Self-compassion leads to destructive thoughts?

[DogwoodTree]

First, I'm not actively suicidal or self-harming or anything. But I had a bit of a revelation in therapy today, and it's kind of unexpected? I guess I'm wondering if this makes sense to anyone, or any thoughts on how to shift this.

My T started EMDR with me a couple of months ago--I'm only seeing him monthly right now because he raised his rates and I'm self-pay and can't afford more frequent sessions. Anyway, for three sessions now, he's focused heavily on developing a sense of compassion for the kid I was when my parents and then my step-dad treated me so badly, and then when I struggled so much socially, especially in school. I hate that kid I was, how ignorant and naive I was, how dependent and awkward and weird and weak. I totally get that's not so unusual for a child, and I understand I did the best I could in impossible situations. But I have no soft feelings of affection or compassion towards that person I was. I'm autistic, so all my life (I'm 46) I've experienced delayed development in the area of understanding interpersonal relations. Even before I knew I was autistic (late-diagnosed), I knew I was weird and didn't fit and slow to figure out how the social world worked, even though I was gifted academically. Ever since I was tiny, I observed my progress over time to ensure I was always improving and becoming more aware and more skilled at handling social interactions. So there's this intense drive to leave that old, less capable self behind each progressive year and always be moving forward, learning more, doing better.

Today we had a long conversation about self-compassion, and trying to develop a sense of compassion toward my younger self to help break through the shame so we can work on the trauma stuff in EMDR. He's trying to help me see my inherent value as a child, as a human being. But through the course of the conversation, I explained that valuing my existence means having to value the misery I experience nearly every day from feeling so isolated inside from the combined effects of trauma and autism. He asked if I could just have a small amount of compassion for the impossibility I faced as a child. And while I can acknowledge that the challenges I experienced placed impossible demands on me, my logical conclusion is that the most compassionate thing I could do for that child, if this were possible, is to go back in time and convince my mom to abort me. Self-compassion, to me, is acknowledging the misery of my internal existence (even now that I've been able to resolve many of the external stressors from my emotionally abusive FOO) and, if this were scientifically possible, preventing my progression to the point where I have a husband and kids who rely on me. In my mind, self-compassion would lead to suicide, self-euthanasia, a self-mercy-killing.

I don't think that's at all where my T expected that conversation to go. He said he's going to rethink his approach and not pursue that avenue of developing self-compassion in order to break the shame. In a way, that's a discouraging acknowledgement of the hopelessness and frustration I continue to face in trying to resolve these issues from the years of trauma. But I understand his reasoning, I guess, in recognizing that I don't experience life as a gift but as a burden, a series of obligations to other people. And an offering of self-care would be to eliminate the misery for myself. While I totally understand that would create tragically increased misery for my husband and kids, and I don't intend to carry this out, there's a driving desire for escape.

Does this make sense to anyone, or are my thoughts just so distorted that this is all really bizarre? How can I reframe self-compassion to include continuing my life for my own sake, not just for the sake of others?

All that said, I do experience joy in my work, and in my contributions to my husband and kids. I'm doing "all the things" you're supposed to do to take good care of yourself: eating well, sleeping as well as I can manage, exercise, hobbies, rest time, etc. I just don't find enough joy in all that to counter-balance the misery of feeling so alone inside. My T and I have discussed that topic at length, how to help me not feel so alone inside, and nothing works. He can give me the kindest, gentlest, most caring responses to the pain and struggles I share in my sessions, and they're just empty words. Nothing gets in. No matter how hard I try to receive it, even with my husband and kids, the love expressed to me just feels surface-level and never even begins to touch the deep darkness and pain inside. I'm not adequately explaining it here. And my T didn't believe at first what I was describing. But now he's seen times when we both acknowledge the compassion and empathy he's offering are done sincerely and healthily, and yet, it has no effect on the inside for me. Nothing. It's like his words are just static. We've been at this for years now and not been able to crack open that barrier. He talked today about bringing some of my unmet emotional needs from childhood into relationships so they can at least be partially met, but I've been trying for several years now, and nothing works. It only feels more and more hopeless and alone and painful. The pain is so intense and overwhelming that I decided several months ago to stop trying to bring those needs out, to stop looking for emotional connection, to accept surface-level interactions with people and try to fake it well enough that others won't notice. Most of the time, that's manageable. I'm getting better at it. But when the internal barriers fail, the pain inside is intense and intolerable. But we've not found any solutions other than basic pain management strategies.

I don't know if any of this makes sense. I've not yet developed adequate language to describe the internal experience, and can't find literature online discussing it accurately. It sounds like it shouldn't be that big of a problem, when I just read over what I've written. But the experience is excruciating, to the point my thoughts consistently turn to suicide to try to relieve the pain.

 

[Sideways]

Does this make sense to anyone, or are my thoughts just so distorted that this is all really bizarre?

