I am not sure where to post this question, so I'll try here but I can move it if I need to. I've known for a long while now that what most of the world sees is a facade. Professionally, I am known as a "fixer" because I can come in and fix pretty much any problem (of course I can, if I can manage the wreckage of my own life, I can certainly fix simple work problems - one of the "gifts" of CPTSD). I project a strong, assertive, confident picture of someone that doesn't need help (because I learned that was the easiest way to "just" be ignored at home, instead of being vilified, mocked and ridiculed). This facade isn't allowed to have strong feelings (I vividly remember in 5th grade telling a classmate that I wanted to be like Mr. Spock because he didn't have to deal with feelings - what prompted that pronouncement, however, is lost to time), so I'm also known as level headed and dispassionately able to manage these crises.
Inside me is a seething, roiling, boiling cauldron of pain, shame, hate, rage, guilt, disgust that I can normally keep locked away, but when it does spill over, it overwhelms me until I'm left pretty much in a fetal position. I also have inside me a deeply sensitive, artistic spirit that cries at pretty much every sappy movie (though I've long since learned how to cry without water). This inside me is the me that is afraid, week, sad, but also creative and passionate (though I don't have the confidence to be creative and passionate or to even have preferences - I even have solid color wallpapers on my computer because I'm afraid of what others will say about whatever choice I have made when I project my screen, so it's easier to just be "blank" externally). This inside-me-me is what I suppose is my inner child, whom I have named Dante. Dante remembers what I have forgotten, which is much.
My question. Does anyone else have this dual nature, an external "acceptable" persona and a deeply wounded internal persona? What I want more than anything else is to reintegrate myself. There are good things about my "acceptable" persona - a strength and resilience. But I am exhausted with the yo-yo back and forth, and I'm ready to let go of the dark places that I go when I'm in full-Dante mode. I've never shared this awareness with another soul, even therapists, for fear of yet more judgement.
I'd appreciate any thoughts on this.
Dante,
Hello! Thank you for posting your thoughts and experience so well.
This description puts an arrow right through my heart. Yes, yes, yes. I know exactly what you are talking about. And I too shared the desire for no emotion, I wished I could be a rock on a beach. And wasn't able to speak for 3 days. Spock is still my favorite, not only for the emotionless experience, but for the way he was able to speak "truth" without offense, because clearly no one could argue with dispassionate observations.
Your question is *Does anyone else have this dual external acceptable persona and a deeply wounded internal persona?* Heck yeah! I can say that from the years I've spend here, this is the main focus of my life, comprehending and reintegration. Yes, there can be more than a dual persona, and this is what some professionals and academics call "parts." This is more fully explained by Internal Family Systems by Richard Schwartz.
It's common for everyone who has experienced ongoing relational trauma to separate their "selves" into acceptable, competent, together facades. Inside is a different story as you describe. Then it's a process of bouncing back and forth between outside and inside.
I'm glad you've accepted and named your inner child Dante. It tells me you have embraced those feelings and are not afraid. I agree, it is exhausting, and saps energy which might normally be used for enjoying life and bringing curiosity to everything.
You'll read more perspectives on this, and I hope you can fit all viewpoints into the puzzle. It's like a constant, daily, kaleidoscope, ever shifting and resettling.
Thank you Beekeeper! I am not familiar with internal family systems - sounds like a really good place to start. Thanks for sharing that, and for also validating my experience. It's such a relief to know others have this experience. The best way I can describe is that I feel like I am (or maybe Dante is) holding my breath as long as I can, until I just can't stand it anymore, and then Dante lashes out at me. And understandably so.
I tried sharing a more sensitive, less confident version of my work and it didn't go well, which just reinforced the need to be strong and perfect. I admittedly sort of just fell apart rather than sharing something more "normal", and I wound up burning some bridges and relationships in the process that will take time to repair. I think the general perspective is I had sort of a nervous breakdown, but that would imply it wasn't something that happened every single day when I get home from work. And it affected me physically in a different way than I'd experienced previously - I experienced it actually as a choking sensation like my throat was closed up or like I feel like when I'm choked up and want to cry. Since I've started re-establishing the strong, confident persona, that choking sensation has diminished (though has not completely gone away).
I also tried going the other direction and completely obliterating my past (which I suppose meant erasing Dante). I went so far as to destroy every piece of the past I could - all pictures, even burned my college degrees. That's left a big hole in the past.
