If You Didn't Have A Chance To Build A Self Before Complex Trauma

[ms spock]

When you have been abused as a child you tend to be whatever you need to be in order to survive, so the formation of the "self" falls by the wayside. I think for me, personally, this is reflected in the fact that I have a million interests but none that I can fully dedicate myself to. I still, to this day, define myself in terms of what others expect of me (to a degree....well now that I think of it, to a high degree!)

This is where I struggle with whom I am because survival necessitated being whatever my parents wanted at the time with the added stress of keeping my sisters and brothers.

But back to what I was saying. I always knew that I was different than everyone else. I just thought it was part of life. It wasn't until I went into the trauma hospital that I learned that it is a psychological issue that is much bigger than I initially thought. Now my (ruminating, obsessing) mind goes into panic mode and thinks "oh great, yet ANOTHER thing that's "wrong" with me!" Its yet another thing that makes me different from everybody else. Its another way that people can point me out as "different"

But you have some great strengths as well Solara. I can understand the disappointment and frustration of finding something else to work on. I really can.

I remember when I found my "trauma twin" as I call him. He eerily had very similar trauma details that sort of blew my mind for a time and I actually believed he wasn't real. Ok, so to this very day I still wonder if he wasn't real, but I digress. Anyway, he made me feel, for the first time in my life, that I was OK. That all of my feelings of being different from everyone else had finally come to an end. It was nice to know that out of 7 billion people, there was one other person who knew exactly what I was going through. But then along comes the hospital and all of their "self" talk and I am thrown into feeling like an outcast again. Thanks for the label, I love (sarcasm) feeling alone and defective again! Thanks for impressing on me that my "self" is missing something and that I'm not like everyone else. Isn't it bad enough to label me with PTSD and have that be the end of it? Stupid hospital and all their labels! (end of rant!)

I haven't been in a hospital like you have but I understand your frustration.

My psychiatrist doesn't like labels. So I understand.

But you are not an outcast you contribute to the forums and give good insight. (Please ignore if not helpful.)

I think in my case it's not a matter of not having a self, rather a protection mechanism. That is, I don't belong to X, Y, or Z simply because I choose not to out of a sense of protection, not because I am "self-less" If this makes any sense!

That makes a lot of sense. It is great awareness as well.

It literally was only within the last few weeks to a month that I have been able to see my PTSD "monster" as something separate from who I am. I am trying to drive the wedge between myself and PTSD deeper and deeper because I see it as the only way to let my true "self" come through and to stop internalizing everything and blaming myself.

That is great you worked that out. That is impressive to me.

So to answer your question, this concept of "self" is something that I have recently developed.

Glad I am not the only one learning.

Maybe I'm not even in the right discussion? I don't know. I don't doubt that people have problems with the concept of the "self" but anymore I wonder if my problem is simply safety. Safety is at the root of just about any problem I can name. Its like my self is there, just hidden. Its my safety issue that gets in the way and prevents my true self from basking in the sun, if you know what I mean.

I believe that I do.

I think its hard sometimes to figure out exactly what is going on, but for me, I choose to not think of it so much as an issue of a "self" rather, my "self" is there and is deathly afraid to come out. This is exactly what happened with my inner child....she didn't come out until she knew I'd fight to the death to protect her. Once she felt safe, she came out. I don't see her as much anymore, but she's still there. And she still knows I'd do anything to protect her.

So you are safe with yourself. i would like to get to that point.

I'm thinking that I need to revisit my puppet therapy. I have a few dozen puppets stashed away in my room. My "self", fittingly enough, is a TURTLE! (Who didn't see that one coming?!?!) My best friend is a cheetah who is "anxiety". We all happily live on a desert island beach together. Don't ask where all of this came from...I was in a dissociative state when my turtle/cheetah/beach story came out in therapy and somehow it all just fits. (My happy place is the Swiss Family Robinson island) know I need to work on safety. I know I need to work on making all my "parts" feel safe so that my true "self" can come out.

Well you have a strategy happening there.

To be honest, this is one of the most helpful threads I've read in quite awhile. Sorry for rambling on, but it's helped me to work out a lot of things in my mind. I'm not sure if any of this is helpful to anyone else, or if I'm too off topic. If I am, I'm sorry...

No apologies necessary. Great the more we are honest with each other the better for us all.

 

[ms spock]

I understand the identifying with your feelings aspect. I tend to identify with them too much as well. But I do have some phases where I suddenly "remember who I am". What I meant is that when you grow up in an unhealthy environment, with people who are mentally unhealthy, and abuse you, you also start identifying with their emotions. And you internalize their emotions and then start thinking that their voices are yours. For example in my case my mother was always frustrated, and I have spend my entire life up to this point dealing with her frustration. I don't feel like it is really my frustration, it has never been.

