Attachment Issues

[Springer80]

with a frozen 4 year old who doesn't speak somewhere in the mix...its weird how intuitive that decision was 10 years ago. I've become acutely and consciously aware of the EPs only in the last year, and it was this awareness that made me go down the rabbit hole .

Hi Pencil,

Sounds like she made that decision for you which is why it feels so intuitive. I would say going down the rabbit hole is also her doing and it's not a bad thing. I'm sure it's annoying for you and it puts you under the judgmental gaze of ill informed people but it's obviously what you need. Do you feel physically better for it? Less conflicted in yourself I wonder?

You got any idea what your Eps are?

When I look at mine what I see is the outer shell and inner damage and then the removed/silent self. So what I did emotionally was actually very efficient and methodical and organized, which co-incidentally are some of the main traits of ANPS.

I'm not sure what you might be looking for regarding talking about my scultures so I'll just start. Ask me whatever....it might help both of us. I drew the first two in a design lecture, they came out of the blue. I can't really say anything more about that. I was shocked how neat they were, i.e. lines joined together etc.

They are all 2/3rd's height.
They don't have developed feet or usable hands.

The first one (white standing)
The outer defence (not my ANP but the emotional reality of my outer defence)
Metal head, my real thoughts are pressurized in a hard container, the left brain is elongated down and has a swirled pattern applied, showing the activity resulting from hypervigilance etc.
The body is plaster, brittle, worn, dry like my flesh felt.
My stomach is on the outside, rejected by the rest of me and too toxic to reside where it should, hence the noxious lilac colour.
My eyes are stiff
My mouth has lips painted on but it is a functional hole in erms of suvival as oppossed to expression.
The black shards which cut me open as hey come out from inside me are made of broken records and they prevent closeness.

The red one is the interior damage, my flesh, the body.
It is blind
It pretends to have hands but they don't work.
It has dolls hair like a girls but faked.
It is dark red the colour behind your eyes.
It is black inside, because it's capacity for hurt is indefensible and therefore limitless.
It's mouth is open and it has numerous holes (these represent the numerous ways a body can be re-traumatised once it has been)

The last one (the watchful one), well I made it merely to represent the most important bit. But at the time that was all I was allowed to get of it. It has no mouth. Internally it consists of light. The eyes are human. The reason it doesn't have a mouth is because it got wrapped up tight, NOT because it doesn't own one. The seams of the wrapping are all inside.

I've done more work on it since though.

 

[Springer80]

PS White and Red standing are gone, whatever I did over the past couple of years, I don't need them they've disappeared. It's just me now...I am my Albino Croissant (white wrapped)!!!!

 

[Pencil]

It is blind

It has no mouth.

This is interesting, like mine that doesn't speak

Ok, let me go back and put the words and the pictures together.

 

[Crow]

I just realized that this is one of the reasons I decided against a relationship: with a frozen 4 year old who doesn't speak somewhere in the mix, sex is just plain dangerous.

I've been out of a relationship for 13 years. My T commented that perhaps I was waiting until I was grown up enough. She said it much better. I think "age-appropriate" was in there. I've been thinking a lot about it and I think I agree with her. I've avoided relationships and just in the past two months have started thinking dating and relationships are a viable option for me. Sort of cool.

 

[raven123]

Since my emotional development stopped when I was raped at 3 1/2 years old, I have to accept a probable fact I have the emotions of a 4-5 year old. So, I'm really not capable of "adult" relationships. Maybe this can shed some light on "attachment"? If you don't attach as a kid, you won't as an adult. I found this which describes needs of kids. Feels like a cruel joke.

Five Critical Emotional Needs of Children
Summary
Emotional health provides a foundation for success in school, work, marriage and life in general. Failure to recognize and satisfy these five needs jeopardizes our children’s future and that of succeeding generations. The five critical needs as a family value contributes to a healthy family environment and strengthens us as a nation.

A summary of the five critical needs – definition and examples of each.

Need to Feel Respected

Children need to feel respected. For that to happen, they need to be treated in a courteous, thoughtful, attentive and civil manner. One of the best ways for children to learn about respect is to feel what it’s like to be treated respectfully and to observe their parents and other adults treating one another the same way.

If we want children to grow up feeling respected and treating others with respect, we need to avoid sarcasm, belittling, yelling; we need to keep anger and impatience to a minimum; we need to avoid lying; we need to listen more and talk less; we need to command less and suggest and request more; we need to learn how to say “please,” “thank you,” “excuse me” “I’m sorry”—yes, even to children. We need to become conscious of our mistakes, willing to admit them and ready to make corrections. This will help us cultivate these values in our children.

Need to Feel Important

Feeling important refers to a child’s need to feel: “I have value. I am useful. I have power. I am somebody.” This need is evident at a very early age. Pressing a button in an elevator—me, me. Children want to do things for themselves, and so often we get in their way. Parents need to avoid being all powerful, solving all family problems, making all decisions, doing all the work, controlling everything that happens. Involve your children—ask their opinions; give them things to do; share decision-making and power; give them status and recognition, and have patience with mistakes when it takes a little longer or is not done as well as you could have done yourself.

If children do not feel important, if they don’t develop a sense of value in constructive ways, they may seek negative ways to get attention, to feel “I am somebody.”

