Strange Star

[Echo]

@Hope4Now - this sounds really rough for you at the moment. It is very difficult when those shifts of perspective happen; when we realise that our 'normal' wasn't normal at all. How could you have been expected to know otherwise? It sounds though that it was horribly invasive and demeaning for you if you were having to dissociate to that extent. Maybe that was the kind of parenting your mother received and she thought it was normal, or maybe she was using it as a cover for something far more dubious. Whatever the reason, your body is in revolt about it. Poor little you; you obviously felt you had no choice, and yet you knew it was invasive of your bodily integrity.

What you describe is familiar to me in certain ways. We weren't allowed to have baths more than once a week and our hair had to be washed in a sink - and it was my mother doing the washing of the hair (with vile Vosene) - I think until a similar sort of age. I really remember the tangles in my long hair being pulled at vigorously by her. She didn't insist on washing any of us in the bath except presumably when we were very little, but I do remember (have always remembered) some very weird conversations about bodily parts with her. I asked some very innocent questions about what part of the body we were 'allowed' to wash (when I think of that question, I have to wonder why I even thought to phrase it in that way; and what had been demonstrated to me or conveyed to me for me to end up thinking there might be any part that one would not wash). As ever, my questions were met with great anger from her. So as as always the case with her, anything to do with the body was shameful and productive of maternal anger.

I think our mothers had some really big issues around the body and sexuality. I also find it infuriating that it is still apparently affecting me so late in life. So please don't think you are alone.

I hope you feel better soon, but when these memories emerge, it is very hard and intensely shocking, and that shock can last for some time. I know I felt intense nausea for some weeks when I had my abuse as a child confirmed to me by emerging memories and external things matching up. These are things that are naturally wrong. We shouldn't be invaded in these ways. You did nothing wrong and you have nothing to blame yourself for now.

 

[Hope4Now]

My therapist says that our job is to do little more than tolerate the energy that's being released, and continue being compassionate to the "little ones" as they reveal their secrets because of the immense trust they are giving you. This worked wonderfully for me over a situation in January. It lasted about a week -- and then, it was done, and has largely continued to be done.

This sounds like what my therapist says too. He's always so calm about these things. I keep waiting for some big explosive thing to happen, but maybe things will just unfold slowly and the energies will disperse. I hope that's the case, actually. I hope that this sense of dread and impending annihilation that I regularly have is just me and my extreme thinking as usual.

I do continue to wonder how you know if something is traumatic. I mean, I read all this stuff about trauma. But when one has pretty much depersonalized from one's body, and has numbed out emotions, can what you experience still be considered trauma?

Here's an example. I can't remember if I wrote about this already, or just thought about it. About 20 years ago, I was driving with my husband and his youngest half-sister (she was probably about 15 or so). I spotted an overturned motorcycle on the berm so I told my husband to pull over and I'd see what happened. It was really, really bad. My husband went to the road to flag down someone with a mobile phone to call an ambulance. We made his sister stay in the car. I went to try to help him (I have CPR and First Aid). To make a long story short, the man's injuries were horrifying and far beyond my capacity to help, even though I tried as best I could. Other things layered on top of this that made it worse (e.g., there was another rider who had been thrown...she wasn't injured, but when she stumbled out of the woods and started freaking out...). Anyway, the point is, I went into crisis dealing mode, I did what I could (virtually nothing), and the man died. The police and ambulance got there, and I walked back to the car and we drove away. I think I may have fainted briefly. I have a tendency to completely fall apart after a crisis is over. It took years before the visual images of this accident faded, and even to this day, I experience a deep sense of inadequacy and failure that is irrational, but there nonetheless.

And yet, the whole thing also seems very distant. Even seemed distant then. I was watching myself through the whole thing. It didn't feel real even though I knew it was. I was there, but also not there. I don't know--I've had various crises like this in my life. But a lot of other people have too. I guess I just don't process things the way more "normal" people do.

 

[Echo]

@Hope4Now - as far as I understand it, whilst our bodies might have been numbed out in whatever way (being flooded with bio-chemicals), our body retains the memory of it all. It remains traumatised and when the memories emerge, we get the full force of it all, often without the numbing, though clearly we can and do get retraumatised and we shoot back into numbing again. I am pretty sure if I hadn't have been abused as a child, I may not have been raped when I was older. I was in a permanently spacey state and I may well have missed some cues that would have given me the opportunity to keep myself safe. I find your description of everything being distant and at one remove matches exactly my viewpoint on much of my own trauma narratives.