That is really great awareness and gives me hope that I can give back my parent's emotions to my parents.

The anger however is my emotion, because it is a response to her abuse. It is me standing up for myself. That's how I try to distinguish between the emotions that are not really mine, and the emotions that really belong to me. When I feel the emotions of other people, it feels like an invasion of my body and mind. It makes me feel sick to my stomach. However when I feel emotions that are mine, I feel empowered. For me, that's the difference. However it is so easy to mix up these emotions, that sometimes you forget which emotion is whose. And you end up with a twisted perception of yourself.

Gosh that is impressive to me. That is so much work to work that out.

It does help me "create myself" by thinking that I am not trauma. My personality is just shaped by it.

That is a bumper sticker for PTSDers around the world.

 

[ms spock]

To be more clear: It is obviously going to be relatively easy to have a sense of identity for someone who has one then has a trauma or some traumas and finds it difficult at that point. Totally and utterly a different story to when there isn't one to start and when there is early trauma. Especially when that is coupled with poor or bad general parenting. I think this does immense harm as it is the absences that are very important as well as the presence of trauma when it comes to a self.

I think those types of experiences primes a person for PTSD, well that is what my psychiatrist has suggested to me.

Good parenting at home for a child and then the child has trauma and traumas somewhere else is going to be different to no good parenting and no safe person and trauma. We see it when we look at research on resilience.

It is a fine distinction. I struggle with seeing how I will get it together. I had no good parenting, no safe person and trauma. But to be balanced I am improving.I hope for resilience.

It's why we again and again see misunderstandings and differences when it comes to what treatment works and what doesn't and world view and self view of the person.

Complex trauma is getting more and more understanding and for the next generation things will be better. I am hoping we can work on 0-5 in Australia so we can improve things and stop abuse.

Relationships for example. Therapy included. Normally are much simpler if there is a self there and isn't all the attachment problems that come up.

With child abuse that leads to attachment problems and you are right it would be much easier if we didn't have that problem but then if we didn't have that problem we probably wouldn't have PTSD anyway.

In my mind it becomes thousands of times more complex and that varies even more with severity of the traumas and amount of time someone has actually had a traumatic reaction to a trauma. That doesn't in any way discount someone's trauma when it happens later.

So it is like having space for all types of trauma at all different ages.

So it is going to be much easier for someone with a life story like mine than a life story like yours, Ms Spock, and Hashi's. There is no doubt about it. And that is also why I put my little disclaimer at the top.

It does seem to me that you have the complex type as well Abstract - but of course I am not a professional. But I relate to some of the comments you make.

I definitely did not have a self though and didn't have the basic things that involved being a person. I initially didn't even have the veneer of normality I donned later on. At school for years I was too afraid to ask to go to the loo and urinated myself every single time. Even aged 12 I would often run away if anyone tried to talk to me. But I my family didn't torture me physically or break my bones and I had food and a respected family and roof over my head, clothes. I even had stories read to me at times.

Emotional neglect and lack of bonding can leave some pretty deep scars and I think it is more damaging than sexual and physical abuse.

Sometimes I look at people who have had better parenting and less trauma in their lives for me to see what I can take. As I think it must be easier for them to see the world clearly.

It would be interesting to know how that works but that is out of my mindspace.

What I was trying to said originally is not in any way about doubting that it is harder and that there is less there to start but rather about what is helpful. For me it is very unhelpful trying to think of anything that requires undoing what has happened. It links into radical acceptance and mindfulness without which I think I would go nuts.

I would like to learn more about that - the radical acceptance and mindfulness. I did a mindfulness course, not that you can tell about that at the moment.

Even for people who have a self then have a trauma there is no going back. They have that solidity of the past to rest against but thinking about trying to be who they were before seems to torment people.And we don't have to undo or go back and be who we were to have a strong, functional self.

I can see that - either way it is not easy.

I am merely saying that for me I rather think of finding myself under the trauma, trauma symptoms and dysfunctional parenting and look forward at building a solid me. We are all different and other people might find it helpful to look at it a different way. For me it creates judgement, regret and despair.

It works for you so I say go for it.

It may seem slightly magical but I truly believe that we all have the foundations of that self in there Ms Spock. Even when the most basic parts of it haven't formed. Even we we have no sense of it whatsoever.

That is an interesting way of thinking of it.

