I've been wanting to post about this but have been trying to get the perfect words and scared that people will just dismiss is as stupidity. It's hard to even know how to articulate it but here goes:
The Inner Critic:
I have a very harsh inner critic. There are times when I am able to simply listen its 'talk-shit' and not get on the train with it. My inner critic has become aware of this as over the last three years and has found a new source of shaming, an ex partner.
When the critic is shaming me from this angle it really feels as though I am being walked around all day with a gun at the base of my neck just waiting for it to be fired. In this mode the critic easily drives me towards self harming and suicidal ideation.
The inner critic is noxious and untameable when fueled by the situation with the ex.
Q: Can anyone relate to this - either the critic leading to suicidal ideation, attempts or self harming and it being exacerbated when link to a particular person?
The Ex:
I was with her seven years ago and have not had a relationship since.
During the relationship I had my first round of explicit PTSD symptoms: flashbacks, anxiety attacks, paranoia etc. The symptoms forced me into the first round of acknowledging the impact of my childhood on my adult life.
I was distraught and totally disintegrated; lost any sense of reality; my job and eventually became homeless. I had no one to fall back on apart from someone who had been really supportive and allowed me to stay on her sofa for a while.
The ex tried, at times she was very kind and supportive, mostly I experienced her as dissociated (she'd zone out when I started speaking about my experience and how difficult it was) self harmed (cutting) and was emotionally abandoning. This was massively triggering for me. It was near to the end of the relationship that I realized I was feeling additionally awful because how she reacted to things. Things seemed to be okay as long as I wasn't feeling or needing too much or they were about her feelings. This took me back to childhood on so many levels.
It was even more triggering as she was the first person I had opened up to, let see me so vulnerable (not that I had a choice) I would go as far as to say I loved her (probably still do) however unskillfully.
I was quite controlling in the relationship. I tried to control the overwhelming emotions/pain that I was experiencing by ending the relationship on several occasions. She would go home (she camped out in my flat)
go on a self harming binge and passively aggressively portray me to her friends and family as the baddie who was making her do this.
I also had no boundaries and would talk with her about my ex partners (two I was still friends with and would hang with, one was the someone above who let me stay on her sofa) I now see that as times I used these relationships to make her jealous in order to get a response, some presence.
I ended the relationship as it was just too painful. We talked for a little while after but then I asked for no contact because I just felt too much pain communicating with her and wanted to focus on my recovery.
Three years ago we bumped into each other and started talking again. It felt okay, even good, she was abroad for a few months but asked to stay in contact. We both acknowledged that the relationship has been important for our development and to that extent we were grateful and felt each other to be significant people.
While away she split up with the person she was with, and starting talking about wanting to spend time together when she got back, wanting to get to know me again. She had hinted at the idea before and I felt fine about it but when she told me about the ex I became suspicious. (I've been the rebound, emotional rescue person a lot)
We had a conversation a few nights before she was due back in the country, it was quite intimate and I told her that although in some ways life was more stable, I still felt a lot of shame inside, that I felt incapable of intimacy and often really hopeless about that aspect of my life. It was met with a 'slowly shuffling away towards the exit silence', I recognized it from the time I was in a relationship with her. Enter sympathetic nervous system. I'm aware that I am sensitive to perceiving abandonment when it isn't there and so tried to sit with it. Everything in my body was screaming 'noooooooooooooo'. I don't even remember what she said after the silence.
When she got back and called to arrange a date to meet I told her that it didn't know what it was but I knew it was too painful and I couldn't and I was really sorry, and believe me I was. I really wanted it to work, for us to be friends somehow. We had what felt to be a kind and understanding conversation and that was the end. Three days later she called me to talk. I said I'd call her back but I didn't. I couldn't, I felt that if we talked more than I'd just be pulled back in again, I've always felt that way with her. I texted and asked her to please support me in holding my boundary by not texting, emailing or calling because it was hard. That was the end. I saw her a few months ago in the street, we were on the same side of the street walking in opposite directions, I gave a little smile and looked at her to acknowledge her and she totally blanked me, just looked into the distance. This really hurt. Although on some level I understand it.
Q: Is anyone still triggered by an ex partner? How do you manage this?
Do you think it's simply an unhealthy attachment/me projecting my stuff or does it sound like what happened between us was a discrete traumatizing incident?