So the direct route of reintegration was an epic fail. Time to try a new way, which is why I'm here trying to find a middle way.
Wow! You are now describing some experiences I also had. I burned a considerable amount of photographs,with the conviction I could erase the past. Wrong! Sorry to learn your diploma was included.
I also want to say something about the throat symptoms. During a rough period in 2008-2009, when everything imploded, and I couldn't acknowledge why, I developed dysphagia. "Difficulty swallowing." I couldn't stand to have anything against my throat. Being a staunch turtleneck person, I had to discard my entire sweater, shirt wardrobe. It was winter too! I pursued medical evaluation which led nowhere and lived with it for years. Now, it's "over" symptomatically, but I attribute that to devoting myself 100% to recovery work for a decade +.
Burning bridges, and relationship repairs seem also to be part of the process, at least for me. I discovered during my stoic days of denial I was involved with other trauma impacted people which created a toxic dance. While there were some elements of some relationships which were irrevocably damaged, there were also little sparkling high points and good times. Also, when I allowed myself to rely on others, I discovered I surrounded myself with dependents who were unable to support me. We are all human, containing lots of parts and it's best to choose and balance who can give and who takes what. Life is up and down, so are people. Nobody "blooms" all the time.
It doesn't seem like there's any "direct route" to reintegration. All those platitudes of it being a process are true. You can't hurry or push yourself, as much as you'd like to. The inner you that feels is not a bad thing. That serves as a clue to your internal status, it's wise to pay attention to it. Even if you want to cry, rage or hide. If you can do so, outside of your external life. allow it. A lot of times the external self is pressed for time or space, but think of small ways to create that if you can. (sitting outside and listening to music, walking in a green leafy area)
Yes same for me Dante - strong outer personna with child and teen part of me leaking out from time to time. It makes sense really, strong us does not show any vulnerability that predatory people can pick up on and exploit. But we're not really living if we're only letting certain parts of ourselves up to the surface. As Bee suggests family systems theory has a lot of good explanations for this compartmentalization of our selves to keep them safe and strategies for integration.
It sounds like strong willed young Dante is trying to tell you that suppressing or obliterating is not going to work. You found this safe space which I think means you're hearing him. Perhaps you can let him out here a bit, slowly so it's not overwhelming - small baby step risks until you get more comfortable. Some people even post as their younger selves to help the process of surfacing and often members will post a response written to the younger/different part. Whatever helps you we're here :grouphug:
Thank you both. I hate that you both had experiences similar enough to mine to be able to relate, but I'm grateful to have found a place where I can find start to figure out what to do with this mess.
(Edited as the more I thought about it the more I thought it might be triggering. I apologize if so).
Dante I relate strongly to what you describe - even your acknowledgement that strength is 'one of the "gifts" of CPTSD'.
I've long felt I survived and even flourished in very harsh working environments (large law firms) because I had no expectations of being safe, comfortable, included, acknowledged, respected, supported or happy in those surroundings. I felt I had been in a war zone in my FOO and marriage, and the law firm atmosphere was therefore familiar to me. The work itself was hugely rewarding and enjoyable mind you. It's just that the workplace, and interpersonal behaviour of the lawyers, was such that most 'normal' people were driven out of the organisation fairly quickly. So in a way I thanked my dysfunctional experiences for allowing me to earn a living. Many years after I started working as a lawyer, the partner with whom I first worked in one large law firm said something which validated my experiences: 'When you started with us it was sink or swim and we didn't help you but you swam'.
As to your description: 'Inside me is a seething, roiling, boiling cauldron of pain, shame, hate, rage, guilt, disgust that I can normally keep locked away, but when it does spill over, it overwhelms me until I'm left pretty much in a fetal position'. This feels so familiar to me - although after a lifetime of therapy and inner work I am now largely free of it. I posted a poem entitled 'Flitting shade-like, hugging the walls' in the poetry section of this forum some time ago, which I wrote many years ago while in the grip of such a cauldron of terrible feelings.
One experience in particular still feels fresh: after visiting a senior judge in her office for a formal interview, and managing the interview well, I almost ran into a nearby park and then crouched down on the grass in a ball of wrenching despair, my insides twisting in disgust and shame, helpless to stop my sobbing. I didn't know what was wrong with me but I knew I was somehow terribly 'wrong', that I could never be like that woman - calm and comfortable and competent and 'at home' in the world. It was an unforgettable breakdown into raw self-loathing and profound despair.