I think that for you Ms Spock. You had a start that gave you nothing. And yet you have the ability to have compassion and empathy for others. You need to have some part of a self and be using it to have these. A little like Hashi had zero language before school because no one spoke to her and she only had trauma interaction. And yet she writes and speaks and engages with the world. Language is another aspect of relating to others. Another part of a self. Hope you both don't mind me using you.

I know I am answering your post again but I want to get these thoughts down.

So I wasn't saying you were dumb and was rather just saying that for me it is unhelpful. Make more sense?

Never thought you were saying I was dumb. And it makes perfect sense.

Here is an analogy: When we are born part of being human is that we have these parts in us that can be put together to form a self. Normally parenting puts these together for us. Very, very few of these have an expiration date for use. Language is one of them. Most remain in there waiting to be used. I like Hashi's use of the word "muddied" as I think trauma muddies the water so we can't even find the parts yet alone know how to use them. But we can do that and we can start parenting ourselves and utilising a therapist as a surrogate parent to help us do so. Sometimes we can be using some of those parts but because of not using others and because of trauma symptoms the water is so muddied we can't even feel or see we are.

It is a long journey.

So for me it is a case of finding and assembling the parts and having a proper sense of using them when I do so that I have that solidity.

And you are doing it and it is working for you.

 

[rightkindofme]

I read a lot of developmental psychology. That's a big part of my "reparenting" process. I have two small children (ages 3 and 5) and I am absolutely determined that someone in my genetic line will grow up without abuse. Well, two someones. :)

Discovering "what I like" is an interesting process. Like: I actually hate painting. I tend to be hostile and angry and volatile the whole time. But I can't seem to stop. I have been painting murals for a few years. When I'm *done* painting I feel great joy. The whole process is... weird.

I abso-freaking-lutely HATE coloring. But sometimes I kind of have to do it with my kids and I can't cuss. Boy that sucks. I don't feel joy at the end.

I am obsessed with learning gardening. I'm grateful that the guy I ended up marrying had a house with a yard. (It's not a big yard... I will never be self-sufficient or anything....) I moved into an ugly dirt/weed yard and by the time I am 40 (8 years away) my yard is going to be pretty magnificent. I've added trees and at least 25 varieties of plants so far. :) Not to mention building a big, awesome play structure in the back yard (complete with slide) and I painted a 15' rainbow on the front. It's nice to look out my back window now. :)

When I was born my parents were still married. My mom was Mary-freaking-Poppins. She was practically perfect in every way... except for keeping her husband from raping all her kids. Everyone has faults, right?

Then when my parents divorced (I was 3) my mom was plunged into horrible poverty and that was the rest of my childhood. So I never got to have the Mary Poppins experience as a kid. But my siblings spent a lot of time telling me about how everything was better before I showed up.

I think I wanted to be a stay at home parent so bad to make up for not getting one when my siblings did. I'm jealous and envious. I had no one to watch me so instead I was out hunting for sex from all the neighborhood perverts from when I was three.

It is *Really Freakin Weird* being monogamous now. I have used casual sex as my way of making friends for basically my whole life. Now I'm trying to figure out what I have to offer. I feel sad most of the time.

I'm struggling right this minute because I am going off pot because I have upcoming solo travel plans with my kids. I can't be a heavy stoner and take my kids on a road trip across the United States. That's neglectful and potentially very dangerous. I just can't. So I have to learn how to function (again) without it. I've been using it for four years. (doctors note. This is legal and everything.)

My husband calls pot my "apathy enhancement" drug. I just don't care as much as usual. I'm struggling with the return to caring too much about everything.

I struggle with identifying my priorities.

So luckily I have the next 18 months to consciously slow my life down so I can be a nice parent while sober. I am reducing my driving (a huge stressor for me) and I'm backing out of a lot of communities.

One of the problems with where I live (bay area, California) is people think it is totally reasonable to spend two hours driving round trip to go play with friends for a couple of hours. I just can't do it. I will scream and scream and scream followed by lots of crying. I feel really pathetic. :(

I can handle driving sometimes, but not every day. Not even four days a week.

I do my best to be better educated than most of the people I talk to, which is hard--mostly it involves picking areas to care about that they haven't thought of yet. (I just don't compete in the areas they know more. I don't try.) More than half of my friends-group are all Ivy League educated because my husband is and they are all computer people together. So I pick other areas. I can rattle of specifics for a wide variety of topics. I am eclectically self-educated as a coping method. I hide a lot and read obsessively.

I worry about my constant dominance posturing. I'm really bad about that. I grew up so low status that I am terrified of passing on such a status to my children. I know how many times I was beaten as a child just because I was the lowest status person around.

