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- #85
Ah, @Pencil you make me smile with your empathic response! Sorry you have similar experience.
The answer seems always to be...approach "her," or however many of them there are, individually with time and space and an open heart filled with compassion. Ask "her" what she wishes for and provide it. Promise her you will not abandon her, and that you will keep her safe. Invite her to show you and/or tell you what she would like to, and be attentive and supportive and protective. Invite her to let out her feelings.
The above works occasionally for me. It is actually really nice when it does. Somehow I feel as if I'm taking care of myself, which is--I guess--the point. But inevitably the one's I've identified so far either end up hiding, or go massively self-destructive, or both (as with last night). The very first was was already in hideous condition when I discovered her, and still is. Hard for me to even "look" at her.
My T says when this happens, there are other parts/energies getting in the way and those need to be dealt with first. That is very, very hard when the toxic forces are swirling. For me, I think one thing that's getting in the way is that when I get in touch with my inner children, I can't help but relate to them as their mother. I'm a good enough mother to my actual real-life childen, but something is really wrong...desperately wrong...much of the time in terms of my relationship with my inner children. A major part of me is all entangled with my own mother (I am. Have talked elsewhere on forum about how I feel like she hijacked my self). So when my inner children see me, they also see my mother. So it's as if they're me as a little kid encountering my own mother and all the associated mess around that. No wonder they want to beat themselves bloody, claw their skin off and rip out their insides! Actually, I wish they'd try to do it to her instead of themselves (well, not in that extreme, but you know what I mean). But that's not good either, because then they would be doing it to me. Then who knows what I'd do when I get overwhelmed with them. I don't know. I just don't know how to deal with this.
I think somebody else on the forum (was it you?) had posted something about a similar experience with inner children being suicidal and self-destructive. Maybe I'll hunt around and try to find that.
I continue to way overthink all this stuff--what happened to me, why it's all coming out now, how to do this therapy without losing my mind. My thinker part is really extreme...trying to tell me something, but I don't know what. Then, swirled up in the thinker part is the doubter part, constantly undermining all of it.
The answer seems always to be...approach "her," or however many of them there are, individually with time and space and an open heart filled with compassion. Ask "her" what she wishes for and provide it. Promise her you will not abandon her, and that you will keep her safe. Invite her to show you and/or tell you what she would like to, and be attentive and supportive and protective. Invite her to let out her feelings.
The above works occasionally for me. It is actually really nice when it does. Somehow I feel as if I'm taking care of myself, which is--I guess--the point. But inevitably the one's I've identified so far either end up hiding, or go massively self-destructive, or both (as with last night). The very first was was already in hideous condition when I discovered her, and still is. Hard for me to even "look" at her.
My T says when this happens, there are other parts/energies getting in the way and those need to be dealt with first. That is very, very hard when the toxic forces are swirling. For me, I think one thing that's getting in the way is that when I get in touch with my inner children, I can't help but relate to them as their mother. I'm a good enough mother to my actual real-life childen, but something is really wrong...desperately wrong...much of the time in terms of my relationship with my inner children. A major part of me is all entangled with my own mother (I am. Have talked elsewhere on forum about how I feel like she hijacked my self). So when my inner children see me, they also see my mother. So it's as if they're me as a little kid encountering my own mother and all the associated mess around that. No wonder they want to beat themselves bloody, claw their skin off and rip out their insides! Actually, I wish they'd try to do it to her instead of themselves (well, not in that extreme, but you know what I mean). But that's not good either, because then they would be doing it to me. Then who knows what I'd do when I get overwhelmed with them. I don't know. I just don't know how to deal with this.
I think somebody else on the forum (was it you?) had posted something about a similar experience with inner children being suicidal and self-destructive. Maybe I'll hunt around and try to find that.
I continue to way overthink all this stuff--what happened to me, why it's all coming out now, how to do this therapy without losing my mind. My thinker part is really extreme...trying to tell me something, but I don't know what. Then, swirled up in the thinker part is the doubter part, constantly undermining all of it.