Self-compassion leads to destructive thoughts?

[Sideways]

Coming from someone who doesn't trust anyone (!!)

How do you submit emotional needs to a relationship without becoming a whiny, manipulative, puny puddle of self-pitying tears?

You start smaller maybe? Like, one of your emotional needs from a friend might be that they are kind of fun to be around more often than not. So, they're helping me have fun.

Or even smaller: this person is a human connection for me, and that's enough to start with. And that? Could be as simple as asking the person at your petrol/gas station what their name is, and remembering to say "Hi, how are you traveling today..." next time you see them.

Your expectations are big right now - very all or nothing. Like being vulnerable in a relationship is going to be catastrophic and you'll become a bawling mess and... Maybe try a little bit of it, see how it goes, recognise when it actually goes okay and you don't lose control of yourself...?

Just ideas.

 

[DogwoodTree]

You start smaller maybe? Like, one of your emotional needs from a friend might be that they are kind of fun to be around more often than not. So, they're helping me have fun.

Or even smaller: this person is a human connection for me, and that's enough to start with. And that? Could be as simple as asking the person at your petrol/gas station what their name is, and remembering to say "Hi, how are you traveling today..." next time you see them.

Okay... How are those smaller things "needs"? Having a conversation (even a short one) with someone else (stranger or not) doesn't feel like connection to me. It feels like work. It's something I'm doing for the other person's benefit, not mine.

I don't really have friends. There's one lady I meet up with for lunch every couple of months. But that's not because it's "fun"...I'm practicing healthier conversation patterns. Okay, maybe that's a need, but not in the sense that it feels good, just that I need practice in order to have healthier conversations with people and not do stupid things or overstep boundaries accidentally or whatever. Still not really my need so much as something I've gotta do in order to better meet other people's needs. And I don't mean that in a sacrificial martyr sort of way, just that I want to be a healthy, productive, kind, safe person so that I have a positive impact on people instead of negative.

I've gotten so good at meeting my own emotional needs, except for that deep, dark, bottomless pit of pain from being so ignored and ostracized and manipulated and abused as a kid. That's what my T and I were addressing at the session this week. That's what he wanted me to start bringing into relationship to be partially met (in healthy ways, of course). But it's too much, and when I do bring it up, and then no one's response is helpful at all, it takes a shit-ton of energy and effort to pack that thing away again. Same problem when new pains/struggles come up in life, like when I lost a baby to miscarriage several years ago. No one could reach me where it hurt. Nothing people said helped, and this was before I knew about my autism. Except there was this one brief moment where I had left an orchestra practice in the middle of our practice time to "go to the restroom", but ended up staying in there for like 20 minutes because I couldn't face people and I was in too much pain from losing my baby, and when I did finally come back, I discovered one of the guys in my section had come looking for me because he had really gotten concerned about me. Totally unexpected, and for that brief second, I felt like I mattered. It disappeared right after that, and nothing anyone did later connected again. I spent the rest of my grieving time doing it completely in my own mind. I was devastated, barely functional, borderline suicidal. But nothing anyone did or said helped or comforted. I felt completely alone inside throughout that entire ordeal...months. Even now, I don't feel connected to anyone in that grief. People say kind, healthy things (not just the typical cliches "God's will..." or "all things have a purpose" or whatever crap), and still it doesn't connect to that place. I just went through a few years of intense conflict with some family members, and I couldn't receive from my T or anyone else compassion or empathy for the pain and struggle. Validation...yes. But not compassion or empathy. I offer compassion and empathy to others, but it's a caretaking thing...codependent-ish. When they offer those things in return to me, which is what's supposed to balance the relationship, I don't get anything out of it. I pretend to--for their sake. But it's not real for me.

I guess I don't understand how smaller things would even qualify as "needs" because I could take care of those things myself?

 

[Tinyflame]

I'm sorry I haven't been able to read everything. But going from the original post title and this:

I've gotten so good at meeting my own emotional needs, except for that deep, dark, bottomless pit of pain from being so ignored and ostracized and manipulated and abused as a kid. That's what my T and I were addressing at the session this week. That's what he wanted me to start bringing into relationship to be partially met (in healthy ways, of course). But it's too much, and when I do bring it up, and then no one's response is helpful at all, it takes a shit-ton of energy and effort to pack that thing away again.

