Loss of self (brief backstory, possible triggers)

[Dante]

I rejoined the board a few days back after having been gone for a couple of years. 

By way of brief backstory (trigger warning, and again, for anyone who remembers me from before), I grew up in a neglectful (on the best days) and soul-crushing FOO.  M is an angry narcissist who grew up in her own abusive family.  F was absent and left me to contend on my own.  Have been no contact with B (golden child) for nearly 25 years.  I was the scapegoat.  I believe I was abused by a neighbor when I was young - I say believed because I only have fringes of memories and no proof it happened, so maybe it didn't and I invented it.  Bullied, and with no support from parents even when I received (literal) death threats from kids at school.  College was a rough time as I had no coping skills, and I went looking for love in all the wrong places.  Developed addiction(s) that took on a life of their own.  I got ghosted a lot, in hindsight because I was too intense and probably scared some people - I never, ever, once hurt anyone.  But I was dark and moody and needy.  Getting ghosted was in some cases the worst thing that could happen to me, because it left me guessing about what I'd done wrong.  Guessing turned into ruminating and obsessing - even though the person was long gone and that for the best.

Since I've last been here, I've worked through a great deal.  I am NC with FOO.  I have worked through the wreckage of my past, and been able to accept many things.  Most importantly, I'm finally able to accept "I don't know" as an answer.  Though there are still some ragged edges, I no longer EF back to that part of my life.  (I do still EF, mostly back to feeding my imposter syndrome).  That's all to the plus.  To the minus, those addiction(s) still afflict me.  I thought that might be why I came back, to try to get some sanity.  After all, things are all good.  Right?  I don't need those addictions anymore, they're not serving me.  I'm All Better.  Right?

I haven't posted since I rejoined, partly because I haven't been sure what to say.  This morning, I think I finally figured it out.

Things are a lot better.  Truly.  I am grateful.  I am at more peace than I think I have ever been in my life.  I can actually breathe, and I don't take that for granted.  But I think in doing so, I've lost my way.  I spent most of my life trying to figure out "what was wrong with me".  Therapists and doctors and meds and reading and reading.  I also spent most of my life trying desperately to hold together a "sense of self".  I had a narrative, personally and professionally.  I knew what I was doing with my life, and every choice I made, every thing I did, was to move that narrative forward.  Like I was a story.  A big part of that narrative was the mystery of what made me broken.  A lot of the rest of it was intense, focused workaholism on a particular career goal.  It held the broken pieces of me together, like a bits of debris swirling around and all held together by the low pressure center of a tornado.  My life has been a tornado.

Since I've "figured out what was wrong" and since I've been able to make so much progress, I've felt the winds of the tornado lessen.  My workaholism has subsided enough for me to recognize that I'm burned out, and I hate what I do for a living and always did.  I have taken some steps back professionally and gone to part-time - still have to work to pay the bills, but it no longer moves the narrative forward the way it once did.  I am no longer as obsessively driven as I once was to fix myself.  I'm not even sure how I define myself anymore - for a long time, I defined myself by my C-PTSD.  That was my identity.  I needed my pain.  It is still a part of who I am, and it still informs my reactions to things.  But it no longer defines me.  I just have echoes of bad coping strategies, like addiction(s) that keep me coming back for more.

I think the problem is that in lessening the winds of the tornado, I have also lost the center.  There is no longer enough force to keep the pieces of me aloft, and they are crashing to the ground.  The addiction(s) serve as a last ditch way to get one more spin of the vortex, to keep enough crisis and drama going that I don't lose myself completely.

I don't know who or what I am without crisis.  I have no goals anymore, no bucket list.  No interests, no hobbies.  No purpose or reason for wanting to get up in the morning or fight through the day.  I feel the pieces of me floating away, and I no longer have a narrative to move me forward.  And no real drive to overcome the addiction(s) if I am being truly honest.

I feel like I am losing myself.

[Armee]

Sounds like about where I am. ..

I'm thinking about it like I am breaking fully apart to rebuild. We will be ok.

[dollyvee]

Hi Dante,

A belated welcome back to the forum  I hope you find some solace here.

