Messages

From http://www.pete-walker.com/flashbackManagement.htm

Emotional flashbacks are sudden and often prolonged regressions ('amygdala hijackings') to the frightening circumstances of childhood. They are typically experienced as intense and confusing episodes of fear and/or despair - or as sorrowful and/or enraged reactions to this fear and despair.
Flashbacks strand clients in the feelings of danger, helplessness and hopelessness of their original abandonment, when there was no safe parental figure to go to for comfort and support.
Without help in the moment, the client typically remains lost in the flashback and has no recourse but to once again fruitlessly reenact his own particular array of primitive, self-injuring defenses to what feel like unmanageable feelings. I find that most clients can be guided to see the harmfulness of these previously necessary, but now outmoded, defenses as misfirings of their fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses. These misfirings then, cause dysfunctional warding off of feelings in four different ways:

• fighting or over-asserting one's self with others in narcissistic and entitled ways such as misusing power or promoting excessive self-interest;
• fleeing obsessive-compulsively into activities such as workaholism, sex and love addiction, or substance abuse (uppers');
• freezing in numbing, dissociative ways such as sleeping excessively, over-fantasizing, or tuning out with TV or medications ('downers');
• fawning in self-abandoning and obsequious codependent relating. (The fawn response to trauma is delineated in my earlier article on "Codependency and Trauma" in The East Bay Therapist, Jan/Feb 03).

Ok so I only thought of EF as the times when I was in extreme high anxiety and panic. It didn't occur to me the flinching and startle response, the times when for no apparent reason my energy is utterly drained and fall asleep in the middle of the day. So are these EF too?

FMV yes fantasy. Games. Especially cute little calming games. My little world. Earlier this year spent nearly very spare hour home playing games or else reading. My favorite escapes.

This helps me understand why my primary problem is freezing and unable to protect myself. I was groomed to comply, I wasn't protected but instead enF passed onto me his own response of doing anything possibile to calm the beast including staying mute, apologizing, agreeing and to avoid it in the first place by making myself as small, insignificant and hidden away.

[Self Mothering]

Thanks Kizzie. Here's some highlights from Walker on inner child that helped me understand better and is something I can work with going forward.

When a child’s mothering needs are adequately met, self-compassion is installed at the core of her being. When the same is true of her fathering needs, self-protection also becomes deeply imbedded. Self-compassion is the domicile of recovery, and self-protection is its foundation. When self-compassion is sufficiently established as a “home base” to return to in difficult times, an urge to be self-protective naturally arises from it. Living in the world without access to these primal instincts of survival is truly terrifying.
. . .
Self Mothering
Let us return to the concept of self-mothering. As mother to ourselves, we commit to increasing our self-compassion and unconditional positive regard. Self-mothering is a resolute refusal to indulge in self-hatred and self-abandonment. It proceeds from the realization that self-punishment is counterproductive. It is enhanced by the understanding that patience and self-encouragement are more effective than self-judgment and self-rejection in achieving recovery. You can enhance your self-mothering skills by imaginatively creating a safe place in your heart where your inner child and your present time self are always welcome. Consistent tenderness towards yourself welcomes the child into the adult body you now inhabit, and shows him that it is now a nurturing place protected by a warm and powerful adult. Self-mothering can be enhanced by thought-correcting the critic’s negative messages with healing words that the child in all likelihood never heard from his parents.   

Here then are some useful messages for nurturing the growth of your self-compassion and self-esteem. I recommend that you imagine speaking them to your inner child, especially when you are suffering with a flashback.

Reparenting Affirmations

I am so glad you were born.
You are a good person.
I love who you are and am doing my best to always be on your side.
You can come to me whenever you’re feeling hurt or bad.
You do not have to be perfect to get my love and protection.
All of your feelings are okay with me.
I am always glad to see you.
It is okay for you to be angry and I won’t let you hurt yourself or others when you are.
You can make mistakes - they are your teachers.
You can know what you need and ask for help. You can have your own preferences and tastes.
You are a delight to my eyes.
You can choose your own values.
You can pick your own friends, and you don’t have to like everyone.
You can sometimes feel confused and ambivalent, and not know all the answers.
I am very proud of you.

Self Fathering
While self-mothering focuses primarily on healing the wounds of neglect, self-fathering heals the wounds of being helpless to protect yourself from parental abuse, and by extension from other abusive authority figures. Self-fathering aims at building assertiveness and self-protection.   

One of my favorite self-fathering exercises is the time machine rescue operation. I have used it to help myself and to help clients. With clients I use it to model a process for fighting off the overwhelming sense of helplessness that often accompanies emotional flashbacks. This is a version of the time machine rescue operation that I use with myself as well as with my clients. I tell my inner child that, if time travel is ever possible, I will travel back into the past and put a stop to my parents’ abusiveness. 

Thank you!

Wow good info here. Thanks so much.

The self medicating thread in general discussions seems to have take a turn this way before I saw this thread. Maybe we should reorganize the self soothing as tools? Good topic.

Then I got involved in a civil lawsuit, and was forced to endure an evaluation. Guess what? Borderline. Born that way. Irresponsible, manipulative and guilty. Also: incurable. This is the "N"-word of psychiatry.  It has been a nightmare of indescribable proportions and is still ongoing.

How awful.

Herbs calm my nerves and help me relax. Still there's nothing like a glass of wine to unwind but only keep a small amount on hand. Sometimes I fall into a pattern of having a second glass so if it becomes a problem it runs out. If I have to drag myself to the store it's at least a couple days to get to more. Control by force? Ration? Not sure what to call it but that's my method.

And chocolate.

You're such a great mom to help your daughter through in such a loving way. It's terrible to be invalidated.

I can only imagine how that must feel as a mother doing your best under most trying circumstances. uPD mum told me once straightforward 'you don't feel that way' to which I said yes I do and you can't tell me how to feel. It shocked me it came out of my mouth and this was before OOTF but was so stunned she felt free to tell me I don't feel a certain way.

Badmemories,

Pam, wow, what vivid nightmares!

Wow you're right with the change in the dream from years ago and now!! I'm mobile! I'm actually running and vocal even if just a whisper. I'm going to cry tears of joy at this insight. This is an amazing breakthrough! Thank you!

Very helpful post.

"My body remembered it and now that I'm integrating, I'm feeling it now just like it would have been felt then... only it's not then." Excellent thought process and I like the thought of being integrated.

BUT the whole inner child stuff so difficult for me. I try to call to her but she hides, in the dark of the closet or the basement crawl space where she hid literally in her childhood peacefully enjoying the safety and quiet. She likes her safe place. I don't stuff her away, she stays peacefully hid away unwilling to come if I call. Maybe she shows up on her own and I don't recognize her. Maybe this is why the EF and nightmares. Need to read book more. Do I need to find her? I think about her and know how she feels, is that being in touch?