May I encourage your acknowledgment of your creative impulses? You identify your artistic side even as you say: 'though I don't have the confidence to be creative and passionate or to even have preferences'. There was a time when, sitting on a bus, this description of myself came to me: I felt I was 'just a piece of paper being blown hither and thither through the world'. I had no substance. I had no basis on which to express preferences. I remember wondering, sitting on that bus, how people looked at an art work and had any way of assessing it. Well, it took years of inner work and therapeutic support, but now, and for the past 10 to 15 years of my life, I am free to express my creativity - I sing and paint and write poetry and prose and sew and crochet and have a strong set of values against which to assess people and art works and writings. And through those things, through expressing myself in these ways, even though I do so privately, I have found profound healing. So please Dante follow your artistic instincts. One huge regret I've had is that I did not have the confidence to follow my creative instincts until very late in life. If I had followed them sooner, I'm sure I would have accessed my healing impulses sooner too.
I hope it helps you to hear of my experiences. I know that the validation I've received through reading of other members' experiences on this Forum has been central to my feeling less alone in the world. There is nowhere else, except perhaps in a room with a therapist I trust, that I can speak of my experiences so openly.
bluepalm
Thank you, bluepalm. I am sorry for your experiences, but grateful to you for sharing them. It does help to know I'm not alone. Trying to acknowledge my past and face down the sheer terror and horror at that acknowledgement is really hard - hard enough that I've put it off for over a year while mostly trying (and failing) to be in denial.
I am working on trying to be more open to creativity, but I've found at least so far that it increases my anxiety because I know that whatever I do will not be up to my impossibly high standards (which I now realize were imposed by my FOO). But thank you for the encouragement. Perhaps one day soon.
Anytime I see references to acting a role rings a bell for me, as improv (unscripted but deep) acting was one aspect of a multifaceted career. Like other aspects, it was something I 'fell' into after I'd experienced lots of turmoil I feel fortunate to have survived.
What I didn't realize when this started, was that the 'acting' was opening up an inside part that I was unable to access in my FOO or schooling (religious) years for fear of retribution and harsh judgment for being 'different' -- which is how they tended to view any creative expressions beyond their limited range of expectations.
For me, growing into the acting roles revealed an inner side to me I didn't realize I had, but while it was cool to find, it was also a tad scary in one regard. I was so good it created expectations of me -- call it performance pressure or something like it. So I was still feeling judged. Not at all bad if you are a performer, until the hyper-vigilance wears you down and you still feel like you can't fully be yourself.
It's easy to wade into lots of nuance about this, so I'll cut some of the corners and just applaud :applause: your own albeit slow discovery and self-allowance to steer you towards becoming who you feel you really are, and be willing to go with that inner directive. Doing that, in effect creating a new life for yourself, is the essence of 'creativity', I feel.
I hope that adds some perspective about finally finding ways to feel more comfortable about how you want to go forward with who you know yourself to be. :hug:.
Thank you, woodsgnome. I appreciate you sharing your perspective. The expectations I've either inherited from others or imagined and placed on myself is a place that I'm trying to work through right now. I think in time, it will be good to re-establish some expectations, but for now, I'm trying to practice just being gentle with myself.
QuoteInside me is a seething, roiling, boiling cauldron of pain, shame, hate, rage, guilt, disgust that I can normally keep locked away, but when it does spill over, it overwhelms me until I'm left pretty much in a fetal position.
I was just rereading your thread Dante and flashed back to all the times before I knew I had CPTSD (before 2013) and didn't know what was happening. I can remember getting home from working as a reserve military officer one day and sitting in the dark on the floor in the kitchen and crying and crying because of that cauldron. Competent officer during the day who fell apart alone in the evenings. This doesn't happen now thankfully because I know it's CPTSD. I do trigger but I know what's going on and it makes a huge difference knowing I am not losing my mind.
It has taken time and therapy to reveal more of those parts of me I'd rather keep hidden. Something I've never written about really is that I even hold back here because I founded OOTS and am the Admin. It doesn't feel quite right to show those vulnerable spots because I'm at the helm, I am supposed to be responsible. What I will say is now that I am doing so more often I am becoming more comfortable with all my parts. Neither the forum nor I fall apart when I reveal more of myself, the things that I'd rather no-one see including myself because they don't mesh with the strong, adult me I want to be in place all the time.
A bit of a rambling post but hope some of it is helpful.
