Disillusionment and collapse after enmeshment

[TheBigBlue]

I'm trying to put words to something I'm in the middle of and would really value hearing from others who might recognize this.

What happens when someone doesn't (yet) have a solid sense of self, self-worth, or internal safety, and then becomes disillusioned about the one parent or relationship that felt loving and regulating? When it becomes clear that the safety was borrowed, conditional, and came at the cost of self-erasure?

For me, that realization has landed in my nervous system as a kind of free fall. The structure that kept me functioning is gone, and there isn't an internal one in place (yet?). I find myself curled up in bed, unable to get up, feeling lost, crying without knowing exactly about what.

If you've been through this phase, where borrowed regulation collapses before internal safety exists, what helped? What comes after this part?

I'm not looking for fixes, just orientation and shared experience. Right now it feels like I am without anchors or a ground to stand on.

Thank you for reading.

[Kizzie]

I'm so sorry to hear this BB. Just my thoughts here but the fact that you know you have borrowed regulation to me sounds like you know what is the problem and by facing it and the pain and fear you are on the road out the other side.

I say from experience that some of my most painful moments came from seeing clearly what I had lost in my life, what I could not depend upon, and what I had to do to carry on. Looking at that led to looking at myself clearly, with compassion and shushing the negative voices. Slowly I came to realize I could depend on myself. Fear and pain became a feeling of freedom and trust in myself, however wobbly at first.

I hope this is helpful     

[NarcKiddo]

I've been through the disillusionment with a parent. Well, with both, actually. But I think the one that maybe is more similar to your situation is with my F, though I was never enmeshed with him nor did he feel loving or regulating. I was enmeshed with my M for years but never actively thought her loving or regulating. She was all I knew and my world had to be her world.

Why I think the situation with my F may be more similar is because he did seem solid and good. My mother said he was when she wasn't railing against him for being cold and distant. And she always said he was a dutiful father. As I gradually became aware of the issues with my M I concluded my F was the classic enabler. Maybe weak, therefore, but basically solid and a good citizen. It may have stayed there except as I discussed more of my FOO life with my T she made a casual remark that made me realise my F is a full-blown narc, too.

I found that realisation to be surprisingly de-stabilising given I had never relied on him for anything much, although I did see him as an example to follow, I guess. My mother puts him on a pedestal and only she is allowed to say different. By this time I had been in therapy a while and was starting to develop some sense that internal safety might exist and is certainly something I should aspire to. But the realisation about my F was a fundamental change to something I had believed.

I think it takes its own time for the nervous system to deal with such a shift. What has helped me is trying to be clear-eyed about what my F is versus what I thought. Because I am still in contact with FOO I am able to observe his behaviour now and really analyse it. To see what is just a mask - which is a heck of a lot.

It does feel something like an abandonment, even though it was I who came to realise a truth rather than he who abandoned me.

Another similar experience that has just come to mind is with a predator who groomed me as a young teen. I was in love with him and only realised in the last few years what he actually was. Although I immediately despised the man he was, I still found myself mourning the man who did not actually exist. The one I thought I loved, and who I thought loved me. It felt like a bereavement. So maybe, as you find your own regulation in the face of your realisation, it would be helpful to treat your situation as a bereavement. Whatever level of internal safety you do or don't feel you have, you still have to learn to navigate life without the existence of someone who had been there, even if only in your own head. Maybe that will at least help you to understand, and be kind to, the feelings of being lost and crying without obvious reason.

Take care while you navigate this. 

[TheBigBlue]

Thank you, Kizzie and NK. Your replies helped normalize this as a real nervous-system shift rather than proof that I am doomed, which is how it feels from the inside. It helped to hear that the grief, fear, and disorientation make sense at this stage, even though they are intense.

I also realized that in my last two CBT sessions, my T tried to reason me out of this loss of safety, and that didn't help; it made me feel more alone and abandoned in it. I have named that to her in a message, and tomorrow I'm hoping for Pete Walker's "good enough" support (I am only in chapter 2 of his book - but its very helpful): I think I need presence and co-regulation rather than correction from my T.  For now, it helps to know that what I'm feeling is allowed, even if it's hard. Thank you.