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I'll have to check out the pomadoro method SC.

Rain - sigh, these days it's looking like me having zero motivation to clean, do laundry, take a shower, go grocery shopping, make myself healthy food, do work at work, or go to bed on time.  I'm just sitting there, watching myself not do these things and it's driving me crazy.

I KNOW that I'm doing a lot of really hard internal work, and that none of this stuff is super important. I'm working on patience and compassion for myself. I'm working on trusting in my process. And having faith that the more of this crap I clear out, hopefully the more motivated I'll be to get stuff done.

But, while I'm working on the other stuff, I'm still watching myself not do these things, and it's just...frustrating. A few weeks ago, I ran into the concept of "demand resistance" which, I think might go hand in hand with learned helplessness, although I haven't quite figured out how.

Demand resistance - a chronic and automatic negative inner response to the perception of pressure, expectations, or demands (from within or without). 

This is me, through and through. My mother was controlling and critical and I learned at an early age to be sneaky and not do the things I was supposed to, but only in areas where I knew she'd never know...not brushing my teeth...and I can see that pattern emerging on through my adult hood and into my relationships. I was a fawn...people pleasing to the nth degree...but the minute anyone actively WANTED anything from me, created an obligation, I would just...shut down. It even went so far as just...normal social contract obligations. The minute I felt..."Oh, I should call so and so, I haven't in a while." Newp. It immediately became an obligation, instead of me doing it because I WANTED to.

And, the critic managed to turn every fun thing that I've ever wanted to do into an obligation..which means that I want to do it long enough to get involved, pay money for art/craft supplies...and then the first time "I should do that." crosses my mind, I've lost interest. It's been that way with everything in my life. I don't honestly know how I managed to keep myself motivated long enough to get both a massage licence, and a bachelors degree...except that I had the external motivation of grades.

Which makes me wonder how learned helplessness/demand resistance and external motivation connect, because what I've discovered...today as a matter of fact, is that because I was a Fawn for so long, everything I've ever done was done because of the external motivator of someone else. I was doing it to please someone else.

The minute I was alone...on my own (which happened three years ago), I began to struggle with doing these simple tasks. Cooking, cleaning, showering, grocery shopping, and watching entirely too much tv. Some of it has to do with escape. I escape into TV to manage my anxiety, or to end run loneliness...therefore not leaving myself time or much motivation to do any of those things...but there's also this element of helplessness to it too.

I FEEL helpless to change it. I watch myself doing it, and I feel helpless to do anything about it. And, I remember how helpless and afraid of the Big Huge World I was when I left my last long term relationship. I was extremely emotionally sheltered in that relationship, and being on my own for the very first time in my life was terrifying.

I feel better about it now, I've got three years of taking care of myself under my belt, and I'm in a wonderfully healthy relationship that is anything but emotionally sheltering...and yet I'm still fighting this.

Still looking for the key to it, but I feel like I'm beating my head against the wall. It's really affecting my health. And back a few weeks ago, when I said that I found that demand resistance stuff...I had my biggest breakthrough with my critic than I had had in...well, ever. The minute I realized that ALL of my language towards myself was "should" "need to" "why aren't you" "you suck because you aren't" "not doing it right" "not doing it well enough" "not doing it at all" - you get it, it could go on and on, but basically revolving around all the stuff that I thought I should be doing, all these obligations that I was piling on top of myself....I just stopped.

I told myself ok...fine, I'm just...not going to push myself to do anything. If I want to eat ice cream for dinner, I will, and I won't castegate myself for it. If I want to subsist on caramel apples for the next week...fine. We'll try this out for a month and see what happens.

What happened was that my brain got quiet Like...quieter than it's ever been. I felt lighter, and noticed a dramatic reduction in my anxiety. And suddenly, all my "I love you" mantra's to myself sounded genuine. It was kind of crazy.

And the world has not burned down, I've even managed to do a few things just because I wanted to, not because I pressured and guilted myself into them. There are still far too many nights though that I am still laying on the couch at 3 in the morning, watching TV, when I have to get up at 6:30, and paying the price for it the next day.

So...just looking for ways to change that behavior. I figured there might be some kind of therapy/books that were specifically geared towards learned helplessness that might shed some light on it.

Rain - we are very similar, with the intellectualizing. I think that's why this stuff is coming up now. I've opened myself up to the actual emotions...and well, I'm getting what I asked for.