I might guess that those deepest needs, are way too painful to acknowledge when they will not be fulfilled. And meeting one's own emotional needs, can equate to not having any, to avoid the pain or disappointment when they're not met. At least for me. I do not have autism, but I'm certain I'm not NT.

And frankly, I would agree that social performance (especially how it appears to others) doesn't necessarily signify connection. And tbh, many people care- but not really. So it's not necessarily misreading other's genuine attempts; they care, but not enough to make effort to care enough for actions to follow. The needs you are talking about, are far too painful to have empathy for yourself for, I would guess, because that would mean feeling them, and knowing there is still no relief expected to be found. So it can feel like a lose-lose to go there. JMHE though.

I am sorry for the grief and losing your child. Of course no one can take that pain away. The only option you'd have is grieving, and being compassionate to your H who was grieving, and yourself. To forgive yourself for feeling devastated, or hollow, or angry +/or everything else you felt (including numb). That would be self-compassion.

 

[Ronin]

How do you submit emotional needs to a relationship

(How do I) By recognising we're equals, just helping each other out.

Focusing on balance & synergy, not a laundry list of demands and debts.

 

[Eagle3]

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.

I honestly can't explain it, and my T had to do some real work to make touch a thing I could tolerate. When I first started to see him I had some SERIOUS hang-ups about touch, including that "freeze" response you mentioned, but in an early session he did some fast desensitization, and pushed through my panic about touch in a respectful way. If he hadn't done that, I would never have been able to trust him enough to work on other things, because once the touch was established, and I KNEW he wasn't going to hurt me, I felt safe enough to work with him.

Touch has always been tough for me, since growing up the only time people touched me was to cause me pain, force me to do something, or satisfy their own needs. However, once I realized what safe touch felt like, I could relax, enjoy it, and let my own emotions flow. Again, this USUALLY can only happen in therapy. Another thing, you mentioned "delayed emotional processing"? Pretty sure I have that too. It can take a long time for me to realize what I'm feeling and why, then choose an appropriate expression. Safe touch just makes it easier for me to start that process.

All that said, I STILL don't always feel any connection to my T. I know cognitively he cares, but at the same time I don't FEEL it. We go around about that a lot. He tells me I need to use different signposts for recognizing connection, and we're working on finding those signposts, but it's really difficult.

 

[grit]

@Eagle3
I read your comment above and I am curious can you easily change your therapist and not feel anything at all? What feelings do you think will be evoked in you if you or him change mind and decide to have voluntarily or involuntarily termination?

I ask that because maybe connecting is not easily to put in words for you and some people (we are not all poets or artists) but maybe you feel connection somatically (hence your communication in touch). So it feels to me from here that you are connected to him to feel safe when he touches you (I feel a lot of people will think that is too much for them - no touching but hearing vocally you care about them or connected with them) but for you that speaks your language of connection. But you simply just cannot express it in language - so the language is the barrier not the experiential experience of connection with another human. Does that make sense?
if there is no connection, talk therapy usually does not work. A trust has to be established in the way the client understands that whether emotionally or logically but without that connection, you are not different than a person on the street who just decides to touch you and I do nto think you will be OK with that given in that context. Even the therapist touching you outside of the therapy may not feel as safe as in the room and the therapy framework set by you and him.

Not sure what I am saying 100% but I was wondering if the language of describing connection was different than non-verbal connection you feel enough to allow him to touch you therapeutically. Just curious.

 

[grit]

Emotional needs are so loaded when in theoretical discussion. If you meet all your needs, you would not be here and you would not have therapist. Having a therapist at minimum, means the therapist is providing a need for emotional reason. But like every other relationship, ultimately, we realize no one can really fulfil all our needs. Even the best of the mothers fail at that when they are in symbiotic relationship with a baby. It seems maybe you have extreme dependency needs that you are not conscious of and because truly you are materially and familial independent, you are confusing that with morbid dependency that seems was thwarted with an extreme trauma in your childhood.

One way to gauge how independent you truly are (this is not scientific method but sort of meditative way of looking) is to watch how often you are thinking of "others" when you are alone. All the performing you think you are doing to fit in the society is probably visible to others and that could be a reason they may react to you certain way. It is much more authentic to say I do not know how to be this way or that way, I am sorry rather than perform or pretend assuming others are too stupid to know the difference.