Inner CriticMaterial:
I feel awful about my part - the making her jealous and abandonment (ending the relationship). I feel that it must have been so damaging for her self esteem, I basically feel as though I have probably given her PTSD.
I would like to make an amends at some point if appropriate, once I have sifted through the feelings.
Q: Does anyone else feel awful about their behavior in a previous relationships and have their inner critic use it as material? How do you process/manage this?
Further Complications:
We are both artists in the same community. I have always felt and been given the impression that she is 'better than me'. Once when on the phone after a self harming binge she put her sister to the phone who said ' your just much more talented and she's jealous', ~(directed towards me) I could hear her (my ex) laughing through her 'tears' - this was really hurtful and I took it to mean she believed that. There were other times when we were out in artistic contexts and she would collude in my belittlement.
She is very good at showing her vulnerability, her scars (literally and metaphorically) and so people give her sympathy and she is able to build relationships, allies.
If there is any jealousy it is about this, that she can be vulnerable and that she knows how to do this in her work and is able to create favorable relationships on this basis - there is jealousy and admiration.
Over the last few years I've made baby steps in putting myself out there artistically and am having quite a bit of success. I am seeing that it was never a case of her being 'better than' but that she was able to put herself forward and show up. I didn't because of not having the skills; being able to be vulnerable and build relationships.
I can come across as unfriendly and arrogant, I'm not but its social anxiety - a major fear of being attacked, humiliated, rejected, abandoned - I've been living in freeze. I've only come to understand this over the last year. As I write this I feel stinging in my eyes and nose, I want to cry.
(I think this is because I can feel the pain of living like this, the lack of self compassion and a sense that the passive aggression of my ex was also the same nasty stuff that made me feel a lot of the CSA was my responsibility)
I'm at quite a crucial turning point now, in my personal and artistic recovery, artistic opportunities to become very visible. I have general anxiety about this but even more when I think that she will be watching -- then comes the inner critic, again.
Q: Can anyone relate to this? Does anyone have any constructive thoughts about this?
I just want to be able to start to enjoy the gifts that I have and build a life without all this torment.
I'd appreciate answers I guess I am also looking for some identification. I feel like this was too long and rambling, the questions are all wrong but f*%k it, it's a start (as well as an essay!). Thanks for reading.
The Inner Critic:
I have a very harsh inner critic. There are times when I am able to simply listen its 'talk-shit' and not get on the train with it. My inner critic has become aware of this as over the last three years and has found a new source of shaming, an ex partner.
When the critic is shaming me from this angle it really feels as though I am being walked around all day with a gun at the base of my neck just waiting for it to be fired. In this mode the critic easily drives me towards self harming and suicidal ideation.
The inner critic is noxious and untameable when fueled by the situation with the ex.
Q: Can anyone relate to this - either the critic leading to suicidal ideation, attempts or self harming and it being exacerbated when link to a particular person?
The Ex:
I was with her seven years ago and have not had a relationship since.
During the relationship I had my first round of explicit PTSD symptoms: flashbacks, anxiety attacks, paranoia etc. The symptoms forced me into the first round of acknowledging the impact of my childhood on my adult life.
I was distraught and totally disintegrated; lost any sense of reality; my job and eventually became homeless. I had no one to fall back on apart from someone who had been really supportive and allowed me to stay on her sofa for a while.
The ex tried, at times she was very kind and supportive, mostly I experienced her as dissociated (she'd zone out when I started speaking about my experience and how difficult it was) self harmed (cutting) and was emotionally abandoning. This was massively triggering for me. It was near to the end of the relationship that I realized I was feeling additionally awful because how she reacted to things. Things seemed to be okay as long as I wasn't feeling or needing too much or they were about her feelings. This took me back to childhood on so many levels.
It was even more triggering as she was the first person I had opened up to, let see me so vulnerable (not that I had a choice) I would go as far as to say I loved her (probably still do) however unskillfully.
I was quite controlling in the relationship. I tried to control the overwhelming emotions/pain that I was experiencing by ending the relationship on several occasions. She would go home (she camped out in my flat)
go on a self harming binge and passively aggressively portray me to her friends and family as the baddie who was making her do this.
I also had no boundaries and would talk with her about my ex partners (two I was still friends with and would hang with, one was the someone above who let me stay on her sofa) I now see that as times I used these relationships to make her jealous in order to get a response, some presence.
