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Hi NK,

Underneath all the questioning, it seems like you have made big steps in recognizing what is happening, congrats! 

I don't know how to define dissociation for myself, like a veil I've been living under and you don't know is there? I guess there are times when that veil pops up and I kind of go, huh, and then I it pops down again, and I truck along doing the things I need to do. It popped up this week after I recognized with t, or spoke to t about, how dealing with someone's unpredictability (who had been out drinking and then came to play severely hung over, and I felt familiar with that frame of mind that they were in), and how I had been in that position growing up. I felt tense talking about it, but the "feelings" weren't there (and here they are now as I remember what it was like to deal with m when she was in that post-party state). I just knew, or could recognize that I was uncomfortable.

I don't know if it's because t has been giving more space to my internal world and validation through NARM, but I feel/think over the last year, I have been able to give more space to recognizing those feelings as they come up. I don't have to "solve" them, and they are not a problem to go away, it's something that I am now "allowed" to have where before, I was never "allowed" that. I feel like intellectually, I had also heard and "knew" this, but something about the process has  changed. For me, perhaps it's like the Jay Reid video where he describes having to remove your awareness of yourself and put in place something else, and these veil lift moments I think are perhaps the Self coming back. Maybe ask teenage NK what she could do whatever she wanted, what would she do? Maybe this bolshy-ness is coming up because that's what you need (IMO and not in a self-destructive way)? When I feel like I'm acting with more life force, standing up to people in tennis etc, t doesn't reprimand my behaviour even though I think I'm doing something bad or wrong (because people are upset with me), but instead, I'm doing something for myself.

Sending you support 
dolly

Hi Hope,

Have just finished reading your journal and that's great you were able to stay with the part that felt fear.

I hope things went ok at your inlaws after what happened before. Did you manage to speak to her about it? Maybe the headache is a way of the body telling you something is coming up.

Sending you support 

Congrats asdis, I hope the allergy appointment goes well. It sucks to be in a position of reacting to foods, but you're taking care of yourself by listening to your body, which is a big step.

I think we need some more guidance from doctors to really figure this out though. We've attempted low-histamine diets before, but we're unable to maintain both ED recovery and the diet on our own.

If the appointment with the alllergist doesn't turn up anything, you might want to go back to the sub and see if others had another course of action with docs. From what I've read so far, a lot of these symptoms don't function as normal allergies ie with a distinct IgE reaction, but hoping that you get it sorted and come to a more stable place. I just wanted to say as it can sometimes be disheartening with docs to be having reactions that they're not able to explain, and then are told directly, or made to feel indirectly, that it's all in your head.

Sending you support,
dolly

Hey asdis,

I get you and I'm sorry you're in so much pain eating. I can also see how growing up with a lifetime of food sensitivities that no one could really explain, and living in a family that probably didn't address those needs, could lead to disordered eating. It's a lot to process.

I've been discussing elsewhere on the forum my own history of allergies and health issues. Like you, my FOO was not receptive to what was happening internally for me and was often pressured to eat things because they were "healthy" and if I didn't, I was a picky eater. As a kid, I also tended to go for junk food because perhaps for some strange reason, I didn't react to that. I don't know.

Anyways, I've had MCAS symptoms off and on over the years, which flared up when dealing with mold, and have likely been present since childhood. I started realizing recently that I have been reacting to high histamine foods (tomatoes, peanuts, shellfish, wine, cheese etc) and went on a low histamine diet. So, now when I eat them, I will fall asleep shortly after. I also think there's something else going on ie salicytes, or oxalates, and think soy lechitins are an issue. I've also been gluten free for about 12 years. What I found with gluten is I think it takes a long time for the inflammation to go down. When I stopped eating it for a month, I noticed I had joint pain after and it would make my brain feel fuzzy.

Right now, I've started trialling different meds and am hoping it helps manage the issue. It's been so long since I have actually listened to my body in that way without feeling like there is something wrong with me, or not abandoning myself, that I think it's taking some time to figure out what's going on. There's also a very good MCAS forum on reddit if you think that all this sounds familiar.

Sending you support,
dolly

Yes, there's specific list in the link I sent about what medications create an issue with histamine. It's a interesting cross reference to see if there's any on the list.

