Messages

[will]

The following is what I got out of bed thinking, and even if it is not quite what Candid is suggesting, it is a quantum leap in my processing. So how about:

Dear F, M, B1 and B2,
_              _        _
BLANK brain.

OK, 'blank brain' is not what I thought about getting out of bed, what I actually had in mind was a letter heralding VLC. With terms 1, 2 and 3. The idea of writing this letter got me out of bed, which  is a good thing, but it doesn't mean I should send this letter, thereby probably exposing myself too much as usual. Even if it was really toned down compared to the one at the top of the thread. It really was to be along the lines of "This is not negotiable".

The important thing for me is: I'm getting there.     And I will get where I need to be.

  or to be more precise, I fully endorse Candid's 1st and 2nd paragraphs.

From "I bet she would...." to the end, I get what Candid is saying, but Candid is still coaching me through fully endorsing it for myself and acting on it. Right, Candid? 

1) I finally got somebody to come and do a few handyman jobs, like repairing the lawnmower
2) Drinking hot herbal tea
3) Enjoying having a candle lit

I come on here almost daily, Blackbird, and your posts haven't been hitting me in the eye or anything. So doesn't sound like you're  'over-posting', whatever that may be. I haven't heard of any (quantity) limits on posting here. If there were, i'm sure somebody would have told me by now   

to you.

Candid, you care about other people. At least on here. I read it in your posts to all sorts of people, not just to me  I mean this in a good way, I don't have the impression that you care too much about other people aka codependent. So anyway I hope you can transfer a bit more of the 'care about' streak to yourself. 

I'm so sorry about what you endured in the example you mention.   

Slow river, you are being totally reasonable! I do really understand all your queries, because I've been there multiple times in my life and on into my healing journey. The type of things said to you were said to me as well. Parents dismissive of protests and complaints are not doing their job as parents.

There's a saying, I think it might be a quotation from Susan Forward in Toxic Parents: "The bruises can be on the inside too." (or something like that)  Where physical or sexual abuse are permitted to happen, emotional abuse automatically takes place. Emotional abuse is not to be discounted. It is real and it is devastating, especially if done by one or both parents.

I grew up hearing "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me." This is nonsense. Of course words hurt. If they didn't, why would my FOO have said so many hurtful things over the years with such malice?

I've heard of children traumatised by their parents' divorce. Really traumatised, with a diagnosis. Although generally one thinks that most children get through OK, even if it's a difficult period in their lives.

Anyway, welcome here  I'm sure if you read around on here you'll find posts that resonate with you now or with you as a child and you'll come to believe that what you went through was really bad, even if there was the odd mitigating factor. I've been told that without those odd mitigating factors, we would have either gone completely crazy or died.

Good suggestion Kizzy, thank you. I shall try it. I've actually long since given up hoping to work through the urge to self-harm. I just hope to reduce it, keep it a bit under control. Maybe that's sad. I can't feel so clearly right now.

[What bothers me is I get the impression you're hoping they will see how they've treated you, say they're sorry, and you can have good, healthy relationships with each of them or most of them]

Candid, thank you sooo much for writing such detail. 

I've read your post now carefully a few times and think your message is finally sinking in. I feel I would tie myself in knots if I tried to comment more. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate all your thoughtful remarks, and your willingness to describe The Most Horrible Event (which you've mentioned before by name without telling us what it is, and now you have. Thank you.) 

Brunette to white in 6 weeks. Very telling. Poor, poor Candid.   

"What bothers me is I get the impression you're hoping they will see how they've treated you, say they're sorry, and you can have good, healthy relationships with each of them or most of them." This is what I hoped and believed until the blow-up last summer. I'm trying to get out of that mindset now. I suppose I need to give myself the time to do so, even if it takes another 3 years? Last email contact from me to my Bs was: "I'll get back to you in a few weeks?/months? (don't even remember which) on the Family Celebration but for now all I want is to be left in peace." They have left me in peace, apart from sending Xmas cards, which didn't bother me either way. But as you say, they probably don't give a * that I haven't contacted them even though more than a few months have passed. So I can stop expecting perfectionism from myself in this respect. This is a Very New Thought.

So instead of finally getting to 'have my say', I should stop the PD dance and just sit down and pick up the pieces of my life again without all them FOOs and continue fitting the pieces together as best I can?

I'm kind of relieved to hear that I'm not the only one who's not "got to the end of this stuff", and kind of sad for you, and kind of disappointed to hear that it doesn't seem to work out that way, that we get to the end of it. Not only do we carry our burdens for life but they bite us too. (Thinking of little demons with sharp teeth in the burden-sacks we carry on our backs.)

OK, that's really all I can write now. I am of course writing this in reply to you as much for myself as for anybody.

When I say I have no clear memories it's because on several occasions things have happened that felt like they triggered a memory but my brain shut it down as fast as it came up. Also I've experienced what I suppose could be called body memories or emotional memories - just this strong gut feeling that something happened, triggered by very specific evens. But because I don't have a concrete visual memory, if you will, I'm not sure if anything happened or if I'm imagining it.

'Brain shutting a memory down as fast as it came up': I'm getting that all the time at the moment. It's more on emotional/verbal abuse, and also realising connections between said abuse and current problems I have functioning in daily life. For me, it's a definite sign that there's more than enough going on in healing and in remembering and in realising and this is therefore a protective measure. It could be this in your case too.