PS - When I was trying to connect with my child self I took an African drumming class and because it was cool she felt safe and had a
lot of fun. That part of me has been pretty content and trusting ever since. My teen part on the other hand is still a work in progress ;D
Dante, you say: "I am working on trying to be more open to creativity, but I've found at least so far that it increases my anxiety because I know that whatever I do will not be up to my impossibly high standards (which I now realize were imposed by my FOO).".
Please may I pass on a realisation I had which has freed my creative spirit. There is no way to make a 'mistake', or not live up to a 'standard', when putting marks down on paper or canvas with pencil, charcoal, paint or whatever.
Whatever marks you make are made by you for a reason - perhaps unconscious - and they are valid in themselves. No one is entitled to judge them.
I started off thinking I needed to depict the world accurately and, like you perhaps, beat myself up when my efforts 'failed'. I now understand that anything I put down is valid. Everything I paint is a release of energy by me. Perhaps the result is not pleasing to my eye and I may throw it away. But the process of putting those marks down was still valid and meaningful. The concept of 'intuitive drawing' helped me break through my resistance. Make a mark, then another one, just let your hand work randomly and see what happens.
One of the most expressive paintings I have done is a watercolour that I now value highly. It doesn't depict anything. But when I sat down and put paint on paper, when I let colours bleed into each other on the page, I was in such overwhelming emotional turmoil and despair that I felt I was 'bleeding out', that I was dying. And the paint helped me to express those feelings and, importantly, to deal with them, to lessen them, to transfer them to a creative work. In that way creating an art work can feel life saving in the moment.
I hope you will try it sooner rather than later.
Thank you bluepalm. I tried two different "mediums" over the last 2 days, and beat my hands in frustration with both. Tomorrow is a new day, but I appreciate very much your insight. One of my forms of artistic expression is something I was classically trained in as a child, even studied in college for awhile before switching. And it's been 30 years since then. But I beat myself up that I can't pick right back up where I was. The expectation's that I placed on myself provoked a panic attack. I don't think I can do that for awhile. So I tried something else, and gave up and played video games instead. (Which was actually kind of fun, because I haven't played a video game in probably more like 40 years - I don't even normally have games installed on my computer or phone). Baby steps.
Thank you Kizzie. I understand completely holding it together and then completely falling apart. A fair amount of my job (before Covid) involved travel for extended periods of time, and so I'd get up in the morning and "put myself back together" as I used to call it, then get through the day leading teams that others had failed to lead, then get back to the hotel and then find oblivion until I finally fell asleep from exhaustion. Thankfully, those days are behind me (one good thing about Covid, though I'd made progress on that pattern even before that). Like you said, I am now able to understand what's happening to me, though I'd be lying if I said I wasn't still on the floor in fetal position. But at least in fetal position without oblivion (though with significant dissociation).
For what it's worth, one thing I will say is that I think the forum (as far as I can tell in the space of 3 days) succeeds because you and others are willing to share so much of yourselves. If that helps you at all feel more confident about not having to bring the infallible leader here. We all need a place to be fallible, and I for one am so grateful to have finally found it (and finally had the courage to reach out) here.
I had a thought as I was reading that might be helpful I don't know. The mask I wear isn't actually a mask per se, it's a big part of me I can count on, that is strong, organized, confident ... Where I've had a problem is not acknowledging other 'lesser' parts to the surface, but they are a noisy group in there and never stopped trying to be acknowledged and embraced. The only way I had too was to dissociate when my energy/ability to keep them stuffed down waned.
I am trying to feel and integrate them so I can be more whole, not dominated by that one part which has gotten me through quite well admittedly, but at great cost in other ways. It sounds like you're on a similar path; I hope as you post here you may feel less like you need to dissociate, curl into the fetal position, etc., and more like letting some of those parts have a bit of time on the surface, some 'fresh air' as it were.
Thanks, Kizzie. I think that's spot on.
Hi Dante.
