Messages

I saw a series where a friend forgave someone for what they'd done. It really moved me, and I realize I don't expect anyone to forgive me, like I'm undeserving. Right after that I got this feeling that I just wish someone loved me, and then a desire to give up, which I guess comes from the inner child, feeling abandoned. I don't think I ever felt really loved by my parents, and not much I could do about that. However, I still really  miss that feeling of being loved by someone, someone who really cares and gets me and picks me up when I need it. I guess that's too much to expect from friends, and too much to expect from a girlfriend all the time, but I also have this sense that I'm not requesting a lot. Being loved is quite basic. I feel so let down when I think of my father, who was so distant when I was young, and I feel repulsed by my mother who would try to get her emotional needs fulfilled instead of mine. Well, they got me to try to save their relationship, and it didn't work. I'm a grown man, and I really don't feel like it just now.

ah, I've been away on holiday, so late reply  I think most people in here have suffered from a lack of care from others. When you're imagining, maybe the people you imagine could care for you, maybe just in a small way to start with. Of course, you should only try it if it feels right for you to do so. A whole other way of imagining that is used by psychologists, is to really exaggerate something negative we say to ourselves, until it becomes so absurd we stop believing it. Like when I feel I don't have a rightful place in the world, I could go on to imagine that I have to transcend into another dimension and conjuring up images of that - something completely unbelievable. It makes me believe less in the negative thoughts.

DecimalRocket - I guess one of the effects of being mistreated is that we think there's a reason for it, and it's easy to jump to the conclusion that we don't deserve what we're denied or that we for some reason deserve to be treated badly. Taken to the extreme, I guess that feeling is that we don't deserve a place in this world, or perhaps that we deserve a really * place in this world. At the same time we think others have the right to whatever we're not getting. In a hunter-gatherer society that probably was a good evolutionary development, as staying with the group and adapting to it increased chances of survival and passing on genes.

Social "demands" can be a bit of a predicament. If you're able to stop at one drink, that sounds like a great way of dealing with it, Estella.

Cygnus, I can identify with drinking to dull pain. It feels like caring for myself, but I know it's not. Drinking might be easy in the short run, but I realise it would be very hard in the long run 

It's so good that you're thinking about this and coming up with solutions! If you could avoid getting tired an overwhelmed, that would be great.

Confronting my fears has increased my wellbeing, but I find it's important to do it in a way that I feel I'm handling it. For me support is important, and I guess you could get support from you husband, this group or maybe even a therapist if it's hard to confront the emotions.

It's strange that it's easier to say that to someone else...

PeTe, I'm still working on believing I have a right to exist. You're not alone.

If it helps, I without a doubt think you have the right to exist, Blueberry 

It's nice with other people chiming in, it validates me (and my right to exist). Also, reading what you write, I decidedly think you deserve a place in this world and not have to earn it all the time, and that makes it easier to say the same holds for me.

radical - I think it's great that you're standing up for others, and that you're standing up for yourself more and more. I agree that caring less about other peoples' reactions is a part of the puzzle.

ah - I'm sorry that people convey you're a waste of oxygen. That's really cruel on their part. It sucks standing up for others, and not being returned the favor. I think you shouldn't feel ashamed that you survived, you can be proud that you managed to that! If you'd like, I've got a suggestion for how you could change what you're visualizing (not sure if it'd work, though).

DecimalRocket, I'm glad that worked for you. When I try to stand up to others in my thoughts, I find it overwhelms me, my anger just flares up at any time - a sort of classic fight between the shame and the anger. Doing it is somehow less triggering, probably because I'm asserting my right, which in a way validates making a stand. In a way I'm trying the other way around compared to what you do. However, I'm sure different situations will require different ways of dealing with them. Anyways, keep on practicing standing up for yourself! And if you think about it, by practicing, I would say you actually are standing up for yourself, you're making a change.

Grouphugs are way too rare outside this place 

If you can still comment on WHO's work, here's something you can use to validate the importance of emotional abuse in developing cPTSD. See appendix B for typical scores on traumatic experiences leading to DESNOS (a different proposed name for cPTSD, as I undestand it), where patiens typically score high on emotional abuse: http://www.traumacenter.org/initiatives/Polyvictimization_Articles/DESNOS_II.pdf

Hi blues_cruise.

Every article on changing habits now sees slipping as part of the process, so there's no reason to lose hope even though you've slipped a little. It's natural. You've been doing good for a while, finding ways that work for you, and I'm sure you'll find back to them.

You've focused on things that motivate you more, like sticking to a diet. You say it's harder to not drink if you're feeling overwhelmed or if your husband offers you a drink. Could you find any solutions for those specific situations?

Anyways, you're doing good, hard work trying to change this habit! 

I don't think it's necessarily incompetence. If they want to make a new diagnosis, it might be more important to be able to agree on a first definition, and then later revise it, instead of the process potentially stalling. It might be very competent bureaucracy, and it might all be done with the best of intent for everyone who's suffering from it. From an outside perspective, I can see that the less tangible cause for the problems, the harder it is to accept it and agree on including it. Violence - easy to agree upon, the context and tone something is said in - up for discussion. (PS! I'm writing this as someone who's experienced emotional abuse.)

    Even though in my case there was some CSA and CPA the emotional abuse was the worst. And anyway CSA and CPA of types that can be written off as easily as emotional abuse. It's terrible when docs and Ts persistently say it wasn't bad enough when it plainly was bad enough!

Most definitely. We're not here for the fun of it, it's because it was that bad. I haven't been living the high life the last six months, I'm on a sick leave. Even if emotional abuse is included in the description, though, we'll still have to face a multitude of others who choose to believe us or not. I'm really glad I have this forum 

"You can just put me ashore on one of these islands to die." Mom in one of mye first memories.
"I might just as well kill myself." One of several times mom were on the phone with her sister, talkin loud enough for us to hear.
"I've got to be allowed to say what I think." Mom when transgressing my boundaries, of course denying me the right to say what I think.

It's so good that you're working to give them input, Kizzie! I really hope emotional abuse will be part of their definition, as that's why I've got cPTSD. I now realise I feel very vulnerable around having problems that can be written off as nothing or forced into a mold that doesn't fit, like it's a shortcoming of mine.