Therapy directly on a core/primal wound

[NarcKiddo]

The reason behind my self-acceptance: when I am able, I will do it. OR possibly if it were the most useful method atm, I would be doing it.

It seems like you are on to something here, Blueberry. It certainly resonates with me. I, too, am aware of all these different methods and suggestions and whatnot. I've tried several, but in many cases I just end up feeling nonplussed, and that I am somehow deficient when they don't really work for me. And then I think perhaps I should persevere and that just gives more scope for self-criticism. It sounds like this is a bit like what you have been feeling.

When something actually is helpful for me it feels right pretty much from the get go. Maybe not completely right because it's new but if there is some kernel of instant relief then I know it may be worth pursuing. And that knowledge is not intellectual - it is emotional. My logical brain can tell me endlessly that meditation would help if I only did it enough - but the fact remains that for me, right now, it simply doesn't. That is not to say that it would not help in the future so I think it is always worth revisiting things from time to time (unless they were actively repellant last time) in case the internal situation has shifted.

Your radical self-acceptance sounds like really solid progress, Blueberry. 

[Hope67]

 

[sanmagic7]

blueberry, brilliant!  i so agree, and so very glad you were able to come to that realization.  i think it's a fundamental truth, not very easy to come by, but major when it's discovered.  well done!     love and hugs

[SenseOrgan]

Blueberry
Hooray for the radical self-acceptance you mentioned (#14 of this thread). I totally get your reasoning, which not many people ever seem to in my experience. All things considered, at any given moment, you make the assessment what's best for you. A generally good plan or approach can be a not so good plan or approach right now. For me, self-acceptance (and self care) includes this kind of flexibility and confidence in knowing what's right for you.

With regards to your original post... It seems to me you've been going at it for a long time and from different angles. I'm very sorry about that. And I can relate to this feeding into low mood. This does get quite existential for many of us, I think. To cut a long story short, I have gone past this core wound and I haven't. I got a peek behind the curtain, so to say. Since the line between traumatic experiences and sense of self got blurred in developmental trauma, the answer is in part transpersonal. Without aiming for it, this is what I got a taste of at some point in my journey. Everything changed after my sense of self was blown to pieces. And I still struggle with the same issues and make progress like the next person here since. It's hard to explain. I once described it as if a more fundamental sense of self is the stage on which all my personal drama is playing out. The stage has room for every actor and every emotion and has no stake in the storyline. It may sound a bit detached, perhaps even dissociated. The feeling tone is unconditional love and acceptance though. I think my sense of self dramatically expanded for a short while, and an echo of that stayed when it took on it's previous shape.

Some therapists do veer into this direction. If I'm not mistaken, you mentioned a week long, freebie online conference with an amazing lineup a while ago. I never got to responding to that, and I noticed it right when it was finished. There are quite a few people on that list of speakers who do tap into this, I imagine. Although parts work is incredibly valuable, I do think it has it's limitations too.

[Marcine]

SenseOrgan,
I appreciate how you describe "a more fundamental sense of self is the stage on which all my personal drama is playing out."
To distinguish the everyday stresses, worries, ups-downs AND to identify a bedrock self is powerful. It reminds me that I am. And things happen, and that's ok. Thus, space for the unconditional love and acceptance you mention.
Thanks for what you wrote— I find it inspiring. And challenging Onward

[wooboyattachmenttrauma]

Thank you to Blueberry and everyone for this thread. I'm grateful you asked the question. I have always wondered this, if I'll ever really get to "process", get to the "remembrance and mourning," do the "unburdening," or have the EMDR "target"--all these therapy terms!!!--for my sense of inner worthlessness. Sometimes it sounds like a fantasy. Though supposedly we are supposed to be able to get there with a good therapist, and Judith Herman's T&R seems to imply that it happens.

I myself have tried long-term therapy many times, the last two times with therapists I sought out specifically for their EMDR expertise, the last one specifically for CPTSD and they did IFS, and both times the relationship ended after 2+ years in very painful ways. We ended up re-enacting some dynamics, it's sad. I really tried. CPTSD therapy is intense, transference-wise, I know that. Sometimes it feels like if I were healthier--felt less shame, less worthlnessness, more trust--we'd be able to actually process the trauma, but that's a silly circle! Mostly I think that therapy just isn't set up generally to provide therapists with enough support to stay steady through all the countertransference they experience.

So sadly the answer is no. But what helps me, if that might help you, is two things. The concept of glimmers, like maybe focusing on little moments that echo the feeling of goodness inside that we would like to really live in, embody, 100% of the time. Small moments of safety, like someone mentioned above spending time in nature, and just noticing them as much as we can.

The second thing that I lean hard on with the worthlessness, is the line from Trauma and Recovery: "The abused child faces an formidable existential task as well. Her sense inner badness gives her meaning, hope, and power. If she is bad, then her parents are good. If she is bad, then she can try to be good, and then someday finally win the protection and care she so desperately needs." Basically, feeling worthless has given me meaning in life, and weirdly a sense of hope, and a sense of my own power. Because it once was the basis of my attachment to my FOO--my food, shelter, all my human connection possible. I feel that deep shame needs and deserves respect and almost gratitude, and we can respect the tenacity with which our systems hold onto it.

Oh a third thing: I printed out Pete Walker's reparenting affirmations from his CPTSD book and turned them into flashcards I look at every day, in the hopes of imprinting in them into my working memory. I don't know if it works, but it certainly gives me words to say to others in my life, and to help me know what I need to hear.

Solidarity

[Kizzie]

Hey BB, what helped me and I think I've posted about it and talked about it in the Zoom groups is that I kept asking myself the question "Am I that bad?" for a period and one day I had an epiphany, almost a bolt of lighting that "No, I am actually a good person, decent, kind, honest, etc" because when I asked the question I would then compare myself to my abusers, the abusers I read about on this forum and in the news and I was nowhere near that. I had value and worth despite or maybe because of my abuse.

I think of you as a really decent person (e.g., look at all the time and effort you've put into helping me with this forum over the years  ), and how you try to learn and make every effort to recover. You don't see any of our abusers here making that kind of effort that's for sure.   

Anyway, I just had that wonderful, freeing thought one day that it's ridiculous (and sad) that I or any of us should feel less than, bad, etc. Challenging those kind of thoughts was a great strategy for getting rid of them.

Hope this is helpful!

[Marcine]

I continue to mull on your original questions, Blueberry. And today the response I can offer— to myself and you, if it resonates— is:  grieving... that natural, inconvenient, powerful, cyclical, depressing, uncontrollable, uplifting, infuriating, paradoxical, hopeless, freeing, wordless human emotional healing process.
I grieve for what I had to bear and all I never received, for what I needed and will never have, for who I had to be and who I never got to become.
I was never allowed to grieve, had to survive.
Now I feel stuff and it's so delayed and layered and unfamiliar that I can only jam it in the category of "BAD" and "WRONG".
My therapist reminds me that grieving does not have a time frame. That it is a normal part of the healing process. That I do not need to "neutralize" it or try to fight it. He says this grieving is the unwrapping of cumulative awareness of loss. Hearing this brings sadness to my heart... so I grieve that I could never grieve... and I trust I can feel my way forward.