The idea of self is interesting. I remember being in university and feeling like I had a hole inside me that I didn't know what I wanted (and probably needed) while everyone else seemed to be able to articulate themselves so well. I made baby steps and pushed myself in a direction that I felt I wanted to go, and that wasn't dictated by my family. However, I think Self was still elusive. Even when I started looking into IFS where one is asked to connect to Self for wisdom/presence (however you define it), I felt like it was difficult to connect to Self. Also, I think I may have felt, though not explicitly conscious of it, that it wasn't safe to be in Self.

Learning about narcissism sort of helped me to grasp that I was a receptacle for narcissistic projection from my family (I think there are four of them). There was no space for Self because it wouldn't have mirrored back what my family wanted to see, and at risk for survival, I cut off that authentic part of myself. I'm reading The Practical Guide to Healing Developmental Trauma and he talks about how children will do this as a survival mechanism, that it is better to see themselves as bad than to see that their caretakers don't/can't love them (for example) because how would they survive? This means that a splitting of the self occurs, where one cannot have their authentic feelings, and, as I understand, start developing a disorganized sense of self.

"These distortions in identity shape our sense of who we are, who others are, and how the world is. Shame-based identifications are held in the body as well, in the form of patterns of tension and collapse that impact the muscles, organs, and other physiological systems. The developing identity distortions and physiological dysregulation form as mechanisms of disconnection in response to environmental failure as a way to protect a child's authentic Self—their needs, feelings, and heart.

Heller, Laurence; Kammer, Brad J.. The Practical Guide for Healing Developmental Trauma (p. 77). North Atlantic Books. Kindle Edition. "

For me, as a child of a narcissistic mother (and grandmother), I think this behaviour process started at birth, or even pre birth. There was no period of successful attunement, or I guess authentic attunement, where I was able to start building a concept of self. Actually, some good enough attunement may have come from my fathr, but not sure. But from the beginning, I believe I've had issues organizing my sense of Self. How I'm now realizing that this shows up for me is through (patterns?) of connection and disconnection. For example, on dates I have noticed myself dissociating because the idea (I think) of someone getting close to me, however safe they may be, feels like a suffocation (annihilation) of Self. I don't think I was allowed to have boundaries (safe/authentic attunement) and now closeness = fear. Even if it goes slowly, I feel like there is a part of me that shuts down (my authentic feelings etc), and feels like I have to "take on" this stuff. In reading this book, I'm beginning to realize that I think there is a conflict between my attachment (to caregiver, now dating interest) and separation-individuation, which I had to shut down as a baby for survival. This is where I start to freeze/dissociate, or things just sort of happen under the radar. 

This is quite long, but as I understand it, we lose our "Self" because we had a very disorganized Self to begin with. Perhaps sometimes as well, the Self we identifyy with, is not in fact our authentic Self, but the shame-based, or pride-based identifications we needed to create in order to survive. It could be those as well that you feel you're losing.

Sending you support,
dolly

[Dante]

Thanks for all the responses. 

Armee, I have thought similar things on good days.  On not so good days, not so much...

Dollyvee, I had not thought about it that way in so many terms.  But you actually put words to something I've kept thinking about in the back of my mind.  One of the things I keep holding on to and thinking about and then realizing that I don't want to think about it anymore is what I studied in college.  I hated it then, I hate it now.  I convinced myself then it was to get a good enough job but I realize now it was to appease my FOO's idea of who I should be.  If I think of it in terms of I'm losing that self that was never me in the first place, it makes a lot of sense.

Thank you both!

[Armee]

Me too. On the bad days, which often follow close on the heels of good days (and vice versa), I think my mind is literally shattering.

[Lakelynn]

Welcome back Dante,

It's truly good to hear from you again. I remember you.

You describe a part of the journey that sounds familiar. The incessant, driving, unrelenting force which moves you ahead. And over time, it can't be sustained without that center you refer to.

We all live differently, but I'd like to suggest, you still have your center, it's just hidden underneath grief and sorrow looking back at all the energy you expended getting to today. I felt exactly as you describe for a long while and spent a lot of that time in bed trying to "get through" each day, which seemed like a year.

Eventually, things, circumstances, life shifts and changes. When that happens, new people, places and things appear. You can pick and choose if you want to engage. You might feel like removing striving completely from your life. Or not.

Above all, look for a couple things you LIKE about Dante, every day. Then remember them all day long.

[Dante]

Thank you Armee and Lakelynn.  I appreciate your thoughts.