Hey Kizzie,

I know this is an old thread, but would be curious if some of those reactions to medications would/can be the result of excess histamine in the body?

https://www.histaminintoleranz.ch/en/therapy_medicaments.html#incompatible

Hi NK,

I agree that there are sometimes things which come up in our lives that reveal, or break, the illusion of control that I have to function with in my life. Or, what I have always grown up with, managed, that has given me a sense of safety in the face of the unpredictability of my family, as you pinpointed. It's true that like you said, I had no idea they were there, or what they even were until it happened. For me, the big one is/was driving. I've broken it down over the years and have gotten better on my 0-60 anger over the carelessness of other drivers. It took me a while to work out though that the anger, and big emotional reactions, were a result of feeling like my life was somehow threatened by the negligence of others. Something which, writing this out, I can see was a situation I often had to deal with FOO. My m going out at night to the bar and leaving me home as six/seven year old while I was "asleep" was something I had to deal with. Waking up in the middle of the night while she was out was also something I had to deal with, and if anything happened during that time, that was up to me too.

So, I think for me, driving was the one thing where I couldn't avoid being put in potentially harmful situations (and at the mercy of other people) where it brought up all those feelings from before, and the resulting anger at being put in that situation in the first place. Like your t said, I think it has been helpful to bring these feelings up and acknowledge them. Well, maybe not just feel the feelings (as I think in the past I have got lost in that and not really known what to do with them or what the next step was), but to just be more aware of my internal world and when I was noticing shifts in what was happening if that makes sense. Like just saying, oh that's a different reaction what is that? This is where I think NARM has been so helpful for me. I am also realizing lately that there are things happening "under the surface" that I am not really conscious of that is taking work to bring out into the light. So, yeah CPTSD does suck, but it also gets better bit by bit sometimes.

I hope you are finding some space to process all this 
dolly

Hey storyworld,

To me, therapy and seeing someone else as safe can be tricky. I think I was a couple years into therapy with my last t when I shared that I felt like she didn't like me, which she countered, and that provoked a shift between us. I think we go in with parts/perceptions etc that we're not even aware of. This was EMDR therapy and not parts work, however.

I also ended therapy with that t after seven years because I felt like I wasn't able to open up any more with the way things were going. I had read about NARM and the concept of fostering agency (finding Self for me with preverbal and likely generational trauma has been tricky), and I felt like this was the next step. I feel like I've made a lot of progress in the last year around my emotional reactions to things.

I tell myself, come next session, I'm going to do better, and develop a plan to do so

When I first read your post, I wondered if there were parts active in sense that you feel like you have to fix yourself (ie there's something wrong with you; you're not normal etc), which is a part, and then there's likely a part that then opposes this, which seems justifiable. I've found that sometimes it helps to recognize opposing parts, and this then opens up a space around them. It might be worth exploring this with your t as well.

I've also just learned about parts which can appear Self like and are dominant, meaning that they like to run the show a lot of the time, and given that they were probably around for me from being a young child, it's hard to recognize them as something other than Self. I'm also learning that inner critics can work like this as well.

Congratulations on your self awareness around this and I hope it brings you to the next step in therapy.

Sending you support,
dolly

Hi SO,

Good for you for saying something and setting a boundary with your m, and I hope she responded well?

Sending you support,
dolly

Well done Matilda 

It seems to me that you're quite self aware about how you're relating (and not relating) to your parts.

She has not appeared again and I was expressing to T that I was actually quite relieved about that in some ways. That I would much rather deal with the "nice" younger child.

This is interesting as it reminds me of how much easier it is for a narc to deal with a child than a bolshy teenager. It is someone that they have more power over, or someone who they can wield that power over more easily. I was so afraid of being that bolshy teenager myself, and was really aware of not wanting to create problems for my gm like other teenagers would. I thought it was because I loved her and was doing the "right" thing by looking out for her. I didn't realize that I was cutting off my own power as I'd been trained to do because she couldn't deal with it as a "normal" caregiver would. That maybe it was ok to be a bolshy teenager myself.