I don't dissociate much any more. These days the hypervigilance is so omnipresent that I can't even dissociate. My therapist has me consciously avoiding anything that is good for people who dissociate because I am so hyperaroused all the time I freak out. I can't knit. I lose my temper just about instantly. I can't do seated meditation. I'm learning walking meditation.

I have a body that must be in motion.

So Ms. Spock, it is interesting to read how your journey is going. I think we hide our selves in very different ways. I largely hide behind being a bossy know-it-all. I change my apparent areas of obsession depending who I am talking to. I have dramatically improved in my ability to not alienate people by instantly asking for sex. :) I'm proud of that...

 

[Abstract]

Hi Ms Spock,

You always work really hard when you identify something you want to address. That's one of the things about you I have noticed.

Reading through something came across to me and that is it is possible that that blank emptiness that comes with lots of derealisation and depersonalisation constantly being there since year dot may be part of what makes it so hard to believe there is anything there. I know I felt that and feel that. I often can't even believe words I write or things I say. I don't feel like a person. It's pretty hard to have any contact with any concept of a self when you are so removed and spacey and then possibly feel physically numb. That on top of not having a sense of ones self is something I believe and I suspect something all of us with high levels of dissociation identify with to one extent or the other. I still think you can work on your self regardless though.

The other thing that occurred to me is that there may be a pull to dismiss a lot of what you see when others grow an identity as it seems there is constantly pull back to the idea that others must have had something to build on. There is no judgement in me saying that Ms Spock and only observation. I think we can have blocks and discard helpful information without intending to. Sometimes it can even have a self protective role.

I think about how people have overcome great adversity and most have had some great parenting or a half decent parent to call on as part of their back up.

Most is not all - that is very important. In fact there are people in this forum who prove how possible. Even people on this thread who do have the same total lack as you. I am saying this with kindness Ms Spock. I think you are brave looking at the topic.

I don't know if I can buy this because everyone I have ever really talked about it to - do have some sense of a self that was nurtured and/or looked after even if their trauma started very young.

Not everyone Ms Spock. There really are people out there with zero nurturing before and have found a self and continue to build on it. Here on the forum and elsewhere.

. I just imagine if you had been able to do things for 20 or 30 years

I think this is where dialectics is helpful. Two things can be true at the same time. Yes, having a self first and then having trauma is going to make it so much easier to find your way through something. For so many reasons that it would take a page to write it out. But that does not mean that someone who has little or no nurturing and early trauma cannot develop a sense of self. It may be darn hard but it is possible.

I have no real idea what my personal story is of childhood but it certainly was not the type of life you have had Ms Spock. But I have come across others who are pretty fully formed and do have a history like yours.On this forum and off.

There are some people who have pretty good parenting that never developed the capacity to see others or to have much self awareness. The way human beings respond to things is endlessly complex and powerful.

. I decided at 8 - I told my sisters and brothers that we didn't have to be like our parents. I told them we didn't have to grow up and be like our parents. That was an early decision.

This is amazing. You didn't do this to people please. You didn't do this to caretake. You didn't do this because someone told you to or because someone told you it was right. You did it because something inside of you figured this out and made a decision. Trauma is not who you are Ms Spock. It is what you have experienced and nothing can change that. You also can't change that it will have affected the way you view things. But it can't take away your ability to be a person or your own unique way of responding and finding your true self inside you.

I will come back for the other stuff. I just wanted to say this first as I think it's very important. Hopefully you know I am being a friend. :) Feel free to speak directly about your feelings as that is how you will be able to work through them. I won't mind either.

 

[rightkindofme]

Yeah, I didn't have parenting or nurturing. I was neglected/sexually abused from infancy and then I was moved 50 times before I turned 18.

It is interesting how some people are more frozen (dissociated) and some people are more fight (hyperaroused) as a coping method for lack of nurturing. I'm a fighter. I got f'in angry about being abused. That has fueled me for all of my adult life.

 

[Mercy]

My "self", fittingly enough, is a TURTLE! (Who didn't see that one coming?!?!)

I think most of us have turtle shells that we can pull into and be safe. We may name that place differently.

For me, as part Wampanoag, Turtle clan are healers. I had a good elder who loved me and saw right through the abuse. She would only call me, little Tony, after my Dad. I have a collection of carved turtles in different stones to rearrange on my color wheel with other things like charcaol made by lightening, stones which naturally have imaged on them. One of my favorites is softly rounded and quite flat. One side has the head of a pony. The other has a swan. pony = freedom- to travel to escape. Swan= inner and outer transformation. My circle is in a drawer so it is private. Maybe that is where part of my real self lives.

