Allowing Chaos

[Powder]

In recovery stages, and outside of proper therapy, I notice something that I want to change about myself and am not sure if I can or quite how to go about it.

There are some things that I am just never going to be good at, and that's that. Letting go.

Having an average Memory, being the calm one, and being the rock...things I want to be and will never be.

In groups situations, I feel shame inside whether or not I am assertive, aggressive or permissive. I cannot find a style or balance, because I disapprove of whatever I do because someone out there will always think its wrong. I need to have self approval and grace for myself, self love.

I cannot find this.

Pete Walker says that within C-PTSD, the real work is in saying "no" to the overly strong Inner Critic.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

In groups situations, I feel shame inside whether or not I am assertive, aggressive or permissive. I cannot find a style or balance, because I disapprove of whatever I do because someone out there will always think its wrong. I need to have self approval and grace for myself, self love.

I too feel this way as you do and I think that I am in a learning, practicing process of finding me amidst all of the shame. I at times still struggle with my inner critic yet it is not as bad as I used to be so I have grown somewhat in that aspect.

I usually in the shame stage, am harder on myself and compare me to others being more than if this makes sense. I can see the good in people and yet still have struggles in seeing me in this kind light, but I am gaining in confidence and so I attribute this to the exposures and the practice and finding that for the most part that life is improving for me. But hey I still have PTSD and always will have my struggles. I accept this.

I am looking for balance and who I am questions are being answered within myself at times. Not every day, but I have noticed am improvement. I still and will always feel unsteady in groups perhaps, because I am finally beginning to mature and learn social graces.

I think that possibilities are there for you when you are ready, I think it will happen in its own way and time.

There are some things that I am just never going to be good at, and that's that. Letting go.

I have a vision of me and where I want to be that has been slowly developing for me on the inside for many years now. I am finding that just knowing that I am good enough for now helps me out. Slowly I find that I have been setting goals for myself unawares until recently.

I sure hope this helps and if not please toss.:hug:

 

[Powder]

I have noticed that when my environment isn't the day-to-day predictable routine, or when I can perceive other's potential (dis)approval in body language or even my interpretation of it, I feel massive anxiety and try to get busy and in control.

This is the Flight response, according to Walker. Perfectionism.

I then am vulnerable to massive, constant self-critique. I interpret any small gesture as disapproval, and I already have massive internalized abuser screaming her disapproval in my head that I'm trying to tune out with my niceness.

But it never works.

I end up being too nice or people really like me, but I don't like myself, and I feel like an IMPOSTER or con artist.

If I were to be honest, I would basically be crying and weeping to every new person, but I know I cannot do that. I think it is best to subtly hint that there is a heaviness in me as a survivor, without giving any of it away, and if the person is wise and knows (is also in the club of survivor status) that person will be able to read the signs of my traumatic survival and growth.

However, here I am crying and wondering what to do on my 7 year old birthday feeling emotional flashbacks to my mother criticizing, yelling at me, and drowning me. I feel terrible that I cannot stop or protect myself from imploding for my kid. SHe will remember that I cried on her birthday and sent them to their room to play because the noise and triggering.

I suspect that I found the birthday party triggering to my childhood, not triggering to trauma. Just that it pulls me back, and back is always bad.

 

[sedna]

In recovery stages, and outside of proper therapy, I notice something that I want to change about myself an...

Because I was just on shimmerz thread about narcissistic parents, I was thinking about how the very beginning developmental stages are thwarted with all consuming dysfunctional parents.

Maybe it doesnt apply to you, but if your developing psyche began with feeling the need to have permission and approval to feel safe and positive about yourself, then its a little different. The feelings come from a core developmental level instead of trauma or bad experiences later. You almost have to approach it like you've adopted a 5 year old and are trying to get her to stop internalizing everyone else in the room before she acknowledges her own feelings.

Self help books, spa days and empowering statements never help for long when the problem starts that young.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I end up being too nice or people really like me, but I don't like myself, and I feel like an IMPOSTER or con artist.

I understand where you are coming from and I empathize with your plight.

The best thing that ever happened was when the day came that a very wise person pointed how bad my inner critic was and this was a form of self abuse. What do you think?

You are a really great person and I feel good talking and listening to you. When you read this do you feel like you are a con artist which I do not think you are as your pattern here has been diligent and determined, self disciplined and kind honesty.

What do you think on hearing this?:hug:

Wh

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I agree with coco.

 

[sedna]

I have noticed that when my environment isn't the day-to-day predictable routine, or when I can perceive ot...

Yeah okay then, I saw this after my post just now. You know, it took me forever and a small fortune to finally admit that I had basic developmental damage that was going to keep recreating the cycle of emotion I had had since I was 3. I just wanted to barf over all that inner child crap, and I never wanted to be as honest about all the shame and desperation for validation I needed as you just were here. I saw it as weakness that was pathetic, and saying it out loud would make my secret shame even worse.

