prolonged regressions to the overwhelming feeling-states of being an abused/abandoned child. These feeling states can include overwhelming fear, shame, alienation, rage, grief and depression. They also include unnecessary triggering of our fight/flight instincts. . . . A sense of feeling small, young, fragile, powerless and helpless is also commonly experienced in an emotional flashback, and all symptoms are typically overlaid with humiliating and crushing toxic shame.

That's how it feels, I'm feeling small and I actually shrink physically, caving in a bit on myself instead of standing tall, feeling rather invisible or wishing to be invisible.

(((Kizzie)))

Thank you all for the thoughts on grieving in our own time and own way. Very validating. Love the thought of the cow too because yes it will come back up to process if need be. 

The thought of wellness rituals, excellent. Now that you say that I have been building these in small ways and DH even commented how I make time for me in such a good and healthy way. It makes him happy to see me well. One of the rituals I'm trying to use more is making a special pot of herbal tea instead of a glass of wine from time to time and may have to consider that more often.

Spryte, so happy for you!

Kizzie, your post help me tremendously. First lightbub from your post, I never really thought the crumbly feeling inside was fear since I don't respond out of fear anymore but it must be fear I'm feeling. There's been times I felt the internal earthquake you describe. But there's other times where I just feel a little off kilter, not quite so confident or quick how to respond to different interactions.

It's so sad to me that even when she's being nice I need to be alert and aware. That's where there's the most risk of inviting enmeshment and I know letting her in just a little bit is like a wedge in a crack to be wiggled until the crack is wider and wider.

One of my biggest triggers still is her unwillingness to see me as an individual and to grab onto any tidbit of information to try to enmesh. It makes me furious inside that she'll take anything she can find out and suddenly she wants to do it too, has had it, has done it, feels that same way, 'why do we feel this way', etc.

It's the enmeshment that allows her the bullying. Being enmeshed is what gives her the feeling of entitlement to treat me as she pleases and free license to her bullying. That reminds me of the post on OOTF about accepting the abuse and allowing it to continue sends the message the abuse is ok with us.

Second lightbulb, when I say "outside I'm in charge of me but inside on the crumbly mess" maybe what I'm really saying is that my adult has got the situation under control but when I say inside maybe what I'm really saying is my inner child. Thank you so much for your thoughts because the thought of an inner child is something I have a difficult time getting my head around and getting in touch with.

It's comforting to to know that your M has excepted this is how things are and being consistently kind and compassionate she's leveled off. I can kind of see that with my own M in that these last few months she's just kind of reluctantly accepted that this is the new normal. Through it all I've made sure I never cross or unkind in my tone or my words, simply not enmeshed. She now accepts my MC responses without the drama or PA fits MC first triggered, but only because I didn't cave and give in to her bullying.

DH and I were talking how grateful we both are to OOTF, this forum and the books I'm reading. Never give up and never stop the journey to wellness.

Not much time for a suitable reply and need to come back and review posts more in depth but wanted to at least get these thoughts out.

Spryte, I have the same loss list including forsaken having children and had to grieve both what was done to me and what wasn't done for me.

In the past year I feel I've faced and grieved the loss. With literal death I've always been deep in my feelings and grieve my losses heavily, in private, but rather quickly. Loss of several very close relatives and dear friends has been part of my life since very young childhood.

Although the possibility does exist perhaps my swift and deep grief is an illusion and I'm not dealing at all but it feels like I have. Is the fact I have EF at all an indication I still have to grieve, maybe but Walker says we need to accept we will always have the possibility of EF but need to get to thriving with an occasional EF or else wind up back surviving mode and full regression.

Creating a ritual to let go sounds like a great idea. I've thought of trying to create a ritual to let it go but don't feel I have anything to let go. The overwhelming hot tears weren't forced, they just came and I spent the entire afternoon wrapped up in it. But then it was over.

Maybe it's dysfunctional, but I learned from childhood not to wallow too long or I'm consumed. The result is learning to deal with emotional matters in what feels to me like the most effective but efficient way. Generally even with OOTF and EF once I have the tools my mind rules my heart.

Last night I was caught in a bad EF of my own doing having shared something with uPDm I should have kept to myself. After a few restless hours of trying to remember the flashback tools and calm myself I took out my list and went through each of the 13 steps over and over until I finally fell asleep. It's just how I function. I often say I can't stay within my own brain too long because it's too scary a place for me and I need to process and stay out of my head. It served my professional career well to be able to tackle huge problems.