 

[Abstract]

It seems I somehow missed a whole page of responses before I answered! :confused::oops::wacky:

 

[The Albatross]

Yeah got told I was a "turtle" too... by a friend/Reiki Master. Though my own identification has always been birds. As a child it was bats and owls... then it was cranes and herons... then albatross. I've had hawk pop up more than a few times as one of my guiding animal spirits (hawk, salmon, bear, wolf). Being dual natured, and as part Native American and also Anglo/Christian... I got no problem with animal medicine or healing. Like Mercy says. Turtle clan is powerful in Native American tradition.

In my own Lakotah tradition:

"Turtle Clan which represents Earth.

The Turtle is a creature of water as well as of the land, as it swims in the water its shell looks like the land rising up out of the sea. The Turtle is characteristic of elemental Earth because of its solidity- its hard, protective shell providingwarmth, comfort, and security. The Turtle may appear to be slow-moving but its persistence and tenacity get it to where it wants to go.

Turtle Clan people are usually methodical, practical and down-to-earth. They like to have a sureness about things and the security of something solid behind them. They have determination, but make progress a step at a time.

Earth Clan people have an affinity with the Earth itself and with plants and growing things. They can find revitalization by visiting a park or woodland or some natural place with things of the Earth around them".

 

[Tinyflame]

I think somewhere it says the turtle is 'earth' and the shell is 'heaven'(?)

:hug:

 

[The Albatross]

Yeah there are a couple creation mythologies about turtle in Native American culture, here are a couple:

"Native American creation stories fall into several broad categories. In one of the oldest and most widespread myths, found everywhere but in the Southwest and on the Arctic coast, the earth is covered by a primeval sea. A water creature—such as a duck, muskrat, or turtle—plunges to the depths of the sea and returns with a lump of mud that becomes the earth, which is often supported on the back of a turtle. This Earth Diver myth also exists in northern Europe and Asia, which suggests that the Native American versions may be survivals of ancient myths shared with distant Asian ancestors.

The creation myth of the Iroquois peoples combines elements of the Earth Diver story with the image of a creator who descends from the heavens. Creation begins when a sky goddess named Atahensic plummets through a hole in the floor of heaven. This Woman Who Fell from the Sky lands in the primeval sea. To support her and give her room to move about, the animals dive deep into the sea for bits of earth. The goddess spreads this earth on Great Turtle's back to create the land, and the daughter she bears there becomes known as Earth Woman."

 

[Abstract]

I would have a sense of who I am. I would have a sense of who I am and what I want to do. I would also know who I am in relation to other people.

That is very well put Ms Spock. My mind keeps whirling around with this topic. Its like there are all these parts to it that I am trying to grab hold of.

I was thinking of all the obvious ways that trauma itself can mask or interfere with these things. On top of the traumas and absence of nurture interfering with development areas and the formation of a sense of self.

Things like dissociation. Thinking of oneself as absent minded, clumsy, scatty, not real, false, distorted and a million other things when it is merely a symptom.

Things like hypervigilence. Thinking of oneself as neurotic, highly strung, over reactive, weird and number of other possibilities wheras it is merely a symptom.

Avoidance. Thinking of oneself as cowardly or irrational and a number of other things when it is just a symptom.

Triggered or set off into fight flight or freeze by things such as anger and smells objects etc etc etc. Thinking of oneself as overly sensitive and overly emotional amongst a number of other things when it merely a symptom.

Hullucinations and intrusions. Thinking we are crazy or mad and a number of other things when it is merely a symptom.

Fearing people and having difficulties with relationships and trust. Thinking we are abnormal or there is something wrong with us when we are merely understandably dealing with a symptom.

Then we have punishments of various levels for any attempt at having a self. Any attempt to have an opinion or a preference in taste. Or a connection to an emotion or an expression of an emotion of ones own.

And training to provide the parent or abuser with what they want at the expense of the child's development. Such as discouragement of self care, being made to feel responsible for the parents emotions or well-being, use of the child as an object (in a psychological sense) of comfort rather than treating it as a human being, using it emotionally as a surrogate partner etc. That's without going into the graphic and potentially triggering stuff that physical or sexual abuse brings with it. Same with medical and other types of trauma. Maybe disconnecting body an pain and many other things. It goes on and on of course.

Then you are supposed to know what you think, feel, what emotions you have what type of person you are, what you care about and many other things. No wonder it is hard work.

From looking at my siblings and myself I suspect those that try the hardest to attempt to make it right all the time develop the least identity. There seems to be something in the act of separating from the abusers or bad parents and fighting early that gives just a bit of a "me-ness" early on.

Its like an archaeological dig sifting through all of that and finding the truths and clarity. I think we all deserve a medal.

You deserve a medal Ms Spock.