YES! I am exactly the same. The PTSD has divided me into two people: Outwardly I'm a highfunctioning, competent, rescuer. I build my own furniture, I designed my own home. I've published three novels. I was a singer for a while. I was a standup comedian in the 1990s. Meanwhile, unbeknown to many who know me, I'm on the verge of complete collapse almost every day. In 2011 when I started writing my first novel I told my coworkers what I was doing. They asked what the book was about. I told them that it was about a boy who had to survive an abusive life just like mine. Then I told them of the abuse I've lived through. At first, everyone was shocked. I'd hear, "Man! I never would have expected to hear that your life was like that!" Why? Because I was real good at being who I believed people needed me to be. Mr. Happy-got-the-world-by-the-tail funnyman. I was like Robing Williams: A beloved-but-troubled comedian. Maybe it's a case of Imposter Syndrome. I am highly competent, outgoing, and risky on the outside, but pretty sure I'm a worthless, humiliating bum on the inside.
I can't ask for help. I own tools and winches and small cranes and handtrucks and my own pickup and my own garden trailer just so I NEVER have to ask anyone to help me with anything heavy or difficult. I kayak alone. I ride my bike alone. I walk alone. That way I never feel like I'll be punished later for "making someone go with me doing something I want to do." I do all the cooking at home and never ask for help. I do most of the housework and all the yard work. Asking for help in my childhood was asking for serious trouble. In my family I was never allowed to ask for anything. When I asked, my family answered with "You don't want that!" If I ever admitted something made me happy, they'd take it away from me. From childhood on I had to pretend I wasn't excited about anything if I wanted to keep it. On the rare occassions that I did manage to get someone to ever give me something I wanted, or give me a ride to a friend's house, or anything at all, it would only be a matter of time before I'd find out that I'd ruined their day that time I had once "made" them give me a ride. The shame of having been the cause of their unhappiness would cut right through me. And I'm talking about as far back as I have cognitive memory. My siblings were teens when I was born. They had absolute power over me. If any of them had given me anything, ever, I'd eventually find out that somehow I'd caused them pain or cost them money for making them give me something that I didn't deserve. So Today I live knowing that I can't ask anyone for anything. They'll either say no, which will hurt a little, or they'll say yes, and eventually I'll find out they helped me under durress and I'll need to hang my head in pure shame for having been such a selfish jerk. I'll NEVER pick the restaurant with friends just in case someone doesn't like their food, because my trigger response tells me I'll be blamed for making them unhappy. I'm in a trap I can't escape from: Whether I get what I want or not I end up totally ashamed of myself for having ever asked for any help. As I grew, my family of older siblings proved beyond a doubt that if they ever gave me a dime I'd end up somehow owing them a hundred dollars later. My family was under the sick control of sister #2. She was 11 years older than me and a raging sociopath. If she ever gave me anything or any help of any kind, it was a setup to come back on me and take something big from me in return. Sociopaths only give a little when they want something bigger in return. Like the wicked witch in the woods who gave Hansel and Grettle some candy just so she could fatten them up and destroy them later.
Dante, your words are freakishly familiar. In one of my all time favorite movies, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Logan Lehrman is writing to his journal, "Only you can understand how I can be happy and sad at the same time." That's ME! That's CPTSD! We're divided. We're all-or-nothing thinkers. On any given day we're either in Heaven or *, but never on the earth in between. I over achieve, NOT because I am trying to compete with my peers but because if I don't do five times more work than them, I'll be rejected, ostracized, walked away from...humiliated as being totally worthless as a human being. I overcompensate everything just so I can feel like I'll be allowed to stay in the game at all. Sadly, this feeling resets every morning. Whatever amazing things I did yesterday mean nothing. It's a new day and I'm totally worthless again. In other words, I've saved people's lives, but when you ask me what I have to offer, I can't think of a single thing. I ONLY remember the humiliating things I've done. I honestly see myself as completely worthless, dispite a long list of accomplishments I can't even remember having made.
During my lifetime, I've many times imagined washing up on the beach of an uncharted island and finding a race of people who were just like me. This was a fantasy because I honest to goodness believed I was the only freak on the entire planet. In the second grade I was sexually abused muiltiple times by more than one person (Two clergy and one older boy). In the 5th grade my best friend tried to give me a ring. But I didn't have any idea what was going on. I was 10. He became furious that I didn't accept his ring. Out of nowhere he nicknamed me "homo" and was able to convince my entire Catholic School (in 1970) that I was gay. I wasn't gay, and I really didn't know what the label even meant. I didn't understand what was happening but I spent years begin beaten up and taunted for something I didn't even understand. Even some of the christian teachers joined into the abuse. Being labeled as gay today is difficult and can be dangerous, but being labeled gay in a church in 1970 was just one notch beneath a fullfledged de*th sentence. My family told me not to bring my little problems home for them to deal with. I was instead instructed to just ignore the entire school and to never, ever, ever fight back. (it would embarrass them if they ever had to see the principle for me getting into a fight). So I spent the next several years completely isolated and treated like the freak of all freaks. Being mob-bullied at school and UNsupported at home is a terrible combination. Few kids survive that. I almost didn't. So at night, to fall sleep, until I was in my 40s, I would imagine I'd been welcomed in by a whole village of island people who felt life as deeply as I do, and who were just as naive and loving and caring and just as afraid of other people as I was, and that I'd never have to hide my true nature from them, and that they'd never turn on me the way the people of the known world turned on me. I used to imagine that little fantasy to help me fall asleep at night.
