Self-referencing

[Kizzie]

I just read your post PaintedBlack - so glad you had that experience and shared it with us - tks!     Self-referencing is such a powerful concept in my recovery too.

[PaintedBlack]

I've since been able to share it with my therapist.  He's so thrilled.  He was wide eyed with hand over his mouth as I was explaining how people are supposed to view everything with themselves in mind first, then others, and that I never did that.  For most people this self-referencing thing is a given and there's no way to conceptualize that other people wouldn't do the same thing. 

One of the big problems with therapy has been that I don't have the words, knowledge, thoughts to describe what's wrong with me until I happen upon the correction, experience it, then tell him about it.  This was one of those times.  I think sometimes he feels very inadequate.  I explained how Pete Walker talks about therapy being the first trust relationship we get (hopefully).  And just being the type of person that didn't put me in a box, was my friend and advocate, was golden to me.  Then my husband came round, so now I have two people who sort of "get it."

That's why this forum is so very important.  I am really thankful for it and for y'all that run it.  I've never found anything like it.  It's a very special place and I hope it continues forever.

[Kizzie]

For most people this self-referencing thing is a given and there's no way to conceptualize that other people wouldn't do the same thing.

Exactly! And we wouldn't think of it because we don't know about it.

I love that your T does not pretend that he knows everything, that he lets you see that and also that you are teaching him.  Being authentic and human is so key for us and his honesty means he is trustworthy or at least that's how I reacted to your description of your session PB.

It is awesome that we finally have people who "get it" isn't it?!  Best feeling in the world after being alone for so long and not having the language to tell anyone what we feel/experience. Yay!

[PaintedBlack]

Yes, I thank God for my therapist every day. One thing he has shown me is how good, imperfect people interact and get through life. My mother instilled that everyone must be perfect or they are fatally flawed. The only way for her to accept a person is to trick her own mind into blacking out the flaws (idealization). it is taking me decades of being around normal people to undo the thinking that was instilled in me. Even now when I see it, it amazes me... But its thrilling to me and makes me happy that things are not really the way my mother sees them.  It also breaks my heart to imagine what it's like to ACTUALLY BE HER. what a horrifying thought.

[Kizzie]

It also breaks my heart to imagine what it's like to ACTUALLY BE HER. what a horrifying thought.

So true! I would not what to be any of my PD FOO - there's just no authenticity, no real or genuine anything in their lives. The one good thing (for them) is that I don't think they realize it because their disorder protects them from that knowledge. Now it pmo that they sleep well at night while I gnash and thrash, but I'll take the pain if that's what it takes to be real tks very much.

I realized a year or two ago I had this absolute sense of dread that if my parents knew they were broken they would shatter into a million pieces.  My IC was terrified of that because then I would lose what little I did have of them.  And I also realized I felt responsible for keeping that knowledge from them, not knowing then as I do now that they were safe and protected by their PD.

[SweetFreedom]

Hey Beautiful People,

My first post here. What a great thread! So good it made me register to add to the discussion 

The way I think of 'Self Referencing' in my own healing is in terms of Boundaries.

Before I dove into all this CPTSD / FOO work, boundaries was an idea that I found kind of unattractive, a little vague, and I didn't fully 'get it'. Suprise, suprise!-- boy oh boy did I need to learn  Boundary work has since become a major piece of learning for me in my healing process, and a major tool in my managing EF's and all that comes with it.

I first learned more about boundaries from Spartan Life Coach, who made a Free mini course on it here: http://buildbetterboundaries.com/

And then, I've been learning a lot more about them from my reading of John Bradshaw (Homecoming especially) & Pia Mellody's work as well. So helpful to understand boundaries better. It helps immensely with not getting 'stuck' in other people's feelings, reactions, or ways of being, and I find I'm relating to my own inner world with much more self control as well.

