dollyvee's recovery journal

[Larry]

 

[dollyvee]

Thank you Armee & Larry 

Listening to the talks by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, he talks about being "nice" and how it's overrated. That we want to be "nice" but it's not really honoring ourselves, or it's not a true expression of what's actually going on inside. I related to that a lot. Just because we don't express things doesn't mean they're not there.

Listening to the podcast on PTSD and how it's not a mental illness, but a result of being in a "sustained life-threatening situation," and this involves soul loss. Something which stuck out for me was " believe the child, listen to the child and take appropriate steps to handle the situation without blaming or shaming the child." I feel like there's a part of me that has to have other people "believe" me; that it's important that other people believe me.

She also mentions that "the energy you need to create attachment is lost to you because it's in the soul part."  Mind blown. So maybe this is why the intense feeling of abandonment (?) comes up, that that part of me hasn't been formed in me, like it hasn't been formed in other generations of my family.  That these experiences are showing me that there's still a part to be healed.

Poss tw~

What if...that SA dream/part had to do with something experienced by another member of my family years ago. I don't want to sound like I'm trivializing anyone's experience of  SA on this forum. I remember my grandmother telling me that women were covering themselves in dirt and making themselves look ugly, hiding in sheds, so that Russian soldiers wouldn't find them and rape them during the war. Maybe just being told this as a child has created something in my mind?

End poss tw~

[Armee]

When you first posted about that dream I don't think I realized it involved SA. I'm sorry. Those dreams are really upsetting. It leaves me grasping for explanations too and the unknown sucks. I have no idea how to make sense of the intergenerational experiences people report. So just a gentle hug if it feels right for what you are going through. 

[dollyvee]

Thanks Armee 

This past week it came to me that the procrastination (aversion?) that I struggle with to do certain things that I guess I know I should be doing, is probably the same thing that led me into therapy  20 years ago. I was in university and struggling to complete papers and would have insomnia, staying up all night worrying, but unable to finish essays. My gm suggested therapy and when I went it was an emotional explosion. I don't know what it was - being a top student and feeling like I wasn't top anymore (even though I was in an honours program); that I didn't have the support framework that my family; cptsd perfectionism (what if I got it wrong and my family was upset). Well, more like what I thought was the support network actually showing itself for what it was. Maybe this is a part of me now that is still relying on this idea of my family as a support network, or on the idea of who I was around them? I guess this makes sense with the other young part showing up who had to handle everything and couldn't let anything show? This reluctance to move on (?) showed up in mediation today.

Noticing some things around the characteristics she describes as empathetic in the book in myself. Going out in public was always a big one for me. It's like I feel competitiveness from people, or pushed around; that people engage me to work out their own ego issues/issues around self worth. I think there's something in my interpretation that's my "old stuff" but I'm working on that  But it is a feeling of overwhelm/being drained by this stuff. Maybe it's not just CPTSD, that I'm not just being triggered (that it's not just something in me, that I'm doing wrong, having to fix etc) but picking up on other peoples' intentions and having to listen to what's actually going on. Or that I can't just tune in to myself/what I feel like I should be tuning into because I have to deal with this stuff. Something to think about.

[Hope67]

Hi Dollyvee,
Sending you a hug 
Hope 

[dollyvee]

Thanks Hope 

Struggling to deal with my passive aggressive neighbour. I've never heard someone spend so much time in their bathroom before    This is another thing that I can relate to about being empathetic where she describes about loving to be awake after everyone has gone to bed as it gives her a time to be alone. I've heard my neighbour speaking with other neighbours outside my window, discussing whether I've gone to work or not. I think most people would dismiss these feelings as paranoia which is quite alienating, but the thought of being watched/judged really bothers me.

I'm grateful for this time off right now to focus on "my stuff." I'm going to write a list of things that I can relate to about being empathetic. I feel it's helpful how to deal with things in the present time or understanding my inner relationship to things that happened; how I emotionally coped with them if that makes sense, or factors that shaped how I emotionally coped.