This is bad. I'm rambling. I'm writing wayyy too much. I need to stop. I just wanted to let you know that YES! I resonate with every single word you've written here. In many ways I feel the same!
Papa Coco has just explained my behaviour to me. I find it so much easier to do things alone than to risk feeling someone else's disappointment at what I chose to do. Or at least, I did, now I am married with kids, it is rare I do anything alone like that now aside from watching TV shows. I used to tell myself that if I did not do these things alone, I would not do them, so I did, never risking asking anyone to join me out of fear of their rejection. But, I felt that shame when my OH took me to London for a break, I got tickets for exhibitions, then felt such shame when he did not enjoy them, although the trip was for my birthday. I am not sure I have risked doing anything like that since.
Yes, I am outwardly, calm, confident, unflustered, but a mess inside.
Super thread.
G
This thread has me in tears. So much suffering endured for so long by so many. All at the hands of other humans. What other form of life turns on its own members, trying to destroy them with such cruelty and ferocity?
Papa Coco you were not rambling - every word had meaning for me. You refer to Hansel and Gretel being fattened up for destruction. I once used a similar image to convey that I learnt early in life not to ask for anything.
Hansel and Gretel ate the house,
nibbled at it like a mouse.
I shut my mouth and hunger denied.
To save my mother, my soul, it died.
One time I did ask for something from my father, to collect me from the railway station in his car because I felt too sick to walk the mile distance home, he was visibly angry with me when he collected me and told me he'd calculated that trip to collect me would cost him two shillings and sixpence and that amount included wear on the carburettor. That taught me I had less value to him than the carburettor in his car engine.
Gromit - you said 'I am outwardly, calm, confident, unflustered, but a mess inside'. Trying to convey this 'internal mess' to a therapist once, I explained that although I sat there well put together with lipstick and perfume and earrings, if I were to open my skin down the middle of my body she would see a tangled, bludgeoned mess of blood and gristle instead of a neat placement of internal organs.
I learnt very early in life to show no preference for anything because I knew that whatever I preferred would be taken from me or destroyed. My shorthand visualisation of this caution I learnt to display was that if I held out in my hand a pretty flower and said to my father 'isn't it beautiful' he would grab it and crush it in front of me.
I'll stop because I feel sick remembering all this. Thank you to all who have contributed to this valuable, albeit distressing, thread.
I see a very common thread here in all of us.
The details of our stories may differ, but the theme is pretty stable. We are Fawn Types because we were shown that to fawn over others was all we were good for.
Gromit, your story touches me. It fits me perfectly. I can't enjoy so many things I want to enjoy, even on my birthdays, because I'm worried I'm making my wife or kids do something they really don't want to do. I seldom get to eat what I want to eat because I cook for my wife's taste buds rather than my own, and we go to her favorite restaurants instead of mine. If I make food that I like, then I can't enjoy it because I worry I should have made what she likes instead.
And Bluepalm, your story of the ride from the train station is the story of my entire childhood. As a boy I was told my parents never had the money to buy me a bike or a football of my own (they lied. They had PLENTY of money), so I tried to get my own jobs to earn my own money. But I was repeatedly denied the opportunity, because "I'd fail, and they'd have to put themselves out to deliver my papers for me or mow my lawns for me." There was no truth to that. I had proven myself a thousand ways to them as a responsible kid, but they still wouldn't see it. I am a workaholic even to this day who never lets anyone down. But they were constantly reminding me how expensive I was and how difficult their lives would be if I got something I wanted. They made me responsible for their happiness and I took that responsibility on. How you describe yourself, a hidden tangled mess of gristle feels pretty familiar to me too. No doubt. When I was a little boy, my mother would sing this song about how little girls were made of sugar and spice and everything nice, but little boys were made of dismembered dog tails and rocks and filth you find in the garbage. It was probably meant to make me feel like I was tough??? but it made me feel like I was garbage. It was just a song, but it fit with what my mother thought of me. I hated that song!!! Also, as a tiny boy I would sometimes ask her why she loved me. Her answer was always the same, "you're my son. I have to love you." Apparently she was required by law or something to put up with me.