Do you notice yourself very self-sufficient in your other relationships? Is it hard for you to ask for help, even when you should?

yes and sometimes. Partly because I've been betrayed by friends but mostly because uPDm has stolen my friends or cut them off behind my back actually telling some to 'stay away my daughter doesn't need you in her life' from what one friend told me (she was a good friend who died far too young from cancer). My DH is the one true friend I trust and was actually a childhood friend long before a romantic attachment. Here and OOTF is where I get mental and emotional support because it's safe, in RL I have many friends of varying intimacy levels I have asked for physical and spiritual support. And it's my mental processing that tells me I need to reach out because DH told me many many years ago I will always feel alone unless I learn to reach out and let people know I have need and then see who's willing to help, the i know who my friends are. He's so wise for having been raised so dysfunctional himself.

Well now I'm running late and must go for now! BBL !

[CPTSD is like that, every single day. It's like coming from a different culture to everyone else.]

---CPTSD makes it harder to find common ground with people. It's like that time dh and I were the only skint (and jobless, and grieving, and depressed) people among a gaggle of peers that were employed and normally happy. THAT was fun. People who knew we had little money recommended cocktail bars to us. Cocktail bars! Such things happened repeatedly. They all meant well and were nice, but they clearly couldn't even begin to fathom not having money. And having CPTSD is like that, every single day. It's like coming from a different culture to everyone else.

---Then, CPTSD gives me so many things I have to hide or explain or compensate for. It's like cluttering up a computer with twenty separate anti-virus programmes that all run at the same time and partially conflict with each other. Things slow waaay down, and after a while my processor overheats.

Thanks for these!

Bear with me while I process . . .

fear - the death of feeling safe...shame - the death of feeling worthy...depression - the death of feeling fully alive.

These are the deaths we must grieve.

Loose quote: 'The ICr is a hinderance to effective grieving and those punished for emoting may experience grieving as exacerbating their grieving.'
My punishment for emoting was to be by myself until I could control myself. So then on the one hand I was being taught to stuff feelings down, but on the other hand maybe I was learning how to rely on myself and is why I tend to be independent. And it's shouldn't be a wonder to uPDm that I no longer seek her out for emotional soothing since from childhood that was forbidden and I never did get what I needed anyway even as an adult. Why I even bothered as an adult is a wonder to me now!

From another post I thought it might be good to break off on the subject of grief rather than hijack that conversation. He's the original post link:
http://outofthefog.net/C-PTSD/forum/index.php?topic=70.msg791#msg791
Hope it's ok with Katz I started this new thrad from your post.

And the article in the post:
http://www.pete-walker.com/pdf/GrievingAndComplexPTSD.pdf

Soul ache is considerably harder to assign to the losses of childhood, yet those who take the grieving journey described below come to know unquestionably that the core of their soul ache and psychological suffering is in the unworked through losses of growing up with abandoning parents. These losses must be grieved until the individual really get that her parents were not her allies. She needs to grieve until she stops blaming herself for their abuse and/or neglect...until she fully realizes that their execrable parenting caused her posttraumatic stress. She needs to grieve until she understands how her learned habit of automatic self-abandonment is a reenactment of their abject failure to be there for her.

I'm not sure and I'm still processing the article in my mind but this may be why I have difficulty with grieving my childhood. 'Really getting my parents aren't my allies' and 'stop blaming myself for their abuse' if that's the final states to the grieving process then I'm there so maybe that's why there's no need for me to "try" to grieve. The very thought of grieving feels so contrived and forced for me right now.

It was sudden and swift when I came OOTF but it was a journey begun 30+ years ago so maybe that's why it just seems sudden. Last year the lightbulb went off and I think the 30+ year journey was like a puzzle where all the pieces suddenly snapped into place. The day I read about engulfing narcissistic mothers and how the child is an extension of herself and not a separate being was the day I curled up in a ball and slow burning tears just flowed without much sound or fanfare. That was my grief and I think for me that was it, the moment, the grieving was over.

Congratulations on standing up to your uPDm! 

I like the Spock thing. Putting myself into a mindset where I'm a kind of researcher into normal and abnormal behaviour of the typical Central European always makes me feel more at ease. I never connected it to my Freeze Response though.

It makes me wonder if hobbies that hone our observational skills might be good things for Freezers - like painting, drawing, keeping a writer's notebook where we jot down weird things people do...? Maybe also some hobbyist sociology, or character type theories, anything that can help us stay in Spock Mode?