Basically, Boundaries are protective layers. They are our way of defending ourselves, and of protecting others from our unhealthy expressions & actions (i.e., our Outer Critic nonsense)

There are Inner Boundaries--

having awareness of lines to cross in terms of what feelings we act on, what impulses we should honor, what we should (and should not) say or do in a given situation. Knowing how to say 'I feel / think / etc' vs 'you should...'. If we are speaking judiciously, we are using internal boundaries. If we successfully manage NOT to eat ice-cream sandwiches for lunch, we have asserted our internal boundaries 

and Outer Boundaries--

Knowing when someone is crossing our sense of how we want to be treated, or relating to us in any way that is inappropriate, and expressing that line. Saying things like "Hey, I'm uncomfortable with that", "hey, I'm my own person, please don't tell me how to feel", etc. Often, our boundaries are being crossed when the other person is not following their own sense of inner boundaries. I find that whenever the person is focused on what I feel, or 'should' do, say, etc..., they are really crossing a boundary. By doing so, they are ignoring how they feel, and putting it on me. We are our own people. We are not here for the sole purpose of pleasing others! If someone feels unhappy with something about me-- assuming I'm acting in a healthy & boundaried way-- then that's their stuff to work out.

For me, it's been invaluable to see that I don't have to manage the feelings & states of other people. That's actually me crossing their boundary to do so. I still have to remind myself all the time. And likewise, others aren't responsible for managing my state either.

So I guess I'm sharing all this as a long winded way of saying that I found If I'm getting hung up on validation, what other people think, feel or project on me means that there is probably a lack of boundaries on my part somewhere. When I have a clear sense of that boundary of "them" over there & "me" over here, it becomes much easier to allow them to have whatever feelings they are having because those feelings belong to them. If I'm trying to manage their state by people-pleasing, or reacting inappropriately, then what is actually happening is that I'm feeling their emotions as my own, because I have not made a clear boundary of who I am and who they are. And this is often what People pleasers do.  Self referencing is IMO learning how to have boundaries and check in *here, with me* first.

Shame dynamics work on violated boundaries. According to John Bradshaw, Shame (or 'Toxic Shame' as he calls it) is really the projection of that person's unhealed wounds onto US. This means that the person projecting shame on us is 'shameless' in their expression, and by necessity, not holding good boundaries internally OR honoring our boundaries either. Obviously, for people with CPTSD, we have experienced a lot of this, usually by our primary caretakers. What we learned to do from all this was abandon our own Needs & Values so that we could align with theirs. Discovering this was SO key for me. John says to "Give It Back"-- Any shame that is not yours must be given back and NOT accepted. How do you know whose shame it is? According to Bradshaw & Mellody its Simple: If it feels more like humility as you are aware of your own shortcomings, and instead of upsetting you, you are at peace with it, then it's YOURS. Your own authentic shame feels like humility. It shouldn't cause you to have a EF attack. If you feel terrible about yourself, are in emotional agony, and it makes you want to act out or hide, then it's THEIRS and must be sent back to them!

So we come from backgrounds where there were little to no boundaries, and where this was modeled for us as 'normal' adult behavior. I think a lot of us grow up with this muddy, mushy sense of self and other, and we end up feeling other people's feelings too often or too easily. We abandon expressing our needs, our wants, and our preferences. We get lost in the trance of the other. It's probably some evolutionarily useful tribal instinct to be so aware of the group-- gone awry in our modern small-unit family structures. But whatever the cause, we feel this undefined sense of self-- including all the feelings from our wounds, all the buried belief systems, all the stuff that actually belongs to others-- and we just feel it, without any clear definition of what we are feeling inside, or any clear definition of what is actually happening outside. Sorry if this description is triggering. I'm aiming to describe clearly here.

What I've come to see is that what underpins all of these dynamics-- and I think all the resulting PD's and dysfunction that comes out of CPTSD-- is Codependency in some form. They say that we become codependent when we are not allowed to fully be ourselves as children. That codependency is a default part of a child's reality, but we get wounded and stuck there, and never learn to individuate completely. For me this has been so true. And so, 'Self Referencing' is a wonderful way to begin exploring personal boundaries by exercising personal awareness. We begin to know what we want, what our stuff is and what belongs to the other, we can navigate with more clarity. We can begin experimenting with making requests, asserting ourselves, being more clear with people about their stuff, and what I've found is this great amount of peace and spaciousness inside myself as I do this. Sometimes it's scary, but my inner child always adores me for asserting my boundaries. And it's helped me to parent myself better by knowing when to do what. I'm a freeze type, and any distraction can be an alluring temptation at the wrong time.