I would also say that Self doesn't not like parts/not relate to parts, but is accepting and curious about all parts. So, perhaps the part that is not getting along with the teenager part is an opposing part, and maybe that's the part you're suspecting that was involved in the session. I've had some opposing parts myself and not sure if they ever had a "resolution" per se, but sometimes it's just helpful to start to recognize that they exist.

nd even that leads me to wonder whether some part was involved in the session with T because adult NK is perfectly capable of dealing nicely with teenagers, even bolshy ones, and not taking their more obnoxious behaviours to heart.

It's interesting too because (I think) in Self Therapy (though I can't find the reference) he talks about six (?) types of parts that can be present ie a rationalizing/intellectualizing part. So, perhaps this could be the part that's taking things offline, but there might be more there with the oppositional part.

After going through trying to find the reference, it's reminded me that I should go back to doing some reading on IFS! So, thanks for that. 

It is intellectually very interesting to consider the concept of parts - but emotionally I find it very challenging.

Yes, for me as well. Reading about NARM and how those with a connection attachment style are far more comfortable in the intellect than their own bodies as a result of feeling that the world was unsafe from a very young age helped me sort of understand this, and that these things are likely coming from a very young part (as t put it - a preverbal part). I'm always sort of aware that this sense of "fear" is affecting how I relate to other people/the world around me. Being in my head is one way I can manage this. 

Hey NK,

I'm a big fan of IFS and it's one of the things that has helped me to step outside of m intellectual side and get through to my emotions (at times). I think before I tried IFS, it was as if these emotions were something I was supposed to feel, or going through the motion of what I thought x emotion would be like. However, it was also as if there was "something" limiting it.

In my experience, I've met parts/had IFS experiences that I didn't understand, and took research, and/or am still going back to them today for meaning and understanding. IFS can show you something, but it doesn't mean there's the capacity to readily understand it in my experience. I have also had parts come up that I wasn't ready for/didn't want to look at/made me uncomfortable. For example, there was a "spoiled" part, that I really sort of dismissed right away until I made some connections to my gm and overindulgences in the middle of the night the other week, and then the idea of that part resurfaced. For reference, I have parts that aren't just "me" looking - ie adult/child, but colours, old woman (not me) etc.

I think I am very used to (ie it's SAFE) batting these things from my subconcscious out of my field of view because it's through this controlled environment (ie emotions, managing perception of events/relationships etc) that I've managed to survive. So, when things come up that challenge this field of view, I can dismiss them quite quickly because they don't make "sense." However, and I feel like this has been coming up more with t lately, is that when I am pushed about something there are emotions that come up around that thing, and it's not that "easy" to say ok, let's look at these emotions (or likely parts. This seems like a relatively small thing, but I think in the past I would have just dismissed what t was asking quite quickly with no understanding as to why, but thinking that it "felt" right. I also feel like understanding the mechanism of scapegoating and why I have likely pushed these things down is helping too. Anyways, I'm digressing.

I haven't read it, but maybe Richard Schwartz's No Bad Parts might be useful to you in helping to see what parts are taking NK adult part offline.

Sending you support,
dolly

As a kid I was taught that I can easily get into trouble by wanting or saying something different from what my M wanted me to say or do. She had rules, many of them, some were changing day after day. Nothing I did was ever right and when she punished me, she made sure that I know it's all my fault. By wanting something I risked being abandoned emotionally, to say the least. My M often punished me by simply not talking to me. Can you imagine what that does to a helpless child?

Hey Dalloway,

I'm sorry you're going through this. My m used to do the same thing to me to punish me and would often give me the silent treatment. Children will do anything that they need to do in order to preserve the relationship with the caregiver because without it, they can't survive in the world. I've been learning a lot from Jay Reid's videos on youtube lately about what this did to my inner world and how it shows up for me now. I think it's been pretty helpful.

Sending you support,
dolly

Hey Storyworld,

I also have disorganized attachment, or am Fearful Avoidant, and yep I've been there with the feelings of wanting to terminate. Vulnerability is especially difficult for FAs I think because they usually grow up in an unsafe environment, and even if there's no explicit memory of that unsafe environment, the forces that shaped that attachment are still there. I have very much ended relationships (usually more dating/casual relationships), very quickly after I felt some sort of abandonment or something that didn't feel "safe."

I also had a great experience breaking through to these different parts of myself when I tried IFS.

Sending you support,
dolly

Hi EVader,

Welcome to the forum 

I hope you find what you need here.

Sending you support,
dolly