Poss tw~

I've been reading Mark Woylen's It Doesn't Start With You and it's pretty amazing. There is so much trauma in the last three generations on my mom's side and some trauma on my dad's side as well, and I am "forgetting"/not adding my dad's suicide (??). It's fascintaing how we could be subconsciously identifying with someone in our family. Maybe this is where the SA stuff/fears do come from. It's really something to think about.

It's funny how things come together. Talking about dating with someone and she mentioned to embody the "feminine," to just let things come to you. Immediately, I knew that I had issues around this (and likely stemming from my mom). A day later I read "when a child unconsciously takes on a parent's burden, he or she misses out on the experience of being given to and can have difficulty receiving from relationships later in life" in MW's book. I think this is also related to the part that has to do everything myself. I see this in my m and gm as well.

This child will then likely "forge a lifelong pattern of over extension...and perpetually feeling overwhelmed." So, that can also relate to people pleasing I think. He also goes on to say that the integrity of the parent-child relationship must be maintained (where the parent is the giver/care-taker and the child the receiver). This explains the dynamic between my gm and I, where there was perpetually something wrong (physically usually) that was always a crisis and I would come in and try to help/fix it (caretake) and she would reject it. For me, it was exhausting to be in a state of alarm/sympathy about what was going on with her that I felt like I had to do something, especially since she wouldn't help herself and remained locked in these self destructive behaviours. It's interesting that my gm wasn't a parent but a gp. Maybe I was taking on my mom's role as a daughter since she was an MIA with NPD. This makes sense too that I would be identifying with her SA and that's why it's coming up? Also, the competition between my mom and I. But where did this come from in the first place?

Long post ... 

I'm not sure how I feel about his solution yet that we're to come to an understanding and repair our relationships with our parents through love. He hasn't touched on abuse and how we're to approach our familial relationships if there was cruelty there and hold that person with love (like with my m). I started writing down all the trauma in my family that I can remember being told. My gm talked about how strict her f was and how his mother was very cold and didn't really like children. Maybe my m was taking on these behaviours, that it's something continuing in the family.

I feel like I can step outside of the npd dynamic in my family writing about this and thinking about it this way which is a relief. It does feel like a lot though and somewhat exhausting. T is away this week unfortunately. Will try to decompress on walks.

[dollyvee]

Reading, reading, reading...I think I'm preparing going back home for xmas.

It hit me after reading that maybe my mom telling me I was a mistake was because she was a mistake? My gm got pregnant at 16/17 not knowing that it could happen the first time. She was projecting this on me



Something else that's been in the back of my mind is the insomnia about finishing papers. I was always a good student and rewarded for it. One person who never acknowledged it was my m. I was also told to finish school and that my m didn't finish (or didn't go to college and went to work) and she was so smart etc. It was almost like in doing it I would be better than her. Perhaps I didn't want to continue out of loyalty to my m?

[rainydiary]

I appreciate your share Dolly.  I've been wondering about all of the things I have learned from my family from daily interactions that I'm not aware of.  It's a lot to consider.

[Armee]

I'm not sure how I feel about his solution yet that we're to come to an understanding and repair our relationships with our parents through love.

It makes me feel queasy knowing that many of us come from families where this would not only be not healthy but downright damaging. I know I tried I tried and I tried. In the end my mom died with me being "bad" despite trying to contort myself my whole life to be good and kind and helpful. With so so much damage to myself.

[dollyvee]

Thank you rainy - I definitely recommend this book

Armee - these things are very difficult to deal  with. I think maybe (hoping at least) that this book might make it easier, or help me to see that my m wasn't acting that way because of me and that it was coming from somewhere. That to a certain degree we are playing roles in our family. However, we do have the choice and ability to become conscious of that role and decide what we want to do with it.

It's interesting that I've thought before that I was taking some stuff on from my m and noticing the competition (or jealousy) from my m that I was maybe somehow taking her place, or that the family was supportive of me and not her.

