Hello -- seemingly stuck in a downturn

[smg]

I worry that I don't have the right to be as messed up as I feel. I think that about sums it up.

We were a nice, close middle-class family. They hugged me, and said that they love me, but I don't think I ever felt loved. I always knew that they wanted me to be different, that I was a shameful burden to them, that I was defective, that I needed to be grateful I had such a capable mother to tell me that I was wrong, and I was to blame for not putting in enough effort to be better. It's been a relief in the past few years to resolve the contradiction between how I felt and how I understood our relationship; it's not love, even if they use the word.

I took a self-improvement workshop in 2009 because I really wanted my life to be different and to feel less disconnected from people (maybe less frightened of connection is more accurate). I was enthusiastic about the workshop at the time, but a couple months later I was badly depressed and started counselling with a social worker/EFT practitioner. I'd been getting progressively more sick every time I visited my parents (eyes swelling nearly closed, like an allergic reaction), and I started reducing contact with them. I gave notice at my job at about the same time (and my career in environmental science, as it turned out). I spent the next two and a half years going to counselling and volunteering. When money got really tight, I found a job dishwashing and then baking bread at a restaurant. I worked there for a year, until I left suddenly to escape the bullying behaviour of the bakery manager.

I've been licking my wounds and job hunting for a month and a half. I feel ... shame and despair (??) at the mess my life has become. Unemployed, stressed about money, worried that I've screwed my future by making my old bosses mad at me, and sniffling from a cold – I'm finding it hard to believe that I'm making progress toward something good.

smg

[Rain]

Hi smg, and welcome to the OOTS forum!!

Hang in there!  You will most likely find yourself in the forum pages here.

You have a right to feel exactly as you do, and I think you may be quite shocked that your childhood was just as painful and harmful that brought you to the point you are today.   You CAN recover.   You've done many of the things that happen in our adulthood following a harmful past.   It wounds us deeply, we go on as best as we can, but anyone that is hurt does have to "pull over to the curb of life" at some point to heal.

It's actually a good thing.   You can move up from here.   Stay with us at the OOTS forum.   Read what you are drawn to, share when you can.   Join us in the Healing Journey, smg.   You have a right to!!   

Grace and Healing in your Journey.

Rain     

[alovelycreature]

Welcome SMG!

I think you'll find this a really supportive community where you'll learn a lot about yourself. I know that I used to be in a place where I thought my feelings were not legitimate, but know that they are. Your feelings surface for a reason, and it is mainly to protect you. Sometimes when we aren't in an environment that encourages the expression of feelings, or harms you for expressing feelings, you can walk out feeling like a mess! Especially in a society that equates emotions with being weak.

Shame and despair are quite normal feelings when you are experiencing a lot! Know that you can heal and that there is help. Take it one day at a time. Sending you positive energy! 

[smg]

Thanks, Rain and lovely.
I have Pete Walker's book, and I definitely identify with the fawn-type . I've got Will I Ever Be Good Enough out from the library, and I'm almost half way through it. So far, I don't identify with most of the first section where patients' early lives are described. I think I can see the effects in me, but right now I don't see that there's adequate cause.
I'm just realizing how different that is from a few years ago. It actually took many visits to Walker's website before I started to see that cptsd fits my experience. I remember reading Alice Miller's The Body Doesn't Lie and wishing that I had dramatic physical reactions, like the ones she was describing, that would banish my doubts about whether there was something wrong in my family. Twenty minutes later, I lifted my head and thought, but I DID have "allergic" responses within an hour of entering my parents' house, and that horrible asthma/coughing fit that ended the minute my mother was out of sight, and food allergies that only existed around her disapproval of me eating the foods that I wanted (or around my internalized version of her disapproval).
[sigh] Okay, another layer of denial. So, I respond very much like the emotionally abandoned daughter of a narcissist (or two). Well then, what does that say about my family...? I'm actually scared that if I type what I want to/what I wish is true, you'll demand that I prove it, that I'll fail. And then I'll have to confess that I was just born wrong and frightened and sad, thereby absolving everyone but me of all responsibility.

[BluHorse]

I too would have weekend visits with my biological father and every time I would have severe asthma attacks. I know this was brought on by stress.
Also, I recently moved my mother up to the town where I live. And everyday that I see her, that night I have night mares.
My mother always talks bad about me behind my back and has been very resentful of me for years because "I stole her husbands / boyfriend."
For every year of trauma caused to me, it seems like it takes 5 years to fix one.
Lets hang in there together.

[Sandals]

Welcome, smg

I understand your fear of not being believed. Totally get it. It is an issue for me, esp. with some of the abuse...this crazy fear that if I actually speak what happened someone will tell me that I'm exaggerating, lying or being overdramatic. It's what's kept me away from confronting what I needed to a long time ago.