Anyway, thanks for pointing this out.

Thanks for the cheer! Loved the connection to hobbies and art and have recently renewed my art passion. Maybe I should do some quick sketching to see where it leads me.

The quote in anger vs bitterness - great distinction!

That is so good BF and twice in one day - you must have felt triumphant! So in spite of the super bad freeze, you went ahead and contradicted her - that sounds to me like your IC is not quite as afraid of your M. You took a big risk in spite of the freeze. What's happened since the "Day of the Great Contradictions" - is she trying to FOG you at all?

Triumphant - good word to describe my feelings and yes I guess that means IC is less fearful, thanks I didn't make that connection, I'm really slow 

"Day of the Great Contradictions" Love this! It's odd because she tries to FOG me in odd kind of softer ways, not her usual PA ways so it's difficult for me to frame it as a Hoover FOG attempt. Good thing is I do recognize it for what it is and don't respond. It's almost a year since my sudden OOTF flight and she still seems puzzled why she can't get to me like she did and that feels good because while I feel like a crumbly mess inside I know on the outside I'm in charge of me.

I have some thoughts on the grief link but maybe better suited to a post on grief if we have one.

Been busy RL so catching up . . .

Food intolerance worse at some times than others. Never connected to EF but I've just started to grasp the idea of the subtle EF. Like the Richter scale idea.

Anne, I'm finding my EF are shorter duration if I grab the Walker guide sheet for what to do in
EF and I'm sorry yours lasted so long. So good the walk helped, have you tried getting the guide sheet out as soon as you recognize EF? It took me a while to even recognize EF but I'm getting better at taking as to back and saying 'ok this is EF'

Encounter with uPDm triggered super bad freeze but I went ahead and contradicted her in front of others. She didn't like what she was hearing and tried to interrupt but I kept my eyes solidly fixed on the others in the conversation and ignored her chattering in my ear to get my attention off topic. It was a triumphant moment and I did this twice that day. If I can stand up for myself I feel better even if I wind up freezing until I can muster courage and choose my battles and timing.

Reading Walker book today and he commented about turning the 4 responses into useful tools. Like turning freeze into "acute observation mode". I think I can do that, someone on OOTF said it becomes a Spock-like raising of the eyebrow and saying 'fascinating' examining human behavior and situation. Someone else has said like an anthropologist view of events. Need to give this some thought and practice.

Inner critic, didn't realize I had one until I heard the voice loud and clear the other day. Her voice was buried so deep it was barely a whisper. Now she is being banished using the same words as before, "you don't get to tell me how to feel"

Bmemories, uPDm used those words only a year ago just before OOTF and it felt so good to tell her she doesn't get tot tell me how to feel. In hindsight, it was part of my awakening journey.

Pets as therapy most definitely! 😊

What an amazing topic, so insightful. Disassociation and shame - interesting.

Some comments lean toward a PD being unable somehow to look internally but I'm still on the fence and feel it's a choice. They don't *have* to behave this way to survive, there are other ways to survive. Perhaps because of the trauma they're unable to look inward because it's such a dreadfully dark and terrible place. But honestly as uPDm behavior becomes more insane with passing time, how can she not see? She is more than willing to see her mother wasnt right yet is a mirror replica and more. Is that the definition of insane? Wait, let me check. Ah yes "in a state of mind that prevents normal perception, behavior, or social interaction; seriously mentally ill" that helps me.

uPDm is definitely fight response whereas I'm freeze and was Lost GC if that's a possible combination. DH was a Lost SG and we both came to marriage damaged but helped one another see fleas. We did that without even knowing we were doing that and it was horribly rocky but helpful.

Injured but not broken, kizzie I like that and may have to take that as a tag line. It soothed my soul to read that today.

Ok so I've been on and off for years using an art program on my tablet. An artist friend of mine who happens to be a very damaged person herself suggested that perhaps I need art mediums that I can actually tactically touch. I dug out from a storage box some of my art supplies and stopped at a craft store yesterday to pick up more supplies. Last night I sat down and it actually is quite therapeutic to get my hands dirty. In fact the girl at the craft store suggested that getting your hands dirty in art medium and really getting in there is a wonderful feeling.

How in the world can a baby learn not to be hungry?!?!?!? I can't learn not to be hungry, its a body function for goodness sake. Crazy really crazy.