Makes perfect sense.

For me? Doing something for the sake of 'self-compassion' leads me to want to punish myself to keep the scales balanced.

How can I reframe self-compassion to include continuing my life for my own sake, not just for the sake of others?

I personally use the phrase "self-neutral" atm. A step in the compassion direction, but not that far, and not that confronting.

Self-neutral means meeting the basic needs of any human being: nutrition, rest, warmth, exercise, human connection, etc.

That's hard enough right now. But that's what I aim for. Just self-neutral - a happy medium between self-destruction and self-compassion.

And it's a work in progress.

 

[ladee]

What you shared makes sense to me too. And I always wonder how 'joy' feels. I've had happy times, short-lived. I've had all the feelings that we experience. So I simply took that off my list to strive for.

And your idea of being aborted made sense to me too. I was not wanted and paid the price. I feel, for myself, that I decided to have a 'good enough' life. Not all the labels of happiness and joy that are thrown around like it's this ultimate goal we have to reach. That we are in a deficit if we don't feel these things.

I don't know if I am defective or not. I don't let others describe me or tell me what I should or should not be feeling or doing. And that took a long time to untangle.

Just keep searching for your own definitions of how you want to be in the world. I'm not clear either on what 'self-compassion' is. Maybe we can learn this one together.

 

[grit]

I understand everything you wrote deeply. I do not have exactly the same but I also get damaged in self development area....deeply but I feel I am sort of recovering...sort of.

I will recommend couple books not sure they can help but they did for me and I am in therapy school so that helped me. Your other developmentvis quite strong and trust me that is a great thing ....the balancing act of the self is not developed and you developed some sort of phobia so that is maybe an area of damage.
Anyhow I may not be making sense.

I recommend these authors:
Winnicot.
Fairbanks.
Bion.
Melanie klein
Daniel stern
Kohut - analysis of self and how do therapy cure...
I may not be quoting the titles right.
All these books have something in common- how self is developed and what happens certain phases and how to heal.

Your understanding is really in depth. I am so surprised you are not yet find the breakthrough.
Wishing you well.

 

[Eagle3]

As a fellow Autistic, I totally get where you're coming from, and am currently in talks with my T along the same lines. NT's just don't get how excruciatingly difficult and painful it is for us to see others connecting on a level we can't manage to find. Tack on the trauma piece, and its a miracle we get through life at all. My family has recently stated (yet again!) that they can't/won't help me manage life, even though I'm finding it impossible to get and keep a job that makes me financially independent. So, yeah, my life is not worth the pain and effort I keep pouring into it, yet I can't give up. Its not in me to quit. I keep trying to make SOMETHING better, even though I know the odds of that happening are slim. Most days I wish I had never been born, and totally see the logic of my death. I often think the most compassionate thing anyone could do for me would be to take me out, and I've told my T that!

Life is doubly-hard for us, so I don't think you're crazy at all. I totally get it. I think that way myself. Honestly, I think any Autistic, or even a NT, can see the truth of compassionate non-existence/death if they REALLY look at things realistically. Then again, this is why I'm in therapy for the last 10 years....

 

[DogwoodTree]

I personally use the phrase "self-neutral" atm. A step in the compassion direction, but not that far, and not that confronting.

Self-neutral means meeting the basic needs of any human being: nutrition, rest, warmth, exercise, human connection, etc.

That's hard enough right now. But that's what I aim for. Just self-neutral - a happy medium between self-destruction and self-compassion.

Oh, that's an interesting way of looking at it. Okay, I'm going to work with that...thank you.

Not all the labels of happiness and joy that are thrown around like it's this ultimate goal we have to reach. That we are in a deficit if we don't feel these things

I agree that happiness or a consistently joyful state is not a reasonable goal. I do try to notice the things that I find pleasure in, to help balance out the things that hurt so badly. I also treasure the pain and sadness, in a way, thankful that it helps me understand other people better and treat them more kindly.

The sense of "deficit" or "defectiveness" comes from the things I can't do that are needed, such as being physically intimate with my husband or making friends. I'm learning to accept these shortcomings as well. However, the loneliness inside, when I allow it to surface, is intolerable. My T yesterday talked about bringing my needs into relationships to increase connectedness, vulnerability, healthy interdependence, and to reduce the shame around not having those needs met as a child. But even when I do bring those needs into relationships, no one is able to meet those needs. The behaviors they offer to comfort don't "connect" with my internal experience. And so my experience is that I've made a request for connection and the person has refused, even though I can see that they offered what they believe to be connection, I don't experience it that way, and so I experience rejection or abandonment or whatever on the inside, no matter how hard I try to convince myself otherwise. So it's easier--more functional--to simply not bring those emotional needs into relationships at all. And that is defective, in the sense that it doesn't resolve the problem, it only results in my packing away my needs and emotions and having to keep all of that bound up inside.

you developed some sort of phobia so that is maybe an area of damage.