I ended the relationship as it was just too painful. We talked for a little while after but then I asked for no contact because I just felt too much pain communicating with her and wanted to focus on my recovery.
Three years ago we bumped into each other and started talking again. It felt okay, even good, she was abroad for a few months but asked to stay in contact. We both acknowledged that the relationship has been important for our development and to that extent we were grateful and felt each other to be significant people.
While away she split up with the person she was with, and starting talking about wanting to spend time together when she got back, wanting to get to know me again. She had hinted at the idea before and I felt fine about it but when she told me about the ex I became suspicious. (I've been the rebound, emotional rescue person a lot)
We had a conversation a few nights before she was due back in the country, it was quite intimate and I told her that although in some ways life was more stable, I still felt a lot of shame inside, that I felt incapable of intimacy and often really hopeless about that aspect of my life. It was met with a 'slowly shuffling away towards the exit silence', I recognized it from the time I was in a relationship with her. Enter sympathetic nervous system. I'm aware that I am sensitive to perceiving abandonment when it isn't there and so tried to sit with it. Everything in my body was screaming 'noooooooooooooo'. I don't even remember what she said after the silence.
When she got back and called to arrange a date to meet I told her that it didn't know what it was but I knew it was too painful and I couldn't and I was really sorry, and believe me I was. I really wanted it to work, for us to be friends somehow. We had what felt to be a kind and understanding conversation and that was the end. Three days later she called me to talk. I said I'd call her back but I didn't. I couldn't, I felt that if we talked more than I'd just be pulled back in again, I've always felt that way with her. I texted and asked her to please support me in holding my boundary by not texting, emailing or calling because it was hard. That was the end. I saw her a few months ago in the street, we were on the same side of the street walking in opposite directions, I gave a little smile and looked at her to acknowledge her and she totally blanked me, just looked into the distance. This really hurt. Although on some level I understand it.
Q: Is anyone still triggered by an ex partner? How do you manage this?
Do you think it's simply an unhealthy attachment/me projecting my stuff or does it sound like what happened between us was a discrete traumatizing incident?
Inner CriticMaterial:
I feel awful about my part - the making her jealous and abandonment (ending the relationship). I feel that it must have been so damaging for her self esteem, I basically feel as though I have probably given her PTSD.
I would like to make an amends at some point if appropriate, once I have sifted through the feelings.
Q: Does anyone else feel awful about their behavior in a previous relationships and have their inner critic use it as material? How do you process/manage this?
Further Complications:
We are both artists in the same community. I have always felt and been given the impression that she is 'better than me'. Once when on the phone after a self harming binge she put her sister to the phone who said ' your just much more talented and she's jealous', ~(directed towards me) I could hear her (my ex) laughing through her 'tears' - this was really hurtful and I took it to mean she believed that. There were other times when we were out in artistic contexts and she would collude in my belittlement.
She is very good at showing her vulnerability, her scars (literally and metaphorically) and so people give her sympathy and she is able to build relationships, allies.
If there is any jealousy it is about this, that she can be vulnerable and that she knows how to do this in her work and is able to create favorable relationships on this basis - there is jealousy and admiration.
Over the last few years I've made baby steps in putting myself out there artistically and am having quite a bit of success. I am seeing that it was never a case of her being 'better than' but that she was able to put herself forward and show up. I didn't because of not having the skills; being able to be vulnerable and build relationships.
I can come across as unfriendly and arrogant, I'm not but its social anxiety - a major fear of being attacked, humiliated, rejected, abandoned - I've been living in freeze. I've only come to understand this over the last year. As I write this I feel stinging in my eyes and nose, I want to cry.
(I think this is because I can feel the pain of living like this, the lack of self compassion and a sense that the passive aggression of my ex was also the same nasty stuff that made me feel a lot of the CSA was my responsibility)
I'm at quite a crucial turning point now, in my personal and artistic recovery, artistic opportunities to become very visible. I have general anxiety about this but even more when I think that she will be watching -- then comes the inner critic, again.
Q: Can anyone relate to this? Does anyone have any constructive thoughts about this?
I just want to be able to start to enjoy the gifts that I have and build a life without all this torment.
I'd appreciate answers I guess I am also looking for some identification. I feel like this was too long and rambling, the questions are all wrong but f*%k it, it's a start (as well as an essay!). Thanks for reading.
