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[way]

I'm new here, but the EF description has already had a big impact on how I feel about the well of emotions that seem to have no source.  I know when I have an EF.  Usually.  It's an emotional reaction way out of line with what's actually happening.

Two simple examples.  Possible TRIGGER warning below.

If I drop a box of screws on the floor of the workshop, where the only damage done is the time is takes to pick them up, I fly into a rage.  I experience self-loathing, I call myself ugly names, and I want to hurt myself.  I don't cut anymore, but I definitely want to.  Sometimes I do still dig my nails into my palms to make it hurt.  It takes me hours to pull out of this cycle, and I'm moody for days.

I like having short hair.  I love the way it feels, but also it's a symbol, to me, of my ability to be free and make my own decisions.  But whenever I get a haircut, I always find myself sobbing in the bathroom.  This is not a normal reaction to a haircut that makes me feel better about myself (once I stop crying).

This might belong under dissociation. 

This is a weird thing, and I'm curious if it's just me, or anyone else has this?

I have several significant memories from my childhood that no one else remembers.  I've been told by the parent(s) involved in each memory that I must be remembering a dream, or I imagined these things.  My first thought is that they don't want to, and it's denial.  But it makes no sense to deny some of these.

I need to provide context.  Here are the three that most easily come to mind, but there are more.  All three of these memories are quite vivid, and still have a lot of detail.

• I remember wandering into the street when I was a toddler, being run over by a car, and passing under the undercarriage, relatively unharmed.  I remember being taken to the hospital.  I remember both my parents being there.  Both swear this never happened.  I can understand denying this - it would be quite obvious gross neglect.
• I remember having been hospitalized, in an oxygen tent, with pneumonia.  Considering how bad my asthma was as a child, this is not surprising, and no one could blame either parent for this happening, so there's no reason to deny it.  But no one remembers this.  Also, no one remembers my uncle, who was on drugs at the time, making the effort to come see me while I was there.  He gave me a plush toy that I remember playing with after I came home from the hospital, but could not find later in life.
• I remember hitting my head on a pipe (those big sewer pipes that they used to put on playgrounds, for kids to go into).  My mom took me home and was worried about concussion, so she and I made up stories together to keep me awake.  I remember her writing this story, so we could refer back to it later.  She remembers the injury, she remembers keeping me awake, but not writing the stories with me.  Why deny the good part?

So, it has occurred to me as I've written these memories that all of them have a common thread of me being hurt, and someone taking care of me.  Maybe these false memories of really bad situations I was "rescued" from, so that I could have a bit more faith in my parents capability to care for me.  I don't know.

Anyway, does anyone else have memories like this?

I'm so sorry that you've faced such a difficult life 

Thank you, woodsgnome.  That sounds like something I might, someday, be able to manage.

[amazingly]

I had a lot of that when I was your age.

I never had an allowance, I wasn't allowed to go out, and this was before the internet was really very usable.  I wasn't allowed to pick what to watch on television.  If someone asked me if I liked a band, I may have liked their music on the radio, but I didn't know the name of the band.  I didn't know the name of actors, just the characters they played.  I was teased mercilessly for my ignorance, even though I could recite Shakespeare and list all the Sherlock Holmes stories, in chronological order.  But what high schooler cares about that?

We didn't have lifehacks and downloadable checklists.  I relied very heavily on friends, after extracting a promise not to make fun of me.  When it came to work stuff (like tax returns) I asked one of my nicer co-workers to let me know when she was filling out forms for anything.  This way, I learned when open enrollment for health insurance was, and when to start working on tax returns.  I learned my rule to live by - if you get something in the mail, and it has your SSN on it, keep it.

I still have a remarkably simple outlook on most things in life.  I get overwhelmed easily.

For me, the area I'm lacking is physical. Sometimes people look at me as if to say, "Are you that clumsy?" instead of questioning my intelligence. I even had one charming gentleman ask me if I was challenged! Sometimes it even feels as though different parts of me are governed by different brains.

I'm interested to see the other responses that you'll get....

To Three Roses, I am amazingly clumsy.  I drop a lot of things (major EF  ).  I recently learned that I am hypermobile.  Being clumsy goes with the territory.

Long, a little ranty.  Sorry.

For this to make sense, I have to preface with the fact that when I'm a freezer (very much the "lost child" description).  I remember trying to fawn, but it never worked.  I can almost pinpoint the day I gave up trying to fawn.

I'm still not comfortable being noticed.  I developed nervous habits (hair touching).  I think I was five years old, maybe younger, and it was before my dad remarried.  I remember quite distinctly coming home with my dad after going to a school fair.  I'm also overstimulated in a crowd, and I definitely shut down in the presence of too many people.  As soon as he shut the front door, he started screaming at me that I had embarrassed him by touching my hair so often where other people could see.  Not going to go into more details. 

Starting that day, I was so scared to set him off again, I forced myself not to have any nervous habits.  If I got in trouble, I would hold still, stare at the floor, and not say anything except "I'm sorry."  Sooner or later, the screaming would end, and my dad would storm off into the house, leaving me standing there alone.  I would usually stand there for what felt like half an hour, waiting for him to come back and tell me what I was supposed to be doing.  If he didn't come back, I would go to my room to play or read.  It never once occurred to me that I could speak up for myself.  Even as a kid, without the words for it, I knew nothing I said would make him less angry.

So...I've been having a lot of struggles lately, most of which are old stuff resurfacing. 