Titration first. I am going to have to take this in small bites which is SO HARD FOR ME. It's stuff that is interesting to me as well as being personal, it's what I would choose to spend my free time reading about, even if I didn't have issues. So, it's hard for me to say, ok...we can only read a little of this at a time. Also...I am so impatient to just...dive in and drag this stuff out into the light and get through it. I am so anxious to move on with my life. I know. Believe me, I've been meditating on patience.

schrödinger's cat - or, um...exactly similiar, lol. That's exactly kind of what I've determined is going on. It's this forum. I can read articles all day, but hearing people reflect back to me my own experiences...it's...intense.

(what's an EF?)

I get lethargic and tired too!!! The stomach ache is new - also with tightening in my throat. But - and now that I understand it better from reading the Freezing stuff...that's the stage that I've been stuck in for YEARS. I just...shut down when I'm overwhelmed. I too have been tapping into my anger in little bits and pieces here and there, and been finding it amazingly motivating...but just small amounts here and there. I have a lot of issues with feeling anger.

I need to create some grounding rituals. I'm looking into some prayer beads, which I can use to repeat an "I am safe" mantra. They're also made out of a gemstone that is supposed to be very grounding. I just need something to get me out of my head, and back in the Real World. Writing time is a good idea too. I think I'm going to have to set up some specific time/way to spend time here rather than just devour the info like I really want to.

Thanks guys. I'm really glad I found this place. I have been wanting to work side by side with actual people who are working through their "stuff" for a really really long time now.

So, I've been having a very strange reaction to a lot of the things that I've been reading on this forum - it starts with an immediate stomach ache, and the more I follow that I realize that I'm having a fear/panic reaction and generally figure that it's time for me to stop reading.

While I've never really participated on a forum with others who have experienced what I have, I have read a LOT about the effects of abuse, and have written even more in my own journal.

I don't exactly understand my current reaction except that I think that I am connecting to my experiences in a way that I have not previously. I have a history of dissociation/numbness. I used to talk about things in a very intellectualized, textbook manner...until the horrified looks on other people's faces when I talked about things started causing me to feel incredibly uncomfortable because *I* couldn't feel anything...so I quit talking about it.

I have had little hints here and there that I've started connecting with this stuff again. I've begun talking about some of it with friends, and with my therapist, and noticed a *little* emotion...but this stuff...mmm, it's a very uncomfortable emotional reaction.

I don't want to let myself run away from this stuff though. I don't want it to trigger me into even MORE escapist activities or just have to give up educating myself all together, or trying to work through this stuff.

Looks like the emotional reconnection means that when I think about this stuff, when I see something like, for instance...the descriptions of Fawn/Freeze that I was reading this morning which describe me to a T - and how that relates to my past experiences... I don't know, the only way I can describe it is "not safe" feeling.

I am not fond of emotions to begin with. I've been forcing myself for the last few years to allow myself to have them, because I know they're necessary to being whole, but in general...I'm still not happy about this process. Does not like.

Any suggestions? Anyone else have similar experiences when trying to self-educate about this stuff?

Does anyone have any experience, or resources they could point me to in regards to "learned helplessness"? I think this is something that I'm fighting hard with at the moment and it's holding me back big time from a lot of the self-care stuff that I want to be doing. I guess identifying it is the first step, but I don't have any idea where to go with it from here. I haven't talked to my therapist about it yet, but up to now, she hasn't been particularly helpful in any practical ways so I'm researching.

Thanks!

Yes SC, thank you very much for sharing all of that. I'll have to look into that much more deeply. The inner team is definitely what I've been doing. I think I just got so tired of all the clamoring that I had to organize it in some way, lol. I don't think I use it for decision making so much though, and it would be interesting to see how that would work. I think mostly I use it just to calm all the aspects of myself, to "talk them down off the ledge" so to speak. Hmmm...have to play with using that tool a lot more.

Can one of you explain to me what a "pure introject" is? That's not a word that I've come across before.

I'm becoming even more familiar with a part of myself that is "stuck in time" or otherwise not aware that I'm an adult, ok, and safe. I'm not sure I was even aware of how strong it's presence was until I came to this board. I've read some stuff here that I've had some serious somatic response to...anxiety and stomach ache. It was all very strange, until I realized yesterday that I've rarely, if ever, talked about this stuff with people other than my T. Looking at all of the stuff that I've suffered at one time or another made a part of me very afraid that I was going to somehow get "sucked back into the past" to have to deal with all of that again. So...that's what I've been working on.