There are literally times I do not feel connected to my husband and do not feel having sex and rather than protecting him from what...I simply just express I am not feeling him today. I am sorry if this hurts you babe but I do not feel like having sex and I wont fake it for you...I may not say those words but I may if he seems to take it personally....and this also gives him the right to express his state of mind if he is not in the mood for sex or something else in the future. To me (of course) that is more authentic way of living and being honest with my deep emptiness and my OK moments in life.

But to me (again I hope I do not sound judging - even though saying that even sounds judging), that your feelings are alone to you but you are also confusing the feelings of others that is also alone to them. And this oneness is becoming too painful to carry. I am not sure what that means, this is just my understanding of your post and you are extremely articulate but yet you are focused on abstract and that is fine in theory but in the practical world of relationships, probably just confusing for those around you.

As I mentioned above, even having a therapist is providing you an emotional need. The therapist is not giving you anything physcial but safe space (that you can find anywhere else truly) but also a function - whatever that might be for each one of us. And maybe honestly, when you realize that exact function (validation, recognition, dependency, love etc), then that is when you know you have reached some sort of self-actualization.

In my short stint in therapy and experiencing a lot of transference to understand and make meaning out of my life, what I learned is that and this is also proven scientifically, the therapist is a representation of object (in our mind - parents or special person - a person or thing etc) and will not and cannot be representation of the core self....and when and if the therapist becomes a representation of the self, it is truly the most traumatic experience and ultimately the opposite of safety and the meaning of doing a harm. it is more like self-esure is taking place or self-annihilation -- I am probably using the wrong words but basically your mind is taken by the therapist - is what torturers try to do to captives! more or less.

Some scrupulous therapists or psychopaths probably try that shit on vulnerable clients. This is my experience and understanding and I have seen therapist that demand trust without offering safe space...

Anyhow, I digress but interesting discussion.

 

[grit]

Because of the title of your post, I just read this article and thought about you:

How to end your emotional dependency

Because you do not have compassion toward yourself, I hope other ways you manage that lack of compassion may be found in this article at least this is my understanding of your title.

Hope you find some that are helpful.

 

[DogwoodTree]

Because of the title of your post, I just read this article and thought about you:

How to end your emotional dependency

Because you do not have compassion toward yourself, I hope other ways you manage that lack of compassion may be found in this article at least this is my understanding of your title.

Hope you find some that are helpful.

Some of the characteristics described here fit, like low self-esteem and feeling like I have be useful to be loved. (Although those traits could be explained through autism as well...) But other characteristics don't resonate at all, like "having an obsessive need to be close to other people" or "depending on others for our happiness." I'm happiest when I'm alone. I love my alone time, and having time away from other people...I like having my husband and kids in the house and nearby, but I prefer to be alone in my own part of that space. So then, the suggested techniques for addressing emotional dependency don't resonate at all. "Practice being there for yourself." I've always done that. It's the reverse I never learned how to do...I never learned how to rely on anyone else for much of anything, especially when it comes to emotions. "Stop giving away your responsibilities to self." I'm on the other end of that spectrum, over-responsible for myself and everyone around me, too. I've read so much stuff on this topic since I was a teen...for 3 decades now. But it's like I'm in upside-down world. The stuff that's supposed to help most people, is counter-productive for me. Many times, it's only when I've started doing the opposite that I've made progress on an issue. Over and over, I'm having to find my own way because what works for so many people is damaging to me, and vice versa.

It is much more authentic to say I do not know how to be this way or that way, I am sorry rather than perform or pretend assuming others are too stupid to know the difference

Yes, that's more authentic, but not productive, in my experience. There are some of my limitations I've allowed to surface in relationships, but many I have not. When I tried to be more authentically autistic (and I did try for a couple of years), people got hurt, offended, confused, weirded out, and so on. I'm not going to do that to people anymore.

There are literally times I do not feel connected to my husband and do not feel having sex and rather than protecting him from what

I assume there are also times in the reverse, where you do feel connected to him? It balances out for you?