 

[Hope4Now]

@Echo, thank you for responding. It really helps to hear your experiences and wisdom on this stuff. I'm beginning to realize that no matter how well I learn and start to understand intellectually about what constitutes trauma and how people process it, there is a great divide between this and lived experience.

Someone in church today mentioned an old saying: "The map is not the trail." Meaning that knowledge and experience are two different things. Never has this great divide been more shocking to me than in the past few months. I may have the map, but I sure am a witless novice when it comes to hiking the trail.

It helps so much to talk with you and my other friends on the forum. Really does make me feel less alone, and helps me start to believe that maybe all the things about myself that I hate so much may start to resolve. Maybe life will get better and more vibrant and real if I can manage to keep navigating this trail and getting some guidance and support and love along the way!

 

[Pietro]

But when one has pretty much depersonalized from one's body, and has numbed out emotions, can what you experience still be considered trauma?

In general, events of terror or shame hold the potential to cause trauma. However, there are many variables as to whether a person experiencing these events will become traumatized or not.

Depersonalization and emotional numbing, as well as memory repression, are coping mechanisms to protect you from the emotional overwhelm of a traumatic event. While they work, they also remove an enormous part of you from your daily life. The ability to experience all of one's emotions is compromised; identity can be also, and a number of phobias with unclear origin can develop.

I suppose that, if we could keep the repressed memories from trying to "escape" every so often, we could choose to live a diminished life and never deal with these things. IMHO, I think that this is what a lot of therapy is geared towards -- band-aids and patches, without really solving the core issues. But, at some point, traumatic memories seem to want release; the protection mechanism seems to be a temporary contract. ;)

I may be misinterpreting your true point; if so, please let me know. :)

 

[Pencil]

And yet, the whole thing also seems very distant. Even seemed distant then. I was watching myself through the whole thing. It didn't feel real even though I knew it was. I was there, but also not there. I don't know--I've had various crises like this in my life. But a lot of other people have too. I guess I just don't process things the way more "normal" people do.

I wonder if that was not a 'normal' response. I've had a similar incident: A friend and I were first on the scene of an accident. I can't stand the sight of blood or injury, but had to get out. Two people dead, one woman died while I was trying to help her, husband badly injured but trapped in the car next to her, their young son (about 10) literally running in circles next to the car. To this day I can't connect to myself, or the reality, or the people in that moment. I got a blanket (we were moving furniture in a pick up) to cover the injured woman. When she died I just could not say anything (I go mute - often) and pulled the blanket over her face. The husband saw, and quietly turned his head. Why couldn't I have just said something to him before I did it? But even so, I can't connect to myself in that moment. Don't know how to explain it.

I hope that's the case, actually. I hope that this sense of dread and impending annihilation that I regularly have is just me and my extreme thinking as usual.

I often find your diary difficult to read because of how you are dealing with it all and how I ... was NOT dealing with it. To me it seems as if you have one foot very firmly planted in your life, in reality, in 'yourself'. It's as if you spontaneously, instinctively, miraculously 'titrate'. I just went off the rails, or rather, I was like a blown up and then released balloon and no longer had any connection to anything solid, least of all myself. I think you are doing very well, and I hope I'm not sounding patronizing.

 

[Hope4Now]

I often find your diary difficult to read because of how you are dealing with it all and how I ... was NOT dealing with it.

I AM sad that it is hard to read for you. We all process things differently, I guess. You had an experience where it all came crashing down (or up, or whatever) on you. Mine has been an excruciatingly (literally) slow process. You ARE dealing with it. It's horrible, and hard, but you are doing it. You are on this forum, you are searching to fill your needs. That IS dealing with it. I'm doing the same thing. We just need to keep believing that with patience and self-compassionate persistence, we can get our poor damaged child selves healed so that we might be able to better balance the wild ride of the present.

you spontaneously, instinctively, miraculously 'titrate'

It is so interesting that you use this word, titrate. I first heard it while listening to Peter Levine's CD on healing chronic pain. I have tried hard to use the method when my pain is really bad...it doesn't resolve it, but it reminds me that my whole body doesn't hurt and I don't have to drown in the physical pain...I can try to bring my focus to places that don't hurt. I guess this same strategy can be used for emotional pain too. I guess it is at the core of managing the inner parts.