It isnt really a thought or emotional process that is happening there, being around any new people, even in ordinary situations is a trigger, because being okay in their eyes is a survival necessity in your subconscious mind. That has nothing to do with real self esteem, its early childhood training.

 

[Powder]

Thank you, @coco9

I was trying to make the connection and just am too close to it at the moment.

I keep feeling the fact that I was constantly critically attacked by my narcissistic and abusive parents was made more potent because I was basically having my life threatened and was afraid that if I wasn't perfect in their eyes, if they saw any flaw, it would become the excuse for abandoning, raping or drowning me again. When they took me to a foreign place, I thought it was to be rid of me and to make it sound like the jungle just got me. I saw it as taking the rape victim to the mountains to die and be lost forever there. No body, no crime. No extradition.

I know this but I have not yet found any parachute or way to jump off this emotional plane of fear and shame.

You're right it was formed in my mind so early and is so fixed that I am doing the work to shrink the Inner Critic but I can only get so far with it. I do things to tell my inner self that I am safe, even if these people don't approve of me, they are not going to shake me, scream at me, or hurt me in any way.

It is a form of self-perpetuation of the abuse, but not intentional or meant to harm me. I am merely hearing my soul tell me "you are hurting, you are hurting, this hurts, it hurts."

By coming on here, I am being honest with myself that I am in a ton of pain and despair. Not because of what happened today but because of who I am, what I have lived, and how it's part of my core and early fixed identity.

 

[Powder]

I'm starting to feel much better because @gizmo and @coco9 took the time today to respond with caring and acceptance of the situation and feelings.

Thank you both for helping me to just sit with this and let it be okay for another day.

Hugs and appreciation.

:hug::inlove:

 

[Deleted member 12723]

:hug:

 

[Friday]

I'm naturally pretty damn submissive, & a follower not a leader. I like being told what to do, how to do it, and that I did it well (or badly, and do it again, and this time lets do it right). It's 50,000 kinds of utterly relaxing. OMFG. Bliss. :D :smug: Ahhhhhhh.

I am extremely selective on who I'm willing to listen to, however. Both TrustIssues & Discrimination & HardLessonsLearned. So instead of the freedom & bliss inherent in acting on orders under someone else's authority? I mostly operate on my own. Even inside of a group, it's still my choice to be there, so the responsibility of my actions inside that group, are still my own.

No. It's not comfortable. Ever.

And, yes, the few times I have been able to cheerfully cede authority? The freedom involved in it is intoxicating.

But just because ceding authority feels good, and self direction feels bad? It doesn't follow that either is right/wrong.

So that's what I have to ask myself : Did I do the right thing? If not... Then what is the right thing, and how do I do that? It may not be the best choice, but as long as it's not the wrong choice? Then <nod> okay. I made the right choice. In that instance. For me. Next time I may make a different choice, having learned from this one. I may also change my mind, now or later. But my choices? Are my own. I keep making them, and keep improving on them, and keep holding the responsibility for them. This is me. Doing this.

Doing the right thing rarely feels good, in my experience. Things that have no right/wrong? Those can feel amazing. :D But where there's an actual right vs wrong? Nope. :wtf: The right thing usually sucks. And it's hard. And I'd really love for it to not be my responsibility to make that call. But it is my responsibility, at the end of the day, no one else's. Succeed or fail, proud or embarrassed by, something to build on or something to start deconstructing, these are my choices.

Where to start? While I prefer to begin as I mean to go on (just like I prefer to cede authority), start small. Find things you *already* do that are not up for debate or challenge. (Hint: Anything that has a "that doesn't count!" attached to it = things you already own, completely.) And then move on from there. Small choices. The color of a shirt. The time of a meal. Choose something, anything, that you want someone else's approval on, or someone else's direction, or someone else's way of doing it, or someone else's je ne sais quoi... and do that, without anyone's approval but your own. Then add more things.

 

[Powder]

There's so much chaos within. Finding a calm place is a challenge, especially when life is itself making for chaos.

Finding a way toward a calm place within is how people must endure the hard parts of life without snapping or doing something unthinkable.
My mom got very full of rage and revenge one night and drowned my sister in the river. Lucky she took me to drown as well, and she didn't know me yet.
Under the kind, calm exterior I am apparently able to summon reserves.

I knocked her so hard with a rock that she stopped drowning my little sister in the river at night. She drove us home looking defeated, sullen, and quiet. We never spoke of it.

My sister and I got pneumonia and dual ear infections, and when my mom gave us pink liquid penicillin I wondered if it was poisoned (she was a nurse).

I didn't care. I would rather die of poisoning than drowning.

Lately, I feel my ambivalence in trying to figure out how to engage or disengage in stressful chaotic times comes from my ambivalence of wanting to live and not wanting to live under such conditions.

I sometimes feel that saving us was right. Other times, I wonder if it would have been a mercy to have let it happen. I know it's morbid.