The good news is that you (and I) are mistaken about this fear. It is a lie. Start by telling your truth here. We believe you. And once you've had some time to process and think, maybe you will be able to tell one person in your life. And then another.

This stuff is so easy to avoid, even though the symptoms are all there. But you can't go around it or under it or above it. You need to go through it, and that's hard. The fact that you're here tells me that you want to and are ready to go through it.

Speak your truth. We believe you.

[Whobuddy]

I worry that I don't have the right to be as messed up as I feel. I think that about sums it up.

We were a nice, close middle-class family. They hugged me, and said that they love me, but I don't think I ever felt loved.

Welcome! I am a newbie here myself.

In reading your first paragraph, I thought I was reading my own story. We are very similar. I have a hard time giving myself permission to heal because I first have to accept that there was a problem. Additionally, I have an inner critic that tells me that it was so long ago why don't I just quit whining and move on. Oh, those inner critics!

I have determined that it has to do with safety. I never felt safe as a child. Emotionally or physically. I didn't feel like anyone would protect me or even help me understand the world. Every child needs to feel (not just hear) love and safety to develop securely. You have every right to do whatever you need to heal. Your proof of your trauma is in your symptoms.

As for the self-improvement workshop, I have come to believe that my cptsd causes me many more obstacles to self-improvement than the average person. Often self-improvement talks or books cause me to have EFs. At work, they have us attend multiple 7 Habits of Highly Effective People trainings. Aaargh! Now that I know it is triggering me and that it is ok that I am not responding like my coworkers it helps a bit.

I know you will get a lot of help here at OOTS.

[smg]

Thanks, all.

Often self-improvement talks or books cause me to have EFs.

Oh my goodness, yes. There seems to be a lot of shame and blame and invalidation in the self-improvement industry. I think that a lot of people who design and run these workshops could use some more recovery from their childhoods themselves. I once stopped reading a book on emotional healing when the author started berating her readers for not loving themselves enough if they didn't get regular massages. I think that there may be two obstacles:

1) we instinctively recognize unhelpful shaming, blaming and invalidating behaviours. They are subtle but real, and we're the canaries in the coalmine.
2) We're hardwired (reversibly, I hope) to be easily triggered, even in the absence of a current threat, and many facilitators and writers don't know to tend to the emotions first, they just jump in with cognitively-based "shoulds" instead.

I have determined that it has to do with safety. I never felt safe as a child.

Not safe - yup. Interesting though that I've never previously thought of safety as a central issue.
[possible TRIGGERS] One memory that I think about a lot is when my Dad gave me back rubs every night at bedtime. I wanted him to keep his hands farther away from my butt. I asked and I started locking my hands in the small of my back to block his hands and keep him from pretending that he didn't understand what I wanted, but nothing really changed. Then my Mom got wind of it, and came to my bedroom to say "there is nothing inappropriate in the way your father is touching you. You don't know what inappropriate is."

I don't know how much danger I was in, but I'm very aware of how vulnerable internalizing that message from my mother made me, and how I protect myself by not getting involved. I have a sense that I don't have the ability or the right to determine what I don't like (especially in opposition to others), and that I don't have the right to change my mind or set limits once I've expressed any interest in something.

So, it seems like appropriate self-protection is an aspect of safety that's key for my recovery.

[schrödinger's cat]

Oh yikes. What a bizarre thing for your mother to say. If a kid points out that she doesn't like something, then she doesn't like something, end of discussion. No matter what might or might not have happened, this violated a rather important boundary. I mean, we should get to decide who's the boss of our own bodies.

Anyway, hi! I hope you'll find something helpful here.

I'm actually scared that if I type what I want to/what I wish is true, you'll demand that I prove it, that I'll fail. And then I'll have to confess that I was just born wrong and frightened and sad, thereby absolving everyone but me of all responsibility.

We really should start printing t-shirts, I'm sometimes thinking, because that rings a few bells. With me, it's a generalized anxiety. It's not even like I'm thinking 'what if they won't believe me', it's more like: 'what will I do when they tell me they don't believe me?' Even with things where I know that I'm right, where I have tangible proof on my side, I still don't expect to be believed, because when I was a kid, it was so very very easy for everyone around me to invalidate me and minimize/trivialize what I said.

So don't worry. You'll be fine. This is the place where you get to tell your story. Your family of origin are far, far, far away, and we couldn't care less about their points of view. We're on your side, given that you've got CPTSD like we do, which puts us in the same football team, as it were. We're all wearing the same jersey. We're not rooting for the opposition, we're rooting for you.