I wouldn't say I feel completely disconnected from my husband, as we've been through a lot and stuck by each other. We've been together nearly 25 years, nearly our whole adult lives. So there's loyalty, dedication, some layers of trust, we care for each other's well-being and we look out for each other. But I don't feel like I can be myself around him, either. I don't feel like I can take my emotional struggles to him for support that would connect with my internal experience. I don't feel those things with anyone. It's not for lack of effort, it just doesn't work for me. I can't get my emotions to surface in a way that makes sense to anyone else, and even if I did manage to adequately describe, their responses never connect back to my internal experience. Never. There is no balancing out on this. There are other good things, yes, but this is never part of my relationship with other people.

Touch has always been tough for me, since growing up the only time people touched me was to cause me pain, force me to do something, or satisfy their own needs. However, once I realized what safe touch felt like, I could relax, enjoy it, and let my own emotions flow.

Yeah, that's been my experience of touch. It's nearly always been about someone else's gratification. I have learned about safe touch, ironically, in my martial arts self-defense classes. It's never sexual in there, and the touch and movement is empowering. So even though it's not about relaxing or enjoying it, it has opened my mind to possibilities of safe touch in a way that gives me control instead of taking control away. It still doesn't help my emotions to flow, though.

He tells me I need to use different signposts for recognizing connection, and we're working on finding those signposts, but it's really difficult

So do you think you do have connection, but just haven't learned to recognize the internal signs of it yet?

By recognising we're equals, just helping each other out.

My husband and I have learned not to make demands of each other, and for most of our relationship, we actually took more of the approach of "just helping each other out." But that doesn't really happen at an emotional level. It's pragmatic...tasks, chores, responsibilities, choices....the "to-do list." Outward behavior. To recognize an emotional-based need of mine, to acknowledge it as relevant to him in some way, to determine what he might do to help address it, and to communicate this need to him...that just doesn't happen.

I might guess that those deepest needs, are way too painful to acknowledge when they will not be fulfilled. And meeting one's own emotional needs, can equate to not having any, to avoid the pain or disappointment when they're not met.

Yes...knowing there's nothing anyone else can do to help with that emotional storm, what's the point in bringing it up in relationship at all?

And frankly, I would agree that social performance (especially how it appears to others) doesn't necessarily signify connection. And tbh, many people care- but not really. So it's not necessarily misreading other's genuine attempts; they care, but not enough to make effort to care enough for actions to follow.

Yes...it seems like people say things like, "You matter" "You deserve to be loved", but then when I try to reach out for that kind of acknowledgement or love, I don't experience their response internally. So even if they have actually offered a healthy response, it doesn't register internally for me, so it's as if they didn't respond at all.

The needs you are talking about, are far too painful to have empathy for yourself for, I would guess, because that would mean feeling them, and knowing there is still no relief expected to be found. So it can feel like a lose-lose to go there.

I'm willing to feel them if there's a way to feel supported in it and actually resolve them, but that's not what happens. I've tried sooo many times in my 5 years in therapy, and I always come up empty and alone and hurting deeply but having to handle it all myself because nothing anyone else does brings relief. It's not for lack of effort on their part, but what they offer just doesn't click inside for me. So now I'm working on keeping all that crap inside and not even bothering to bring it into relationship...but that's what my T was challenging, and yet, the problem still remains that we've not found anything he can do to help me feel supported in processing it. So bringing it up is torturous for me with no benefit on the other side.

To forgive yourself for feeling devastated, or hollow, or angry +/or everything else you felt (including numb). That would be self-compassion.

I don't think I was angry at myself for feeling those things. I felt like that suffering and grieving honored the child I lost. His/her loss was significant. And I also managed to reach a place of some kind of resolution to where it's not such a gaping wound anymore. But I don't feel anything in that process that I would identify as "self-compassion." Maybe the act of acceptance? But is acceptance the same thing as self-compassion? Is self-compassion more action-based or feeling-based? Can you feel someone else's compassion for you--is that a "feeling" experience?

 

[ms spock]

I have really struggled with being kind to myself and that meaning all manner of negative stuff coming up including suicidal ideation. I haven't read your post because I am intentionally reading a lot less of the forum in order not to become triggered. So I am not sure if this is relevant to you. This comes from the Self Compassion website of Kristin Neff. It's worth a read.

