Compassion For Self And Vulnerability

[Friday]

This is the difference between guilt ("I did something wrong - but I can fix it") which I think it what you are talking about, and shame ("I am bad, so everything that goes wrong is my fault... always was, always will be"). What I am talking about letting go of is shame that has touched everything about my life.

Nope. That's exactly the kind of guilt I'm talking about.

And, yes. Every area of my life. Come across a village of people who have been dead for a week? My fault. We didn't get there in time. My son's father abusing him? My fault. I married the bastard. Haven't eaten for 3 days? My fault. My fault. My fault. I'd be hard pressed to find any situation, large or small, where my knee-jerk reaction is not to shoulder all, most, or at least part of the blame. Flooding in the Sahara? Oh. Yep. Just worked out a way to make that my fault, too. I'm not entirely delusional. I know that I'm not responsible for the 9-11 attacks, for example. But I can still blame myself for not being there. Same token, if someone misunderstands me? (not disagrees, disagree is fine) Clearly, I didn't explain well enough.

But I also know I do this. Have known for years & years I do this / actively work against it in a lot of ways... As well as worked backwards to parse out *why* I do it (aka the above post; that it's a self defense mechanism).

It's a trauma side effect, for sure, for me. It's not something I did as a child. It's something I started doing my first time in the field, and it got gradually worse over the years. It's one of the foundational reasons I've pulled the going back of beyond kind of isolating... I literally cannot stand being responsible for one. more. person. Or thing. Or event. Or anything. I'm responsible for far too much in my heart & mind, already. And if I let it? It eats me alive.

***

ETA : "And if I let it? It eats me alive" ... LOL. Even here, clearly, it's my fault. :rolleyes:

 

[sun seeker]

On good days I edit my resume and search for jobs. On good days I forget that I am shadowed by an insidious C-PTS creature.

I can so understand this. It can be like living two lives simultaneously. Am I this? Am I that? Which one is true?

And then, for me, it got to a point where it all fell apart and the functional part of me was, well, not functional anymore, and the question was moot. It may be that this complete breakdown is making it easier (not that I recommend it to anyone) to let go of the persona I'd built up. I was just hanging on by the skin of my teeth. I had to stop hanging on. Now, I get the opportunity to question everything I thought was true about my life.

my complex post traumatic stress pretty much damaged my marriage before it even started which led my husband (the Carer) to cheat on me and now we are separated

I am so sorry this happened to you. May I offer you a hug? :hug:

I'd like to question the part of your post traumatic stress leading your husband to cheat on you though. That's still taking responsibility for another person's reactions. Even if whatever you were doing at the time triggered a reaction in him, it's still his reaction, based on his history, his choices. Not you. Isn't it?

my symptoms cause my to be hypervigilant to real or perceived criticism and the exhaustion from the hypervigilance will cause me to get sick and miss work

Yup... I can relate to all this too.

But only if I can stop the self-invalidation that has been ingrained in me since BIRTH. That's a lot of altered neurons to deal with.

Yes, it is. For me, too, it goes back to birth... actually to gestation. And I think for this kind of trauma, thinking about it differently only goes so far. We have to speak the language of the frightened baby. That's where bottom-up kinds of therapy work better than top-down kinds like CBT. Visualizing your inner child is great. It sounds like you have found a bunch of things that help you and are being proactive about using them. Good for you!

The fact that you've heard this advice a long time before you were able to put it into action does not reflect negatively on you.

No, it reflects on how the brain works, which is both fascinating and mysterious. And I'm left scratching my head wondering if there is a shortcut somewhere to make this process easier... like a recipe, you know? Or does each person have to keep trying one thing and another until something clicks? I wish it were not so.

I'm sorry if that was depressing.

Not depressing at all. I admire your tenacity.

 

[sun seeker]

I hear what you say about not blaming yourself meaning you become open to all the emotions around the trauma

A bit scary, isn't it? But perhaps worth it?

Are you working with a trauma therapist @Suzetig?

 

[sun seeker]

That's exactly the kind of guilt I'm talking about

So you're saying for you, shame is a positive thing? How so? I'd like to understand this better.

 

[Dana1010]

What I have trouble forgiving myself for is the aftermath of my parents' poor parenting--the situations I wound up in when I first got out on my own. I think back to those years and I can't believe what I'm seeing. It's like, "Is that me?" Since there was an element of my own agency there, I have a sense of my own culpability. I know considering the conditioning that led up to it, it was essentially impossible at that time to not make bad choices for myself. And yet. They were technically my choices, my behaviors, my mistakes.

I was thinking about my brother recently and how he's not where he should be because of the way he was raised. I wish I could do something, but I just don't know how I'd make contact, it's been years, I'm too scared, I don't want to go back there. But as I start to think about him and feel so much compassion for him for being dealt such a rotten hand, it starts to spread to myself. Like, how would I feel about him beating up on himself the way I beat up on myself? It would be frankly absurd for him to expect anything more from himself than survival, and I'm trying to extend that perspective to my own situation.

One problem is the judgments of other people who don't know what happened and can't wait to tell you you're making excuses for yourself. It's sort of radical to begin to see compassion as something to feel toward yourself, not something you have to wait for someone else to give you.

 

[scout86]

So you're saying for you, shame is a positive thing?