I don't think it's a phobia. It's not uncontrollable fear. I interact with people a lot in my work, even doing public speaking quite a bit. I'm not afraid of people. I just don't experience a sense of connection with them. It's all an act. I put on a performance to appear as normal as possible, but stuff leaks through, just enough so people never want to get too close. And when I'm not in performance mode at work (because it's exhausting to maintain that facade), the differences are even more glaring to the point where most people just avoid me.

As a fellow Autistic

I was hoping you'd see this and post...

NT's just don't get how excruciatingly difficult and painful it is for us to see others connecting on a level we can't manage to find

I read an article on this yesterday. See if I can link it...
Just a spectator

It seems that much of the suffering in this comes from observing others getting what we so desperately need and can't do. I've greatly limited my exposure to people in unorganized gatherings, but I still observe people interacting in ways that reveal how close they feel to other people, how comforted they are by people's offerings of empathy or compassion or whatever. I'm constantly amazed that those experiences are real for them. I always faked those responses, thinking that's what everyone else is doing. But many times, their experiences are genuine and that just blows my mind. All that raging pain inside me, and other people just reach out to someone who cares, hear their words, and feel comforted by that interaction. How??? How does that work for them? How do they manage to do that? I don't get it. It doesn't click for me. So I'm left to struggle through my pain completely on my own, with no sense of being accompanied or connected or "held" by other people through it. And then to see other people being comforted in their pain, and I think, what's so wrong with me? Why don't I matter like that? Why doesn't anyone care about me that way? And yet, they do, they offer similar kinds of support to me, but it doesn't click. Their words are just empty static, like they give other people the "real" support but only give me the "fake" support, the placebo. I know that's not their intent, but it's how I experience it inside.

 

[Friday]

other people just reach out to someone who cares, hear their words, and feel comforted by that interaction. How??? How does that work for them? How do they manage to do that? I don't get it. It doesn't click for me.

Do you know what does click for you?

Maybe 96% of what people do doesn’t click for me. The remaining 4% only click when it’s done by the “right” kind of person.

I’ve been lucky enough to live in an environment where nearly everyone does the 4% as a matter of course, the 96% norm is considered gross or something to be tolerated at best; and the wide spectrum of personalities involved means there’s an embarrassment of riches in the “right” kind of person.

I was also lucky enough this happened when I was fairly young -17- so whilst I spent most of my childhood confused as to why people do “that” (the way most people offer support, consolation, connection, understanding), and most of my adulthood without it, I do know it exists. There are people who connect to me the way I feel connected, people who offer support in a way I can be comforted by, and sometimes those people even all group together. And the way I feel things, and do things, and accept/offer things is just flat out the way it’s done.

I don’t know that without having lived it I would know the way I connect, feel comforted, etc. But on the other hand, in some ways it feels like I’ve always known, which is what made its absence to hard before I had it. Like people were deliberately NOT doing what would make things right. So, since it sounds like it isn’t an experience you’ve lived, or lived yet, do you know what’s missing? What’s “right”? What would click?

 

[DogwoodTree]

So, since it sounds like it isn’t an experience you’ve lived, or lived yet, do you know what’s missing? What’s “right”? What would click?

I've racked my brain for years trying to figure that out. Every so often, like every several months, something someone says or does will slip in and feel "real." It's usually unexpected. It's faint. If I think over it too much trying to figure out what worked, I lose the sense of it altogether. If I try to pursue a repeat of the experience, inevitably it fails. It seems that what "works" is to give up looking for any of it, and then just try to notice and appreciate if something connects faintly on rare occasions. That's not enough to go on, though, not enough to help us figure out how to meet my need for connection.

I’ve been lucky enough to live in an environment where nearly everyone does the 4% as a matter of course, the 96% norm is considered gross or something to be tolerated at best; and the wide spectrum of personalities involved means there’s an embarrassment of riches in the “right” kind of person.

That must be amazing

 

[Ronin]

That's not enough to go on, though, not enough to help us figure out how to meet my need for connection.

Can you log that stuff?

Only noting something clicked...

Then trace the pattern back to how, why, with who.

 

[Eagle3]

After 10 years of therapy, I've realized that my ability to access and express emotions is directly influenced by safe touch. My therapist is able to use this info, but it doesn't work all the time. Actually FEELING any connection to my T? Hit or miss at best. Usually no, at least not in the neurotypical sense.

I'm going to give my T that article Dogwood posted. That was amazing, and explains my experience MUCH better than I ever could!

 

[grit]

When I used the word phobia, I did not mean you have phobia of people which seems obvious if you have a therapist that you seem to have a great therapeutic alliance. The phobia was toward core self. I know nothing about you or your past but inferring about what you write here it appears as if your biggest issue is not object constancy but self - core self is developmentally or genetically in deficit or has defects arising from environmentally. These are just my words nothing scientific or knowing.