But one of the new things I'm struggling with is my writing.  Ever since it occurred to me that I could make stories, I have.  And I think I'm a fairly good writer, with 25 years of practice under my belt.  But lately I'm struggling to write.  I approach it with trepidation, and I only manage a sentence or two before I cross it out and give up.

I have always written for myself.  I love the process, and I love world-building.  Before I took my last job (traumatizing) and my wife got sick, I sent off a piece of flash fiction, and it was accepted.  I was super excited (unusual levels of happiness), they paid me, and I got a free t-shirt.  I sent off a few other pieces, but no one wanted them.  Which I was okay with.  And now I'm not.  I think this latest issue was triggered by a well-meaning suggestion I should send in something to try to get published again.  Why?

I started connecting various events in my life, and the common thread is that of not speaking up for myself.  When another kid stole my sculpture in art class.  When I got in trouble for doing something I hadn't.  I've never felt it was worth it to speak up.  But five years ago, I was okay with people reading my words.  I feel like the awful coworker at my last job, who definitely triggered EF's daily, managed to take me back to a time when I would have done anything to fade away into the woodwork, and I can't seem to find my voice again.

Finally, the question, for those of you who freeze.  Are you nervous just being noticed?  Are you nervous your work, creative or functional, will be noticed?  What about at work?  Do you make your productivity average to avoid being noticed?

DBT sounds intriguing.  When I and our finances feel up to pursuing therapy again, I would like to try it. 

Welcome, fellow newbie.  Sounds like, in some ways, we share a lot.  I used to think of my mom as all good, too.  But over time I've realized that isn't true.  Her neglect amplified the emotional and verbal abuse I struggled with at my dad's house.

Good luck on your journey of healing.  Also, good luck with the possibly narcissist therapist.

Sorry this is an old thread but I had to weigh in.  I was raised Christian Science.  I feel that this is one of my sources of chronically low self esteem.

Let me explain my own experience.  I had severe asthma, from birth.  Survival necessitates medication.  But in this religion, medication is ungodly.  Healing comes from God.  If you have enough faith, God will heal you.

This is not good for someone with a life-threatening disease.  Either you die (which I did not) or you take medication, and get the message from the church that you are at fault for your own illness because you didn't pray enough, love God enough, and trust God enough.  Or, in today's language, you weren't enough.

Also, if God can't love me, how can anyone else?

I've touched on inner child work with my therapist, before I stopped going.  It didn't go well.

I discovered that when I tried to connect with my inner child, I hate her more than I hate the adult me.  I had nothing but vitriol for her, and I wanted to tell her all the reasons why everything that happened was her fault and call her names.  If anything, I think I had worse things to say to her than my dad did during one of his screaming rants.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can learn to have some compassion for the kid I used to be, even if I'm not ready to actually get in touch with her?

• Angry self-hatred.
• Emotional discomfort.
• Withdrawing to be alone.
• I go from uncomfortable with kind words to further triggered by kind words.
• I no longer tolerate being touched.
• Depression.  Usually for about two days.
• Loss of appetite.
• Loss of concentration.
• Loss of motivation
• Crying.

Different triggers bring forth different emotions.  Mostly self-loathing and anger, but sometimes discomfort.

• "Clumsy" mistakes.  Especially when I drop or spill something.  Extra when something breaks.
• Angry yelling.
• Belittling, especially my intelligence.
• If I make a loud noise and someone asks if I'm okay.
• Compliments or people being nice to me.  Like Liminality, I can tolerate a little.
• Haircuts.  I'm getting better on this one.
• Letting my hair grow long.
• Random stuff that I'd forgotten about.  Usually home decor.
• Certain phrases.
• Sometimes I'm triggered by something I can't identify.
• Money troubles.
• Having to ask for help

I feel like I've been a slow downward spiral since I left my last job (emotionally).  At the time, my wife was really ill, and I was busy taking care of her.  I didn't really have time to cope with all the negative feelings I had, even though I knew at the time that my coworker had brought emotional flashbacks of my life with my stepmother.

As my wife started to get better, we started to divide tasks again, and I started having more trouble.  Basically, I held it together when my wife needed me.

I tried therapy for a while, but my therapist didn't seem to know what to do for me.  She tried to help me discover the source of my self-esteem problems, and when I already had those answers, she didn't know what came next.

[be]

Hi All,
  Not sure where to start.  I'm going to make this brief.  I had a childhood of verbal abuse, neglect, and being an emotional caregiver to a parent.  I seriously considered suicide many times in my teen years, and I practiced cutting to help modulate emotional pain.

I have a wonderful wife who is much sweeter to me than I deserve, and I struggle with accepting her love, or her compliments.  She often says that she feels sad because when she gets close to me, physically, I move out of the way.  She knows it's because I never think that she wants to be close - it never crosses my mind.

I had been doing better, in an emotionally crippled sort of way (I definitely have a whole load of self-hatred with me at all times), until my last job had an unpleasable coworker who made it her mission to make sure that I never do anything that wasn't her way, and even then, I wasn't doing it right.  It took about two years for me to find another job, and that time in that toxic environment was too much for me. 

I got a new job about three years ago, and it's a really good job.  But I struggle emotionally more days than I'm stable, not quite depressed, but sad, and prone to crying (which is very much unlike me).  What's worse is that lately I've noticed I'm withdrawing - I feel like I cannot possibly stand any more emotional pain, so I've started avoiding anything I'm not sure of.  I don't want to try new things any more, and I don't want to do familiar things unless I'm sure of success.

Obviously, this is not a good path.  I'm working on trying to get in touch with whatever the hurt is inside so that I can process it, and at least open up to new experiences again.  I'm not myself without a little sense of adventure.