So yeah, that's my journey with Self Referencing. Thanks, Cat for the great topic. Sorry for the epic length first post  Hopefully it's not triggering, and hopefully helpful as we share all our learnings together

[Sesame]

Brilliant post! I wish I had read it earlier in my life as I used to do this. I would never voice my opinion or make a decision without hearing others' thoughts first. Despite my uNMIL being very abusive, it was actually my FIL who first made me realise I did this. That whenever he asked what I wanted/thought, I would always refuse to answer and go along with what other people wanted. As if everyone else was far more important than I could ever be. It was then that I took steps into researching why I did this and attempting to remedy it. I still struggle with worrying what people think about me and how I'm perceived, but I've definitely made progress in terms of being honest with what I want and not being afraid to voice that.

SweetFreedom, welcome to the board! I also learnt about this as `boundaries' rather than self-referencing. I read a few books about co-dependency and how women are taught to be docile and flexible, which only encourages this sans-boundary existence where you're so busy running around trying to please everyone else, you don't even know your own thoughts or feelings!

We are our own people. We are not here for the sole purpose of pleasing others! If someone feels unhappy with something about me-- assuming I'm acting in a healthy & boundaried way-- then that's their stuff to work out.

I have to keep repeating this to myself in some situations! Especially when I encounter people who seem to have made it their life's mission to be upset with everything I am and to try to change me into someone else.

[SweetFreedom]

Thanks for the warm welcome, Sesame!

Yeah, I agree that there's definitely a socialized gender-role component to all this. Women definitely get taught to people-please and to have weaker boundaries. And men get taught to have overly-defined boundaries. Seems like this is why the classic Codependent-Narcissist dynamic skews Female and Male, respectively.

[sanmagic7]

i have struggled with this concept for quite a while, especially since i began getting sick (about 20 yrs. now), knowing that it was the continued stress i had been under that was causing me to become ill.  my problem became not being able to explain what was going on with me and why in any articulate fashion.

i knew within me what had been happening, but anyone i attempted to explain it to just couldn't, wouldn't, or didn't understand.  docs, therapists, friends, family - i couldn't get myself to be understood.  i was self-referencing (although i didn't know the term at the time) but no one else knew my frame of reference, and my brain had been bullied by the machinations of the abusers in my life to the extent that i couldn't explain myself quickly or accurately enough.  hours, sometimes days later, i would think of what i could have or wished i would have said.  i feel like i've been in an ongoing battle to be me for over 30 yrs.

because this sense of self-referencing has come along late in my life (i really didn't have much of an inkling as to who i was until i was in my 50's), i also was victim to the idea of other-referencing, making myself look okay, sound okay, seem okay to others, and when i did that 'wrong' the shame and self-criticizing came into play.  and i would feel horrible until someone would validate me again as still being a friend, still loving me, still wanting to hang out with me, or whatever.

the whole thing has been extremely frustrating.  the narcs in my life were much better at expressing themselves than i, which made me feel stupid (and i know i'm not) or that my brain was becoming unraveled.  still, i kept battling, trying to validate myself by doing so much online research into long-term chronic stress and things of that nature.  hadn't really heard or known much about c-ptsd or npd and narc abuse, even tho i was in the middle of it all.  and, of all the professions i've been in contact with (including my own - i'm a therapist for over 25 yrs.) no one has ever acknowledged the idea of chronic stress as a destructive force, or that such a thing as c-ptsd existed.

i was other-referencing all the time before my own awareness of something being very wrong with me because of chronic stress (that's the only way i knew it) kicked in.  i'm just glad i lived long enough to name this beast, put this piece of the puzzle in place, and begin on a path (through the help of all of you and this forum) that finally makes sense and is understood.  it's very validating to know i was right all along, even though very few people in my life to this day know what i'm talking about. 

when i read in here about how people are finding their way through this jungle of horror and deceit, finding the courage to share what they've been through, how they think and feel, i am glad to have lived long enough to feel this and see this.   it's all good.

[SweetFreedom]

Beautiful

Posts like yours, sanmagic7, give me so much inspiration. Keep going! You are doing the right thing to heal yourself. Thanks for your share!

[Kizzie]

My story is so similar to yours Sanmagic, you expressed that state of being lost in other referencing really well. I always felt like I would open my mouth and try to speak about my self and what was going on but it would get stuck in my throat and only a garbly mish mash would come out.  A lot of recovery for me has been about finding and using my voice.  Tks for your post