It's really interesting to look at our behaviors to see how they served us in the past. Defense mechanisms are something that I find really really interesting. We were incredibly strong, and creative, as kids to come up with them. I'm definitely ready to stop gnawing my own arm off though, lol!

And Rain, those are exactly the people that I want to help when I'm a counselor. I thought about focusing on kids, but with so many children with PD parents, there really just isn't a whole lot that anyone can do. I want to be there for people like us, who are intent on cleaning up the mess so that they can reach their fullest potential.

"People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates." ― Thomas Szasz

Spryte, I'm sad to hear how hard your life was. I mean, of course, whose wasn't... we're not here because we grew up in a disney-coloured paradise... but still. Sorry to hear it.

[bI think people would be very worried about me if they had any idea that (and even more now lately) how often I am "talking" to myself, or to different, or multiple aspects of myself. [/b]

Ha, same here. If I were totally open, I'd often be saying things like: "...so I talked to my subconscious about that problem, and it said...".

Have you read anything about ego state therapy? I stumbled across the concept entirely by accident - we have a huge library here, and a book on ego state therapy happened to be right next to another book I was looking for. It helped me to understand a few things about my aspects.

No, I've never come across that concept. Do you have any titles, or specific resources for it? I can google it.

Thanks Rain. I'm really glad I found this forum! 

I think that's a GREAT idea! I'd love a place to celebrate those little bits of myself that I'm discovering!

It's a sad truth that those who have abusive childhood's are much more likely to be re-victimized later on in life. I learned a lot about myself in that situation though. Wouldn't recommend it as a learning tool though. lol.

Rain - a long time ago, after my really abusive relationship, I started to see myself as a piece of un-molded clay. Our parents are supposed to teach us how to mold ourselves, and of course...with our backgrounds, they don't. We don't get any tools at all to use to our own advantage. They mold us into what they find most pleasing, and most useful to them...and then they send us out into the world un-fired. In my case, I found another abuser who was more than willing to mold me into his liking. And I didn't know any better than to let him.

I guess with as many trust issues as I have with myself, I just now realized that that is one promise I have kept to myself in these recent years...that I wouldn't hand myself over to anyone else to be molded. That's kind of a big realization for me. 

I like cherry coke! I think I shall start celebrating more when I uncover little pieces of Who I Am. I recently realized that I have an affinity for very brightly colored skirts...especially now when it's so rainy and grey where I am.

schrödinger's cat - me too! (the less weird part) haha, I feel like I tell people that and they're like...uh....I think people would be very worried about me if they had any idea that (and even more now lately) how often I am "talking" to myself, or to different, or multiple aspects of myself.

I love the idea of the monitor. I may have to incorporate that. I just learned recently that I think it's really the auditory aspect of a lot of this that bothers me...I was in a situation that normally would have triggered me big time the other day, but because I could only see it, and not hear it, it didn't. I think being in control of the "volume" might be very helpful for me to process some of those memories. Thanks!

Rain - well, I would be interested to see what you think about it once you read any of it. I'm always interested in talking about that stuff. And it's so interesting to me that there really are two different fronts that it needs to be addressed from. Healing from what was DONE to us (active abuse), and filling the void/hole from what WASN'T done to us (neglect abuse). It's the second one that I feel like I suffered with for so long without knowing what it was. Carrying this ache around my heart that felt like such a sucking wound. There have been a lot of behavioral things that I have been able to fix on my own...the co-dependency, my attachment style, learning boundaries...but that damn hole....it was always the neglect and I didn't realize it. I spent YEARS...*, my whole life doing things to fill that hole, without success. And now it feels like THOSE are the behaviors that I'm having to root through and disconnect. Unhealthy relationships to food, my escapist activities, relationships with other people...and heal what I had come to believe which was that that hole was never going to go away, and that I was irrevocably broken...that I would carry that pain with me until I died. When I become depressed, that was where that depression welled from. When I became so horribly addicted to a person and couldn't get my "fix" that's where the pain centered.

Since realizing that, and doing my own work with self-care, nurturing myself, self-soothing, getting to know myself - make friends with myself...that hole has noticeably shrunk. I was a little shocked actually, I did not expect that.

"I'm sorry what you have gone through, spryte ...the trading sex for "love" ....my heart hearts for the pain in your Journey."

