Dalloway´s Recovery Journal

[dollyvee]

Hi Dalloway,

I'm sorry that you're feeling that way right now. I understand those dreams and find them distressing, but perhaps your subconscious is helping you deal with some emotions.

I've been listening to some of Jay Reid's videos on the scapegoat child of the narcissist. They've been really enlightening and eye-opening to help understand some of my inner experience growing up. One of the things he talks about is that any kind of self-activation (exercise, frienships, connection etc) actually brings up the feeling of aloneness in the scapegoated child that they had to mitigate because of the narcissistic parent. So, while other people can enjoy those things with ease, it brings up uncomfortable feelings in the scapegoated child that they had to deal with alone. For me, sometime alone feels safer. It's not even a conscious effort on my part either. It's like when a connection presents itself (let's say "positive," or healthy, but outside of the role I knew growing up ie caretaking, and suppressing my own feelings), it's like something in my just shuts down, or mutes as he describes it.

I feel like listening to these videos is helpful to start unpacking this process, one that's always sort of remained hidden in my subconscious reactions.

Sending you support and a hug if that's ok 
dolly

[Dalloway]

Dollyvee, thank you for the hug and the support. I find it very interesting how those "positive" actions can actually bring up negative feelings and reactions in the traumatized brain/mind. For me it pops up every time I get a praise or some kind of positive attention from someone. I´m so not used to it that it always makes me feel really uncomfortable and it hurts because it reminds me of how I never got positive attention from my M.

I´m still figuring out what my subconscious is trying to say to me and it´s not easy, but I decided to work on this area with my T, so we´ll see.

[Dalloway]

Today I had an especially tough therapy session. I realized how bad I depend on other people's approval. We were talking about some kind of art therapy that my T wanted to try, but first asked me if I was open to something like that. I always struggled with techniques in which I have to use my imagination and have to think in pictures and symbols. I don't really have access to that creative part of my brain, I tend to rationalize everything and use the power of words over nonverbal tools. So I always feel a little uncomfortable when she asks if I'm willing to try something like that in the sessions. I usually say yes because I can't bear the feeling of saying no to something that's supposed to help me. But today I was overwhelmed by the time the session ended, so I broke down in tears. My T asked me about that and I told her how I felt about saying no.

As a kid I was taught that I can easily get into trouble by wanting or saying something different from what my M wanted me to say or do. She had rules, many of them, some were changing day after day. Nothing I did was ever right and when she punished me, she made sure that I know it's all my fault. By wanting something I risked being abandoned emotionally, to say the least. My M often punished me by simply not talking to me. Can you imagine what that does to a helpless child? She will do anything in order to protect herself from being hurt this way again. She will learn to read other people and know in advance what they want to hear. And every time that now-adult/helpless-child gets into situations that require speaking her mind, she panics and relives the rejection and abandonment. That's why I started to cry - I couldn´t take the stress of not saying what I wanted to say, but neither could I say no. I was afraid that I'll lose my T's sympathy and she will dislike me for saying no. And I was also afraid that she will punish me for saying no because that´s what I learned at home.

It was a painful moment. I realized how deep are some wounds that I´ve been ignoring for a long time. My M really messed with my mind and psyche by doing that psycho-terror. She was unpredictable and emotionally distant, cruel even, when she was at her worst. It hurts so much when I think about that innocent little kid that had to endure all that terrible suffering. I tend to criticize and blame myself for struggling, but today I felt for the first time that it´s absolutely not my fault or as my favourite Gabor Mate says "it´s a normal response to abnormal circumstances". Now I feel deeply connected to my suffering self and feel pure compassion towards the child in me. It was eye-opening and I´m grateful for that.

[Desert Flower]

This is very important and beautiful work you are doing Dalloway. And I can relate.

I realized how bad I depend on other people's approval.

I did too, a while ago. It's a big step.

And you're right, its natural to need this approval for us as kids. Your little you deserves all the compassion in the world for the suffering she did.

Take lots of care
 

[Dalloway]

Thank you Desert Flower, your validation means a lot. 

[dollyvee]

As a kid I was taught that I can easily get into trouble by wanting or saying something different from what my M wanted me to say or do. She had rules, many of them, some were changing day after day. Nothing I did was ever right and when she punished me, she made sure that I know it's all my fault. By wanting something I risked being abandoned emotionally, to say the least. My M often punished me by simply not talking to me. Can you imagine what that does to a helpless child?

Hey Dalloway,

I'm sorry you're going through this. My m used to do the same thing to me to punish me and would often give me the silent treatment. Children will do anything that they need to do in order to preserve the relationship with the caregiver because without it, they can't survive in the world. I've been learning a lot from Jay Reid's videos on youtube lately about what this did to my inner world and how it shows up for me now. I think it's been pretty helpful.

