I have something to say, and
@shimmerz, I'd like you to stay calm and read the whole post and not just freak out at the beginning, okay? It turns out well in the end, I promise, so let your EPs know that.
It has to do with the fear you mentioned of saying something wrong that would touch on someone's core wounds. I'm having trouble quoting from two pages in one post here and know I also want to quote this page, so I'm paraphrasing rather than using the quote function.
So that (touching on core wounds) was exactly what happened with this other post:
I left them to go to CA and they willed me back. Seriously, if I had the chance to walk away from me I would. They are idiots. But I love them anyway. Honestly, in honour to them, I have no idea, I could never express, what it has taken for them to stick by me.
That set me reeling. But that could have happened whether you were grieving and suffering from pancreatitis or not, because there is no way you could have known. It was such an innocuous thing to say, where is the wound in that? There is a reason we're advised against trigger warnings. There is no way anyone can know everything that might trigger anybody.
You see, the time I got stuck in a semi-frozen state for two months as I wrote about in another thread was when I lost just such a connection as you describe having. I blame myself, and it is very fraught with a mixture of worthlessness and shame and for me. I feel like I contaminated him with how wounded I am. This was a man I was very close to a few years ago. It was a real soulmate connection. Not physical at all. He was committed to celibacy so that wasn't even an issue, fortunately. It was my PTSD that got in the way, though we didn't know at the time to call it that. He is very sensitive and absorbed my pain so much that it hurt him, no matter how hard he and I both tried not to let it. We kept looking for ways to get around the high maintenance issues and focus on other things, but it was too much for him in the end. With no warning at all, one day he told me he didn't want to talk to me anymore. He turned from the most loving, dedicated person in my life into an iceberg in the space of about five minutes. A few months later he tried to sabotage a work situation I was taking on because he was afraid being around my pain would damage my client (I have to interject in some indignation here, that I got the job anyway and did a pretty good job looking after this client, if I do say so myself). His change was like Jekyl and Hyde. I was thrown so hard into very early betrayal and abandonment trauma that I stayed pretty much frozen for two months, actually until this new client came along who needed me and I felt useful and wanted again. I feel on much shakier ground now in terms of trust than before that happened, and it wasn't any too solid to begin with.
(Breathe
@shimmerz, this gets better, honest.)
So reading your post about what sounds like a group of incredible friends who have supported you through these past years, what that touched on was "I'm so flawed that I don't deserve people like that in my life."
So I went away and cried a bit. Felt the intensity of that along with a lot of other things including the betrayal of abuse and neglect by my family. The loneliness, the worthlessness, the helplessness, the hopelessness. Then I remembered I could use EFT to release it. I'm on a roll doing that. Then as I sat there tapping and the intensity eased a bit, I started thinking. "Wait a minute. This is pretty black and white thinking. Is there another truth in my life?" Pause. Yup. I have some good friends who have been there for me through thick and thin, some of them for over 20 years, so they know me at my best and at my worst and still haven't given up on me. I have one friend who encourages me to call her even in the middle of the night if I'm having a flashback or another crisis, and has never in all these years hinted that I was a burden. Another who doesn't really get my PTSD but still wants to hang out with me and play cards or have a meal or drive somewhere, and who is up for practical things like giving me rides because I don't have a car. Another who has done such a variety of things for and with me I don't know where to begin. How there are other less close friends who are supportive in their own way. How when I go into the local nursing home, people are glad to see me. How my cat is always glad to see me when I get home.
Then I thought how when I have had work parties, people came to them. I don't feel able for them lately, but if I did, people would be there. I thought about the time I couldn't be at home because of a verbally abusive roommate but also couldn't go to the shelter in a nearby town because I would have had to miss work, and my friends banded together to have me stay at one house after another in turn until I was able to go home again. And the list goes on.
And I thought about how I am wanted and supported here. I can really feel that, and it touches me and nourishes me deeply. I have no words for what that means to me.
The pain got less. And then I thought about structural dissociation theory and realized it isn't that all of me is fundamentally flawed and vile and worthless and will never be wanted anywhere and should run away and curl up in a cave, it's one part of me (or maybe more, but let's go with one for now) that believes that and feels it intensely, but another part of me knows it has value, is loved and wanted, and even has some goodness in there somewhere. I'm flipping back and forth between these so fast, first one, then the other, then the other...
And I think... just occasionally I catch a glimpse of a part of me that knows she is good and worthy, even if no one is reflecting that. Not often, but it exists.
So in the end, it was good. It was one more data entry in the database of new information I seem to be downloading these days. All in all, your mistake was not a mistake but what an improvisation teacher I once met called a "happy accident", and I thank you so very much for it.
Having said that, ironically I have the same fear of inadvertently causing harm. So much so that at times it spirals into something like OCD where I go to great lengths to make sure I haven't hurt anyone by accident. I keep editing this post to make sure it's perfect, so I do understand the problem and am wondering if I should delete it in the next five minutes I have left. Aack. :eek:Anyway, I feel the need to say something to anyone reading this who at this moment does not have a support system in their life and may be feeling that absence while reading this. What I would say is it's not your fault, and I feel your pain keenly. There are all kinds of reasons why a person may have or not have people in their lives they can lean on, some related to trauma, some not. What I know each one of you does have is this board. Let us be a support system for you. In time, it will get better for you. These words still don't seem adequate but they're the best I can come up with for now.