So we all kind of know how we became the Fawn Types here. And we are all searching for answers to help us live with that. I suppose the overarching question here really is: If I'm stuck being a Fawn Type, but I'm without someone to Fawn over, then who am I at all? I'm like a fisherman without a boat. Or a teacher without students. I'm a Fawn type--a servant without a master.
I feel like I have a me-shaped hole in my heart that I don't care about. My job is to find that love for myself that was denied me during the formative years. I was born pure, then rewired to not respect myself, and now I need to unrewire myself. (You won't find the word unrewired in the dictionary, ha ha).
I believe there is hope for all of us. I believe that if we seek, we find, and we here are all seekers. I believe the help and the answers are out there for me--for us. For me the challenge is to make sure I'm asking the right questions. And today's question is, "How can I accept and respect the Fawning in my personality and still find the self-love I need to enjoy my life more and feel like I belong?"
I know the truth. We all belong. We all have rights. For lack of respectful parents, we just don't feel like we do.
It's trauma. Pure and simple. This is not a character flaw, nor a disease, nor a birth defect. This is Trauma. The better we get at learning about trauma, the better we'll become at finding that love for ourselves that we have all earned. For the most part, we Fawn types are the world's most beautiful people who have devoted our lives to others. The salt of the earth. So we have definitely earned a place in our own hearts.
If we seek it, we'll find it. I'm sure of it.
I know this thread is a little old, but it was so powerfully relatable to me that I need to chime in too. Wow. You people are all stunningly brave and wonderful. And my heart aches for all the hidden pain you are carrying, because I carry this, too. Dante, I absolutely relate to being home to a hidden cauldron of pain and rage, while my outside is presentable, put-together, and successful in almost every area of my life. In my case, I have even made a career out of helping vulnerable people who are often ostracized in our society, and am seen by colleagues as a strong, caring, highly functional person, even a role model whom people seek out for advice! But inside, I feel like Bluepalm: A tangled, bludgeoned mess. I think I've always felt this way, and it has made me always feel different from others, always on the edge of the group (even if I'm leading the group! I'm great at performing at a party!), a fraud, imposter waiting to be found out for the hideous evil wreck that I truly am.
And until recently, I have never, despite decades of therapy(!!), put it together that a person who had a happy childhood (the one my family assures me that I had) would not feel like I do. I would feel lovable and safe if I had been raised with love and safety.
It is so lonely, isn't it? Always feeling like you are set apart, somehow flawed and damaged, and longing to be seen and loved for more than just the perfect image you put out there to the world? Of course, we are not flawed. We ARE worthy, as all humans are.
My therapist is encouraging me not to tear down and blame my high-functioning, perfectionist part. She reminds me, as Kizzie said so well in this thread, that our "outside" part is not just a mask, but is a part of us that is working really hard to keep us safe, to keep the world together amidst all our inner chaos. So I am trying to embrace this part of me, too.
I'm curious if anyone relates to this: I'm a bit ashamed of this, but here goes. I've realized that one of my coping mechanisms for dealing with always feeling secretly bad and different was to become somewhat narcissistic. As the daughter of a raging narcissist, I had a master teacher. I was his "golden child" and groomed by him to see myself as "special." I now realize that this was not a kindness, but really manipulative, to tell me I was different and even better than other people. It just exacerbated the feeling that I was a fraud, and put even more pressure on me to perform at a high level in every area of my life. I do now see that being "special" and narcissistic just separates us from having any true and meaningful connection with others. Being "special" feels pretty awful. Yes, I'm special. But so is every child and every adult. For me, the turning point came a few years ago, when I was actually at an awards ceremony for an award that I had been nominated for. It was the pinnacle of my life's work and all my dreams. I was in a fancy dress in a glittering ballroom. And standing there, I FINALLY heard the voice in my head, and it said: "You are loathsome. You don't belong." That night changed my life forever. I had achieved all my goals and it didn't matter (and my narcissistic father, whose love I'd been chasing all along), didn't even notice. He was too wrapped up in himself to see me, yet again.