From what I've learnt in psycho-education, our bodies do have memories, it's not just our heads that do, so "body memories or emotional memories - just this strong gut feeling that something happened, triggered by very specific events" makes a lot of sense to me. Especially since very specific events trigger this gut feeling. I used to get a lot of body memories in the form of pain - all over the place: shoulders, arms, hands, feet (some because of general emotional abuse / dysfunctional family stuff, not just sexual abuse). There has never come a point where I've had to say to myself 'oops, that pain was for nothing. Obviously I imagined something there...' And I've been on this healing journey for a good number of years now. So I mean there's been plenty of time for these  internal 'oops' comments to come. I also have a very active Inner Critic who has been getting quieter in this field over the years rather than louder.

Feeling "safe" enough to remember might not occur just because you move out. This feeling of "safe" isn't just a physical feeling. It could take longer. I'm telling you this because you mention being afraid that remembering is precisely what will happen when you move out.

I'm a bit stuck in a different area of my healing at the moment. Thinking the above through and writing it for you has helped me in this other area, so thank you for giving me this opportunity.
Just to reassure again, you're definitely not going crazy. No way.

Yeah, I'd discuss with your T. It could be too early and this is your psyche protecting you. The first contact I had in T with IC was way too early. I had an image of me treating IC the way M treated me. No image would've been infinitely better.

It's possible that your T needs to alter the meditation a bit for you, something in the meditation could be holding your IC back, like even the voice speaking the meditation.

Before I could imagine myself mothering my ICs I had to do a number of other IC activities. I did whole IC workshops - 3-4 days at a time for several years. That's not possible for most people probably, as in workshops not even offered. Anyway, one thing I remember: I needed contact with my stronger, less abused ICs who held and still hold resilience and more positive memories, like playfulness, independence.... before I could get into any kind of helpful / therapeutically useful contact with the really damaged, sad, angry, lonely, hurt ICs.

In the workshops I did, we mothered each other and practised switching from being mothered to mothering a teddy bear as a symbol of an inner child. Switching prevents you getting stuck in your IC role. For me, getting up and moving around was important. Like bouncing around the room and that being 'allowed' by those mothering 'me'. Just 'talking' wasn't always enough. I had to do things with my body. Small children learn kinesthetically... I don't know if any of these experiences are helpful. There are methods you can use in group therapy, which you could only adapt to use in one-on-one therapy.

Congratulations! Good job you.        

Hi ElizabethG,
I can relate to some of this. I was sexually abused, physically, but not in a way that people automatically think of. It has been discounted by Ts in the past, and by myself of course too. For years I went up and down in my head about whether or not it should 'count'. So I agree with someonesomewhere that you should keep in mind that there are many ways to violate a child's sexual boundaries.

Another point: sometimes memories don't resurface until we're ready for them / have the inner strength to deal with them. Unfortunately for me, I never forgot most of the sexual abuse, but from what I've heard among other survivors that's unusual. I did have memories all through childhood / adolescence that disappeared when I was a young adult and then re-surfaced when I started intensive therapy. They were most definitely not 'false memories'.

A long time ago, one T pretty forcefully suggested that FOO might have done this or that to me (1 instance of physical abuse, 1 of emotional). This T really believed her own intuition here. There was zero resonance for me. No memories have ever come up of what she suggested. Also I have sometimes dreamt instances of physical abuse that never took place. I know this definitely because I would have died 10 times over. No way could you survive those injuries with no scars, the way I am. I think they were a graphic representation of the emotional abuse that FOO did to me. I'm describing all this for you to show you that there are tangible differences between my own real memories (even if tucked away for a while), my dreams/nightmares and ideas suggested to me. Though I do know of CSA survivors whose suppressed memories have resurfaced in dreams, so I'm not discounting it. Just saying, be aware of your own feelings, trust your own feelings.

And I agree with ThreeRoses that having these ideas in your head is much much different than acting on them. I used to feel really ashamed of these ideas too, so I can relate.

I sincerely doubt that you have gone off the deep end.
to you.

     whole post from Kizzie
but allow to repeat the salient points:

You are not stupid Rhino! You didn't act stupidly either.  If you can hear it and  I hope you can, your parents acted terribly towards you.
to you.

1. I stood up for myself
2. I got invited out for coffee (well, hot chocolate) and sat out in the sun enjoying it
3. I enjoyed picking grass etc. for my furry critters

Oh, yes, I can relate. As I've just posted elsewhere, it's almost impossible for me not to injure myself (I pull my hair out compulsively) at least once a day. The only method I used to have to prevent this was wearing socks on my hands. Now I've only just remembered this second that when I had socks on my hands, my immediate impulse was to stroke my hair, really pretty loving by my standards.

Anyway as to your post, I can definitely relate to the 'even though I have done so much self care and am in such a better place, my mind ruminates on self and harm and thinking "I'm nothing" '. Yes, tons of work on self and self care for years and still not able to get away from this self-destructive behaviour. Just wanted to say, you're not alone, and welcome to the forum! You sound really optimistic and encouraging of others. That's so nice to read from somebody who's new.