Thank you. I'm still sad for that girl, and for how my relationship with sex is still being affected. It impacts my relationship, although we've found ways around it. That is very slow healing. Much as I am so very impatient with all of this...want to just...dive into all of it, rip it all out of me, I am only now coming to learn that I can't handle it all at once. I can only handle tiny little bites. And that might be what's been holding up my progress all along...trying to take on too much at once. Overwhelming myself, and shutting down. Just now noticing that. 

I like your ideas for how you've been reconnecting with your body. I've been having "conversations" with lots of different body parts. I have had SO MANY health problems these last 10 years, and I'm convinced that it all started with this buried stuff. I  may have specific physiological issues now, but I know they all started with my emotions...so, I have actually felt like I've been at war with my body for a long time. I realized at the beginning of the year that my poor body has actually been in an abusive relationship with my mind for...well, for ever. I'm cultivating compassion for it, asking it for forgiveness, and trying to rebuild trust. It isn't easy. Especially when I turn around and do things like escape into unhealthy food.

Rain - I think that it's imperative that we do what works for us. We've been doing that all along. Our defense mechanisms may fall along a spectrum of "sameness" but they were really amazingly adaptive and creative considering that we developed them to keep us safe, as children. I think it's the same as everything else. The same thing doesn't work for everyone, and sometimes we just have to keep trying, keep trying, keep trying to figure out what works for us. It's like...I've been working for years to get myself to drink more water. Apparently, I am really particular about the thing that I drink water out of. It has to be portable, easy to carry, I have to like the way it feels to drink out of it...blah blah blah...I can't tell you how many drinking apparatuses I went through, and spent money on...only to figure out that what I like to drink water out of most is the plastic cups that iced coffee comes in from Dunkin Donuts. My brain is weird, and particular.

I will tell you though, why the particular way that I'm handling it is helpful to me. I am not advocating that you change your methods.

In the book that I talked about, it does explain the roundabout ways that those criticisms are actually defense mechanisms. It helps me to understand WHAT it is that I'm trying to protect myself from, to be able to dissect the criticism itself to see what's at the bottom of it...in order to be able to say...Ok, I see what you're trying to do here, but that's not helpful. Lets find another way to do this. Perhaps your elderly wise friend is able to intuitionally know how to do that on their own...I don't know. But this is why it's helpful for ME to have those conversations with my critic.

I think maybe it also gives me a sense of control, because I have been successful in having those conversations with her...and changing her tone and her approach...whereas...when I tried to talk to my mother about how unhelpful she was being, even though I knew that she was "worried about me", I just got more of the same, and blame thrown back at me. I think it all depends on how we visualize those voices in our heads to begin with. That book taught me to externalize the voice (which we've done) but to also identify whose voice it is. I knew right away that it was my mother's. I tried envisioning her in my board room...that was just too difficult. I couldn't have her in my head more than she already was. The "she" in my head is still pretty amorphous, which is weird given how visual I am.

I think maybe I didn't explain it right. She does consider neglect to be abuse. She is just making a distinction I think between the two. She began talking about and studying neglect abuse because people kept lumping them all together...what she was saying was that they are different, have different symptoms and that neglect abuse is always present with physical/emotional abuse...(specific - I can't remember how she put it but like...active? abuse? but that even if there wasn't specific active abuse present, that neglect was an abuse all on it's own. You can check out some articles that she's written about it on psych central.

Oh, Rain, I did want to say though that with the physical manifestations of all of this stuffed emotional "stuff", I think it's different for everyone. I think it's really a normal extension of all this for a lot of us to be disconnected from our bodies. There are so many ways for that to happen. The numbing, the discounting and doubting of our own experiences - for me, and I don't know if similar things are common for men...but serious body image issues - ignoring my body or downright hating on my body because my mother used to criticize it when I was a teen - and then later...trading sex for "love" which created a really unhealthy relationship with sex...my body used as a tool, mind completely disconnected from it...on and on.

My body and I aren't "friends", we're working on it though.

But, the day that I found this board and started reading...I had an interesting reaction to it that it took me a bit to figure out. Real high anxiety...and a stomach ache. For as much work as I've done on myself, it's been a long time since I've been able to talk about my experiences with any kind of emotion...and I've been doing a lot of talking lately. I think that was my body telling me that I was having Feels about what I was reading and talking about. I seriously had to meditate, and "talk" to my stomach, sending it messages that I was "safe" before it went away. By the time I was done, I was definitely getting "inner child" kinds of images...so, all of it definitely sparked some "not safe" feelings that I'm not sure I've ever had...or haven't had in a long time. Sucky, but definitely progress for me.