Need to Feel Accepted

Children have a need to feel accepted as individuals in their own right, with their own uniqueness, and not treated as mere reflections of their parents, as objects to be shaped in the image of what parents believe their ideal child should look like. This means that children have a right to their own feelings, opinions, ideas, concerns, wants and needs. Trivializing, ignoring or ridiculing a child’s feelings or opinions is a rejection which weakens the relationship. Paying attention to and discussing them, even when you do not like or disagree with some, strengthens the relationship.

Need to Feel Included

Children need to feel included. They need to be brought in, to be made to feel a part of things, to feel connected to other people, to have a sense of community. It happens when people engage with others in activities and projects, when they experience things together in a meaningful way. It is important for the family to create these opportunities. People who do things together feel closer to one another. Family activities offer a way to become closer and also to have fun, learn, and contribute to others.

Need to Feel Secure
Children need to feel secure. Security means creating a positive environment where people care for each other and show it, where people express themselves and others listen, where differences are accepted and conflicts are resolved constructively, where enough structure exists for children to feel safe and protected, and where children have opportunities to actively participate in their own and family evolution through family planning and decision making, problem solving and feedback activities.

 

['91 Girl]

Raven, take those five things and say the opposite. That's how I was treated. No wonder I'm so screwed up.

 

['91 Girl]

Here's one

Thanks. I was at work and just got around to reading it. It is really complicated! I need to reread it a few times to really digest. But I do relate to what the author is saying. And I know I'm not as split as some people, in that I am not totally separated out. It more feels like pieces of my own mind with their own responses to things. They have their own reactions, emotions, and thoughts towards things (especially when I'm triggered badly), and I (as in my ANP) often don't agree! It can wreck havoc with my interpretations of others' actions and can hurt my relationships and life. It is very frustrating.

 

[Pencil]

Five Critical Emotional Needs of Children

Raven, thanks for this. I printed and put it on my fridge, as a reminder of how my daughter deserves to be treated every minute of the day - no matter how crap I feel or how much I'm battling.

 

[Pencil]

It's just me now...I am my Albino Croissant (white wrapped)

I love the croissant! Does this mean they were all present, and the others are gone, or is this some type of 'progression', or 'regression'?

I 'feel' the croissant, but my eyes would be closed. What does it mean that the eyes are open? Or rather, what is the expression?

 

[Springer80]

I love the croissant! Does this mean they were all present, and the others are gone, or is this some type of 'progression', or 'regression'?

HA HA, I''m going to say that regression IS progession!! :p :giggle:

Every morning I wake up inside of my 'Croissant' and I have to try and feel why, talk to it. Most of the time I can see my/feel myself in relation to a feeling which is a stage removed from it, this morning I didn't, no separate sensation...

So first I felt a gripping tightness in my chest that wouldn't let me talk with the siuation. I imagined a closed fist. A asked why wouldn't it open, what's it holding. After feeling about it for a while, the answer was nothing it's an empty fist, SO I opened it. Tension in my left shoulder released and the centre vertebrae of my back. I still felt dissociative and incapacitated. Incapacitated by what? I felt again...I'm in a ball, an egg, it's off white, it goes all the way round but I can feel it on my forehead and the tops of my knees and calves. This is confusing because it feels like a face sheild against my skin. It's translucent, feels like a membrane but rigid like a thick plastic.

Where am I? I cant feel a separate version of me. It feels scary. I tell myself it okay, I summon compassion for the situation. Why I am doing this. It's a defense mechanism. It's okay.

Then my feet move and I can feel the duvet on my forehead and my dissociation is gone.

I love the croissant!

Turns out someone else on here has one too!

Re,..attachment, I don't know exactly how this stuff I'm working on will help, if at all. I was 12 when the abuse started. That part of me wants to run to find someone to be protected by. That is not what I want to build a relationship on.

but my eyes would be closed. What does it mean that the eyes are open?

I think the fact that my eyes are open means that a part of me bore witness and recorded the injustice of event from a self perspective. Those eyes represent the act of remembering so I could know the way things SHOULD be. They are a two fingers up in a way.

It's good that you can feel something about your own inner state, it's really major. I think though that it is something which should not be done in comparison.

 

[Pencil]

I think though that it is something which should not be done in comparison.

No, don't be concerned about that. I don't have a 'croissant' - what I meant was that your sculpture is so 'clear' that I get the feeling you were trying to convey (I think), or if not, there is something there that I identify with. It's like the nesting birds many people didn't like - I do because I'd rather be safe on a nest than flying off into the world.

I asked you about the eyes because they are INTENSE!! So, you achieved what you set out to achieve.

No comparison, Springer, mainly a sense of relief that I can have a dialogue. Even the therapist made a song and dance about the 'little girl' right at the beginning, and never, ever again - almost as if she refused to deal with anyone but the adult. I didn't have an issue with it, as I feared acting less than adult, but also because my main one doesn't speak, and I didn't want to go into that. I also had a massive fear that she would make me talk to it, reassure it .... arrrrgggghhhh .... that would have had me running. The embarrassment!! So, I'm trying to learn about how it works for you. One difference of course is that there is no depersonalisation in my case.

Yes, needing protection. I think that's always a big part of it.

I wanted to say more, and still do, but I have to kind of assimilate all of this. Just give me time.

 

[Springer80]

I posted some more steps of development on this thread too...

[DLMURL]http://www.mysexabuse.com/threads/little-girl-inside.843[/DLMURL]