Sending you support,
dolly

[Dalloway]

Thank you for your kind words, dolly. 
Yes, that´s something I´m thinking about very often and it helps me to make sense of everything that happened to me. Child will choose the attachment over authenticity if she has to, and as tragic as it may sound, it ensures her survival, because at that point, it´s a question of life and death. It breaks my heart that I had to choose, but it´s also a reminder that everything that happened inside of me, had a good reason and it was the best I could do at that time. Nothing was my fault an my SELF loves me enough to try to save my life every time it´s necessary. It helps to think about this those days when I see myself as my own worst enemy.

[Dalloway]

Something happened to me a few days ago that made me think about some serious issues in my life and made me realize that I want to concentrate on these issues because they are pivotal on my healing journey. There are two things that affect my life in a huge way and they go hand in hand since I was very little.

I have a great difficulty forming relationships and connecting with people. My childhood was very troubled, with my mom being emotionally and physically abusive and emotionally neglectful. The first thing I learned was that the people closest to me are the most dangerous ones and those will hurt you the most from whom you expected the most caring and unconditional love. Human touch and closeness didn´t mean something joyful and positive to me, it was always bad and scary and hurtful. So my brain started to associate these kinds of interactions with fear and pain, not with joy and happiness, as it should have been. I know that´s why I have trouble being close to people now. I don´t find their closeness calming and positive, I perceive it as something that makes me feel anxious and hypervigilant. So every day, in every situation, I´m choosing being in safety, away from people, instead of risking being hurt. My brain is telling me that it´s better this way, we got burnt too many times and too seriously to take a chance on people again. But I also know that I´m not mentally well. I am hungry for connecting to people on a deeper level, for finding soulmate(s), for being able to be in the presence of people without anxiety and fear. So that´s how I know that in fact I´m not okay with being isolated this much. It´s taking a toll on my well-being in every way. I know I want to change that, but I don´t know how.

My other cross I´m carrying is my low self-esteem which I also "inherited" from my mother. From a very early age, I was being told that I can´t do anything right. Everything I did was wrong, insufficient and not enough. Now it´s more or less clear to me why did she behave like that, but now the most important thing is what did it do to me in a long term. It´s no surprise that I grew up to be a person with absolutely no self-esteem, questioning everything I do and jumping to conclusion that I´m screwing up everything. I am convinced that if people knew me well, they would see how fatally flawed I am. I´m coming with a baggage full of trauma and coping mechanisms and learned helplessness. Who would potentially want to put up with that? My brain is sure that I´m not lovable. How could I be, when even my mom wasn´t able to love me unconditionally? It has to be cause something´s wrong with me fatally. Every good thing that happens to me is surely just temporary and everything I succeed in is just good luck (yes, imposter syndrome joined the chat). This is what I own now, this is what the world taught to my brain that my brain taught to me eventually. I had to survive somehow, and the only way I could make it to this day, was believing that I was at fault, not my mom, not my primary caregiver in whose hands my life was, she couldn´t be wrong, that´s impossible, that would create a very scary world for a very little baby and she couldn´t survive that. It was easier to go with this story of me being just basically bad.

So this is the vicious circle I´m in right now: I don´t feel safe around people, I don´t feel comfortable in their close presence, so I stay away and watch them from the distance, yearning for being able to connect with them; the more I am isolated, the more I´m sure that it´s because there´s something wrong with me; the more I´m convinced there´s something wrong with me, the more I fear being close to them. But it works in the different direction, too: I feel that I´m not lovable and bad, so I stay away from people; the more I stay away, the more I´m isolated and the harder it is for me to reach out. Everything is fatally intertwined.

This is not how I think rationally when my prefrontal cortex is in the charge. I´ve learned so much, I´ve read so much, from many smart people, professionals, who know much about the human psyche and the neurobiology of the brain. Something I was able to internalize and with practice, anchor. But my brain is so deeply programmed to believe that a) people are dangerous and gonna hurt me and that b) I´m worthless, that no amount of cognitive work can ever convince it that the opposite is true. And this is the origo I keep returning to: how can I rewire my brain and create new associations that could be possibly stronger that the old ones? I know that the things I learned in my childhood will possibly stay with me all my life. They will fade and weaken and shrink, but they will always be there. So I´m not gonna try to ignore them or suppress them. I wish there was someone who could tell me the secret recipe of making my brain believe that things changed since my childhood and most of them were never true in the first place. I wish my brain saw the outer world and listened to me. I´d tell him about all the wonderful things I´ve learned and all the good people I´ve learned from.