I've been thinking of the time around university when I started getting insomnia and not being able to complete things. This was in my second year, I didn't have it in my first. It must have been triggered by something. Do I not want to complete things because then I will have a life outside my family and leave them behind? That a part of me still doesn't want to see them suffer or think that I can't do well if they aren't? Or maybe it's if I'm successful then I will owe them something and have to be responsible for them; that I can't have my own life? I guess either way, I'm not having my own life.

Maybe I'm starting to see patterns but not sure what they are. My gm moved away from a communist country at 17 to have a "better life" in the West. Or that's how it seemed - that when we went back there was a show of things/money which seemed beyond her means. Maybe she had to show them she was doing well because they didn't want her to leave and thought she was making a mistake. I guess like me she had to prove it to them. I also moved across the world to be away from a difficult family for a better life. That's pretty accurate hmmm.

The examples in the book seem so easy - oh we just discovered you're acting our your dead uncle's role subconsciously. I feel like there's a lot of overlap or maybe multiples traumas with me? Maybe that there's enmeshment with my gm and m that are different. Maybe it just takes more time to unpack.

[dollyvee]

Wow...in writing about what our responses to an early break in the bond with our mother, he writes:

"Body memories of the separation can be triggered, however, when bonding or distancing is experienced in relationships. Without ever understanding why, we can feel overwhelmed by feelings of terror, dissociation, numbness, disconnection, defeat and annihiliation."

The reaction to the guy at work makes sense as someone who was getting close to me as well as the dissociation on the other date.

[dollyvee]

When thinking back to some previous IFS journeys. The above reminds me of these parts who were really loud, or just kind of strong and destructive (?) like a rock part (a little emotional bulldozer) and a part that I had to lock away; that I couldn't get a handle on and wasn't sure what was going on. These parts were very hard to calm down and to speak to. When looked at as parts relating to early separation and the feelings associated with that (terror, defeat, annihilation, disassociation), it makes sense why I couldn't get a handle on them. A baby experiencing these things with no awareness of how to process it, it must've been extremely overwhelming.

T has talked before about precognitive development and how there are things that maybe we don't have words for. I'm interested in how to better develop a relationship to these parts. Maybe in the past I shut them out because there wasn't a way to communicate with them, that they hadn't learned how to speak and I didn't know how to relate.  Maybe now there's a way to relate where I'm not swallowed up (or trying to emulate a mother who also doesn't know how to relate).

[Armee]

 

[dollyvee]

Thank you Armee 

There is a big chapter about precognitive development and how it affects us. I'm going back through my family history and I think there is a definite theme about separation.

Going through old emails today to try and find my gm's brother's email and I ran across an email from a cousin, wishing us his condolences after my gm's passing. At the end there was ps that my gm had mentioned how much she wanted peace between my brother and I when they talked last Christmas as if this was her last dying wish and something I should do. Rage. And then step back and see what I actually need to do is have good boundaries with my brother. That he was going around telling people that I only cared about money, trying to tell my grandfather that I caused my stepfather to become ill (which I later confronted him about and he didn't know what to say). There's no way to make peace with this? I guess it just implies that I'm in the wrong and to suck it up and take on his irresponsibilities at the expense of my self just because we're family.

My gm did the same thing with my mom, overlooking her treatment of me at my expense. I don't know where this stuff comes from. I guess there's a thing in the "old country" that it's family above all else; that you can't make it without your family. Or maybe this is just a belief that's been passed down in my family? I guess it revealed my anger trigger  Interestingly, there is a similarity between my gm and her brother and me and my brother I think. There was an issue between them over the will when their mother died, and he was trying to leave her out of the inheritance. He is also someone who is looking for money all the time as well as the favorite child I think (I can't remember the exact details but seems to fit).

[rainydiary]

Dolly, I am learning a lot from your journey - thanks for sharing here.