I don't know if I titrate this way, really. The writing does help. I almost always feel more ability to manage my emotion when I am writing. There's something about the focus and the kinesthetic activity, I think. It is probably why I do so much writing on this forum and in my journal. It is the ONLY time I feel like I can interact with my thoughts and feelings without spinning out. I would like to understand better how this works so that I can generalize it to the majority of my life when I am not writing. That is when I have an awful time...I never know when I will just go all wonky and spiral down or away or whatever. No real ability to manage it in an intentional way that is healthy. Great ability to manage it in an intentional way that is unhealthy. I am deeply disorganized emotionally. The one thing that is just beginning to help me with this (when I can actually notice it before it is too late) is developing better body awareness...what signals my physical self is sending to me. It is like learning a completely foreign language (and I have always been lousy at any sort of world language learning).

 

[Hope4Now]

This is pretty much how I'm feeling today.

 

[Pencil]

ad that it is hard to read for you

No, don't be sad. Apologies that it came out wrong. It seems to me that you have such a good grip - and where you feel you slip you still contain it so well.

 

[Hope4Now]

It is Monday at 11:30. I did fine this morning. Got up early, made pancakes and lunches, drove carpool. Made list of things that need to get done. Then I sat down before going to work. I have been sitting here since around 9 AM. I can't seem to get myself up to do anything. I am supposed to be at work. I just can't seem to make myself get up and go. This is happening too much lately.

I'm posting on this forum and then in between just sitting here, sort of blank-brained. I feel completely stuck. I'm aware of it, but I can't seem to nudge myself out of it. Am I lazy? Am I in some suspended state of being? Am I depressed? I just don't know. I kind of feel like I want to cry, but I don't know why.

I guess I'm just so tired from working so hard to keep everything together. I don't even know what that means, really--"keeping everything together." Maybe it is just tired of feeling scared and helpless and so lonely. That's rather what I'm feeling right now. I suppose I am blended with some little kid part of myself. I'm tired from putting on a strong face to the world. From fighting with myself all the time. I'm tired from watching my own inner carnage and feeling so overwhelmed by it that I can't seem to step in and manage it.

I feel like giving up.

I wont. There are powerful parts of me that will drive me to keep on going. But for no reason really. I feel like I have no idea what I'm working so hard FOR. I don't know what I really want. I don't really know what I need. I'm forging ahead, always hoping that something will emerge, but it hasn't really. I have all these roles I play in my life, but they often feel pretty empty...even when they are noble roles, like loving and taking care of my family, and working for an organization that helps kids, and trying to be there for people in need.

I feel like I got in over my head in my life. I got tired of treading water 3 or 4 months ago. I've been mostly floating since. Now I'm even tired of floating.

I've been trying to do everything I've been told to help myself get better. I'm tired of this too. Tired of meditating, tired of resting, tired of going to therapy and struggling to communicate, tired of stretching and doing things to ease the pain that don't work, tired of interacting with my memories, tired of endlessly processing my own thoughts and feelings and bodily sensations, tired of trying to explain to people what is wrong with me.

I'm tired of myself and my life and my complete self-reflexivity. I wish I could just turn it all off.

This is when my thinking and feelings get dangerous. I've been down this road before too many times. Caught between the "just shut up and do it" mode and the "ask for help" mode. Except the help never seems to really help enough...but I keep at it. I have a perpetually optimistic part that has kept me alive, in spite of it all. This part is putting a lot of trust into my therapist. But some of these other parts...the darker forces that tell me I don't deserve to be happy or peaceful, that I'm fooling myself that I have anything valuable to offer to others, that I am unlovable, that I will always feel this way...these are strong today. These parts scare me. And all this therapy is just bringing them into the follow-spot of my consciousness. UGH.

I guess I will try to go make a pot of tea. Or maybe something stronger. Maybe that will help quiet the warriors.

 

[Hope4Now]

I'm a bit better tonight after a therapy session and a reiki session.

I would love to know what these reiki people feel when they work on me (I had 2 working on me again tonight). They were breathing hard. This is not the first time I have sensed that people have some difficulty working with my energy. Wish someone could extract all the toxic stuff out of me. That's what polarity therapy is supposed to do. Maybe I should go back and do another session of that.

I told my therapist about the memory weaving of the weekend. I managed to do it without getting too overwhelmed. We made some progress today working with some of the parts of myself that are in bloody war against each other and often prevent me from working with my inner children. He does this thing where he pulls chairs around, and I picture the parts of me sitting in the chairs. Sometimes it feels utterly ridiculous, but it actually does help keep me from getting too freaked out by any of them. I also told him about the ugliest part of my inner critic which often urges me to hurt or kill myself. That was a bit scary to share out loud, but also felt important for me to let him know as this part has been noisy lately.