I am curious to gauge your imagination of what you think you will be like let us say if you had no one to support - to husband, no children, no job, nothing. What would that look like? All material and familial are gone? Who are you? I mean these sort of things happen.
I think if you can imagine or embed life where there is no attachment, no relationships, no possessions (I know super hard to do) and never something that happens usually voluntarily but if you can imagine then what? Maybe you are at more advanced and that creates the unrelating feelings with others not so much that you are missing something but majority of people are missing some. both can be true at the same time or both can be false or one can be true...it goes on.

It is interesting to read your posts and one of the reasons I recommended Fairbanks (even though I will alert - please read it with an open mind because when he wrote his book homosexuality was considered a mental condition) but he goes into deep describtions of child development and demonstrates the fascinating ways we can all get trauma impact in every inch of our developing self and how that manifests in adult behaviours and personality.

Most mental health approaches and therapies agree on one thing, to heal is a sweet spot of accepting as we are and wanting to change and whenever we fall too far on the spectrum is usually when we start to experience anxiety, depression and many other things. It is that sweet spot of accepting who were truly and still wanting that change to be in our ideal self that sustains in humanity.

Where do you think you are in accepting and changing at the same time to become more of your ideal self that you sometimes get glimpses of it.

I am noting comments, anecdotes and books I read because simply I find your post interesting but by no means, I really do not know much of anything and can only speak from my limited subjective view of reading your post and comments.

I thought I will just share my thoughts for now and sit back and learn.

 

[DogwoodTree]

Can you log that stuff?

Gotta think about that. It's like trying to log your dreams...the more you try to remember what you dreamed, the less clear the whole thing becomes, almost to the point of doubting any of it happened at all.

Still thinking, though...because I realize that, in addition to the autism issues, I also despise the idea of having someone else meet my needs. I can't let myself be humiliated that way. And of course that's a filter, where I'm putting a distorted spin on it. I've watched my parents and one sister in particular act so needy over the years, relying on people (including me from a very young age) to manage their emotions for them, coddle their egos, pat them on the head and promise salvation. It's so disgusting to watch grown adults whining to children, or to bleeding heart rescuers, or to ego-maniacs on a mission, hoping for someone to "save" them from all their struggles and make life all better for them. I associate all that with "getting emotional needs met." How do you submit emotional needs to a relationship without becoming a whiny, manipulative, puny puddle of self-pitying tears? The only thing I've figured out is to ask for help with "needs" that aren't really needs, that you could easily handle yourself if the other person turns down your request. So, even if I could figure out how someone else could help meet my real emotional needs, I don't think I'd have the courage to ask for it. Because I don't want to be needy.

(Side note...I don't mean to say that people who cry or have needs in relationships are whiny or manipulative or whatever. I recognize--cognitively--that there are healthy ways of going about this. I just haven't figured it out yet.)

my ability to access and express emotions is directly influenced by safe touch

Touch helps? How? What changes or shifts when there's safe touch?

Touch tends to make me freeze. But that ability to access and express emotions live, as it's happening during an interaction (especially with your T), that would be really helpful. Have you heard the term delayed emotional processing? That's what I experience. It seems I don't have much access to my emotions during an interaction. It's only after the conversation is over...minutes, hours, days, even weeks or months later...that I figure out how I feel/felt about the situation.

When I used the word phobia, I did not mean you have phobia of people which seems obvious if you have a therapist that you seem to have a great therapeutic alliance. The phobia was toward core self.

Okay, I think I see.

I am curious to gauge your imagination of what you think you will be like let us say if you had no one to support - to husband, no children, no job, nothing. What would that look like?

I've spent a lot of time alone all my life...walking in the woods or bike riding alone was my favorite go-to when I was a kid, to get away from everyone else. So "being alone" isn't a problem for me. But knowing who I really am underneath all the performance layers from trying to get along in a neurotypical society...not so much. I've read a lot about autistic masking and unmasking, leaving the mask behind and becoming authentically autistic, not hiding my traits anymore. But I can't do it. I tried a little bit, like allowing people to see some of my stims or more boldly acknowledging my need for alone time. But it was so hurtful to people and confusing to them, and so confusing to me, because I couldn't rely on my tried-and-true social algorithms to handle the interactions anymore. So I quit doing that. I don't want to annoy people or stand out as being weird. It typically doesn't go well. It's not helpful to them or to me, so why bother.

Where do you think you are in accepting and changing at the same time to become more of your ideal self that you sometimes get glimpses of it.

Yeah, there has to be both, acceptance and change. I've always pushed hard for the "change"...working now on the "acceptance" part. But as I accept, also isolating to protect people from the things about me I can't change.