Some people find that when they practice self-compassion, their pain actually increases at first. We call this phenomena backdraft, a firefighting term that describes what happens when a door in a burning house is opened – oxygen goes in and flames rush out. A similar process can occur when we open the door of our hearts – love goes in and old pain comes out. Tips for practice - Self-Compassion

 

[Eagle3]

So do you think you do have connection, but just haven't learned to recognize the internal signs of it yet?

Oh, probably. When he had to take a break from practicing while he dealt with cancer, I found myself pretty obsessive about knowing his status. Constantly checking with mutual acquaintances to make sure he wasn't dead, crying when he posted updates on his website, things like that. However, I really felt I had to sever the "neediness" and psychic connection to give him a chance of beating the cancer, since everything I get attached to dies horribly, and his illness hit at the time most of my "attachments" end due to that pattern. I should really bring this up with him....

In any case, when he came back from sabbatical, and I moved back to town, we resumed therapy, but it was different. I still don't feel the clingy attachment, the desperate emotional hold I had on him when I left town. When I think about leaving therapy, I get sad, and realize I will never find a therapist like him ever again. Sometimes I even think I won't pursue official therapy with any one else ever again, once my current T moves on. Will I cry over him? I have on many occasions. Do I feel any real, emotional, human connection to him? I'm not sure. Sometimes it feels more like some level of Aspie obsession, or even an attempt at forcing a connection. I still find myself looking for some concrete evidence that he likes me as a person at all, even though I'm sure he wouldn't be encouraging my continued presence in his office if he didn't. I don't know. Relationships are hard. I just don't feel like I can trust myself, or my interpretations of things yet. And I honest-to-god don't FEEL connections very often. Its something I think I will always struggle with.

I have found though, like you said, when I fixate on trying to feel something, I get nothing, but when I just relax and let things be what they are, I can feel a little niggle of "something" on occasion. I'm learning to be more mindful of those rare moments and accept them as genuine even if I don't really believe it.

 

[Justmehere]

I think you are missing a part of the exercise on a logic level. Let me try to explain, although I may bumble around at it.

Dan Allander Phd writes a lot about how trauma survivors will fight a lot of self contempt when they first experience compassion from others or if they offer compassion for themselves. This is because it screws up the logic that I’m bad/faulty/broken/hopelessly horrible therefore bad things happened to me. That logic exists to find control over an otherwise uncontrollable experience of trauma. Take it away, and it’s like people fight to regain that control through self-hate.

Your acts of compassion are about control. Stopping the otherwise uncontrollable trauma through not being alive in the first place. That’s not the exercise your therapist asked you to do. He didn’t ask you to control if the trauma happened or not. If you were never alive, no reason to apply compassion for suffering abuse because the abuse never happened. You are still trying to control the abuse ever happening with the ultimate price of your very life.

The exercise about compassion in part assumes abuse happened. It happened and you could not stop it or escape it through death.

One way out? Begin to accept you were born and couldn’t control the abuse or any actions of others. Begin to accept you didn’t deserve it. It may spark more thoughts of wanting to find control via death or stopping life itself from happening or other destructive thoughts, but I gently challenge you to find a way to accept you couldn’t have stopped the abuse... and then perhaps consider how you would apply compassion to another child who isn’t you.

Think about it this way. If you saw a young child who is not you, and you can’t wind back the clock for them and stop them from being alive and becoming that child... what things should that child have in life? Safety. Protection. Help. Guidance.

Not abuse.

If you would apply a different approach to that child than you would your own self, then sorting out that logic might be the next step. Autism or not, there isn’t one standard of safety for you vs others. You deserved to be alive AND safe. You always did. It’s not ok that someone gave you the message otherwise and that the only way the abuse could be controlled or remedied was by changing you... even to the degree of you not existing. The asshats who abused you are the ones that could have stopped their behavior to stop the abuse. It’s time to start putting that back on them. Not you. If you are going to imagine anyone not existing, imagine if they had not existed and you were still alive and abuse-free as a child... I personally can’t go there much for myself because it gets to me too much, but that’s is the real place of control. The abusers had it. The adults around children always that the most control. Not me or you as little children. That’s the really hard thing about childhood trauma that a lot of survivors resist. One way to survive childhood is to use our very existence (or lack of it) to try to control it, when it was never up to you or me in the first place.