I felt oddly proud of myself that at one point when I was getting overwhelmed I asked if we could stand up and move around the office. It really helped even though it felt odd and I was conscious that I was making it difficult for him to take notes. He seemed absolutely delighted that I had actually asked to do something specific.

Tired tired tired tonight. Still tired of myself. Wishing I could disappear. But the lunches need making, the dog needs tending, the kids need good-nighting, and the husband needs listening to. I wish I knew what I needed, or wanted, besides a good stiff whisky. Or utter oblivion. Trying to count my many blessings and just welcome whatever feelings are overpowering me at any given moment. At least it means I am alive. And--so long as we're alive, there's hope, right?

@Echo, I finally read about true and false selves. It is very interesting and helpful. A different perspective that gets at similar stuff to the Internal Family Systems therapy I'm doing. The false self is like an amalgamation of a lot of what IFS calls "manager" parts and even "firefighter" parts--parts that develop to extremes in an effort to protect the true self. The more I read about all this stuff, the more I realize that it takes a long time to resolve things in therapy. Sigh.

 

[Hope4Now]

I am having another really difficult day. Dragged myself to work, kicking and screaming and crying inside. Trying to be a responsible adult, at least on the outside. Trying to put one foot in front of the other and keep marching on through this phase of my life.

I realized this morning that my fundamental problem is that my body and my intellect grew up quite robustly, but I am still an abandoned, hurt, lonely, confused, scared child inside. Not like inner children from the past. I have a lot of those too. But also that I, now, am fundamentally still a child emotionally. Or at least some major current part of me is. (This self and parts thing is still hard to wrap my head around because one of my core beliefs is that we ARE the sum of our parts. I'm trying to nurture this faith in the idea that there is some deep/true self underneath all these parts). This insight about myself makes me feel pathetic and very embarrassed, particularly because the "self" that has been living my life for the past 30 years or so was quite convinced that she was highly self-actualized and mature. So, to have this identity blown is quite scary. I think it is one of my deepest fears that other people will find out what a needy child I really am and make me feel ashamed of it.

I suppose I never got to be a child emotionally when I was growing up. My existence was pretty much to fulfill my parents' needs. I took that role on very early and swept my emotions and whatever true self there was into a tidy little pile and locked it up for a very long time. I guess understanding this helps me make sense of why I always feel so overwhelmed and vulnerable when I actually can connect with my emotions--even when I am behaving like an adult on the outside. I have never quite been able to explain that huge disconnect to myself.

What is extremely disconcerting now--no, worse, extremely frightening--is that the locked box of emotions has started to come undone and things are leaking out and I can't contain the mess which seems to be getting messier every day. I've invited this, really, by participating in therapy, and I know there is some good healthy part in myself that is confident that if I can open up this box and clean it out I will be able to find my new life). Yet, I feel this profound need to run away and hide (literally...came so very close to just continuing to drive somewhere this morning).

Really, I don't know what I am so afraid of. My therapist encourages me to ask my fear part (a big powerful part that is most likely at the core of my chronic pain issue) what it is afraid will happen if I just let go. I continually answer, "That I will be annihilated." I KNOW this is irrational. I know I will not die from letting out emotion or giving voice to my experiences of life. I'm more likely to die if I keep trying to hold everything in. I KNOW my therapist will not abandon me. I KNOW my husband will not abandon me. They are very invested in helping me move to a healthier and happier place in my life. I do trust that in my intellect. Just not in my heart.

I have a reasonable intellectual understanding of WHY I am the way I am, and I'm getting a better intellectual understanding of how my psyche has organized itself throughout my life. What I simply cannot seem to do is break out of this vicious spiral: needy--hurt--abandoned--frightened--defended--self-attacking--more defended--confused--more defended. I don't know how to let go of the defenses...it is like I'm stuck there. And every time I manage to remove a brick or cut a hole through the steel and some things leak out, the defenses go right back into superpower action again, even more extreme than before.

And, I just don't know what to do. I can't go back to the way I was before--completely numb and dissociated, exhausting myself with trying to be all things to all people. Not only does the pain prevent me from doing this, but now that I recognized the dissociation and depersonalization, I hate that too and try to break out of it. But that was the only way I could function the way I was functioning. So, I can't go back, and I don't know if I'm walking the right path to move forward. It feels more like I've strayed far off the path and am completely lost in the dark with not enough effective tools to hack my way through to a new path. It's just that somewhere off in the distance I can hear faint voices of possibility for love and acceptance and celebration of life, and I want to get to them...both the ones on the inside and the ones on the outside.