This forum is such a gift. I feel safe and seen here. I feel like I belong here, like the dark mess inside me isn't so dark and shameful after all. Thank you.
This thread keeps giving to me.
Papa Coco - what you write here resonates deeply with me. I, too, know it is true. What you wrote deserves repeating.
"I know the truth. We all belong. We all have rights. For lack of respectful parents, we just don't feel like we do.
"It's trauma. Pure and simple. This is not a character flaw, nor a disease, nor a birth defect. This is Trauma. The better we get at learning about trauma, the better we'll become at finding that love for ourselves that we have all earned. For the most part, we Fawn types are the world's most beautiful people who have devoted our lives to others. The salt of the earth. So we have definitely earned a place in our own hearts."
Having recently started seeing a trauma informed therapist who is taking a refreshing approach to my concerns and whose first counsel was that I need to be my own best friend, I'm getting more optimistic that 'if I seek it, I will find it' - although I'm not yet 'sure' I'll find it. But boy am I willing to work hard with him to try to find it!
Pippi - you say: "It is so lonely, isn't it? Always feeling like you are set apart, somehow flawed and damaged, and longing to be seen and loved for more than just the perfect image you put out there to the world?"
Yes, I understand this so well. I long to be seen and loved for all that I am. Just for being. I have yet to experience this. And maybe I never will. However, I'm willing to work at learning to love and care for myself. That's all I can realistically expect. And maybe that is enough.
As an aside, may I say that I love your chosen name 'Pippi'. As I child my very favourite book was Pippi Longstocking. It was my favourite because Pippi lived her life without parents. I so enjoyed that Pippi had no parents in her day to day life. It was wonderful to contemplate that state of freedom. I later learned that I was not alone - my (younger) brother longed for our parents to die so we two children could live quietly alone, free of them. When I learnt that, I felt so sad for my brother, who I did not regard as flawed and damaged, but as a full human being, deserving of love. I'm still learning to also feel sad for myself. The flaws and damage inside me include a churning mess of 'you don't deserve to be loved' that I need to cast aside. This I am still working on.
Thank you to everyone for this helpful and meaningful thread.
bluepalm, it's so nice to encounter another fan of Pippi Longstocking! And I loved her (and still love her) for the same reason you did: She was free and empowered, without any parents or older siblings to hurt her. I've actually always felt myself drawn to orphan stories, and only recently did I realize that this was related to my childhood. I've recently enjoyed rereading these orphan stories. Some of my favorites:
My Side of the Mountain (not exactly an orphan, but a boy who runs away to live alone in the mountains)
Anne of Green Gables
Jane Eyre
Nancy and Plum
The Boxcar Children
James and the Giant Peach
I know there are many more orphans in literature, but these are some of my favorites. They have always made me feel calm and hopeful. I wonder how many of these books were written by people like us? :bigwink:
Pippi, I firmly believe that if you can (genuinely and non-manipulatively) ask "Am I a narcissist?" , the answer is probably no. I can relate to what you're saying, because I had that same sensation of being special, of doing something that "mattered". I lived my life in a fog that was never quite real. I now know the term for that is dissociative fantasy. It's a protective mechanism, it keeps you from feeling how truly awful everything is. I think I believed I was special cause surely there was a reason to suffer like this. Becoming aware of it - finally! - has helped me to see it for what it is and push back against it when the fog settles in. There are days when the howling monsters are barely still in the closet, but fewer days than there used to be. It's also helped me to finally make some headway against my addictions and compulsions. And that little voice telling you you're not good enough is your inner critic. It developed to make sure you didn't make mistakes that could get you punished.
Coming here and finding this group, I finally see that as Papa Coco says, these are normal reactions to abnormal circumstances. Realizing that has helped me take it all less personally, and to feel like - just maybe - I'm not the obsessive compulsive addicted loser freak I always firmly knew I was - cause that's what I was told.
I'm glad you're here and I am grateful for the opportunity to learn from everyone!
Dante, thank you so much for sharing that with me, and for the term "dissociative fantasy." That feels absolutely like what I've been living in, for many, many years. My therapist says that my (very intense) fantasy life was adaptive, and was one of the ways I survived, and I guess she's right. But now I don't want to live in a dissociated fantasy world any more. I'm glad to hear that you have been able to do so much healing - it gives me hope that the same will be true for me, too.
Thank you all for being here and for listening and responding with such openness and kindness.