I'm not sure what word to use, "guilt" or "shame". Regret and remorse can be positive, because it can lead you to do better. Believing everything is your fault is different. If you believe "everything is your fault" you can take that in the direction of "I'm helpless to do anything" or, "if I try really really hard, maybe next time I can do better." And, maybe you can, maybe you can't, a lot of that is ultimately beyond your control. (Sorry @FridayJones ! I TOTALLY get where you're coming from on that.) Where you go with it is one thing. Believing you can have THAT powerful an influence on the universe is just not very healthy.

Personally, my "job" in my family of origin was to be "wrong". At least for most members of the family. But I kept trying, thinking "this time maybe I'll get it right", either because I'm irrationally optimistic or because I'm too stupid to figure out that the first rule of the game was "Scout is wrong". Doesn't matter what the original idea was, if Scout accidentally gets it right, what was wanted is something else now, refer to rule #1. Right up till my mother died, earlier this year, I could get sucked in to this. I'd ask my T, "Is this the right way to handle her?" He'd say, "Think about it, what could you do that would be 'right'?" He keeps telling me he wishes I would learn "not to be distracted, worrying about what's 'right'."

@sun seeker, sounds like you're making real progress. Can you leave a trail of bread crumbs, so the rest of us can follow along?

 

[sun seeker]

Since there was an element of my own agency there, I have a sense of my own culpability. I know considering the conditioning that led up to it, it was essentially impossible at that time to not make bad choices for myself. And yet. They were technically my choices, my behaviors, my mistakes.

This is a good point, thank you for bringing it up. I wonder if the answer lies in questioning how useful it is to blame ourselves. Unless blame helps us do better in the future, isn't it just extra baggage we carry? Wouldn't we be better off letting go of it, seeing the patterns and where they come from, then making different choices?

Thinking about this... I think for me, it comes down to whether I trust myself or not. Like a lot of PTSD sufferers I tend to engage in magical thinking (I also go through stages that look a lot like OCD, of which magical thinking is a large element). That is, I blame myself not only for my actions but for my thoughts, which is almost like blaming myself just for existing. If I believe I am essentially flawed and have bad intentions, it follows that I have to beat myself up before I will try harder or do better. The truth is, though, I know my intentions are good. I'm lucky enough to have people in my life (now... not so much in the past) who reflect this to me frequently, which is very helpful. So if I know that, then it follows that I can trust myself to do the best I can without needing to beat myself up. This is literally just coming to me today, so I'm still thinking this through.

It would be frankly absurd for him to expect anything more from himself than survival, and I'm trying to extend that perspective to my own situation.

It sounds like if this is the case, you may need to take some time to get stronger before you are able to reach out to him. I can imagine how hard this is. I'm so sorry.

One problem is the judgments of other people who don't know what happened and can't wait to tell you you're making excuses for yourself.

That's where we need to be really careful about who we let in while we are healing. People like that are so detrimental. Of course this can be easier said than done if these are people you have a hard time avoiding, like coworkers. But where there is a choice, can you stay away from people who judge? Radical, yes. I tend to like radical. :)

 

[Chava]

I could understand that for others, but not for myself, nor could I apply it to my life and make decisions based on it. They were just words. That's shifted significantly and for the first time, I know that the abuse was not my fault, that I was innocent, and so am going through a shift in how I look at and feel about my life. Compassion for myself is very new.

This is wonderful...I relate so much, too. I was writing about how much I cared about some of the young people I work with (mostly college aged) and wondered why I could apply that to them but not myself. I started to feel incomplete and ILLOGICAL. And I value logic!! So I starting considering the whole concept of shame. This was still a few years before I went into therapy for the trauma stuff. But I was willing to dance lightly around the idea of self-compassion, listen to Pema Chodron talks, try loving-kindness meditation, and all of that. It does slowly chip away at the urge to destroy myself and the belief that I must set myself on fire to rid the world of me.

And I might be off track, but what I read of your description of "vulnerability" reminds me of my sense of "powerlessness." I can take a regular adult life situation (financial concerns, etc) and tailspin into the worst of old trapped and immobilized (and oddly even "I'm unlovable") feelings...because I have a momentary sense of powerlessness. For me it helps to use that word, and to recognize that feeling. Because then I look for what I can do to regain a sense of power, even if something very small, like go for a walk. Sometimes I have to physically remind myself that I am mobile and I have power. It doesn't solve the financial or other regular stress, but it can often pull me out of the extreme reaction (the adult regular life stress that triggers the deeper feelings of helplessness).

I love the idea of self compassion and self acceptance. Also, where you feel vulnerable, that is okay. But also look if you are also feeling helpless or powerless, and if there is something little or basic that can help you regain that sense that you do have some control over your body and your life right now.

:hug:

 

[sun seeker]

If you believe "everything is your fault" you can take that in the direction of "I'm helpless to do anything" or, "if I try really really hard, maybe next time I can do better."

Yes, I can relate to this. I've done a lot of both, and neither one gets me very far. My emerging theory is that if I can let go of all that and (as in the above post - #19) trust myself to act on good intentions, then I can break the negative patterns that I haven't been able to get out of through self blame. So far, that feels right. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

I'd ask my T, "Is this the right way to handle her?" He'd say, "Think about it, what could you do that would be 'right'?"

It sounds like you got caught in a dynamic where there was no possible way to win except getting away from it. Good for you for cracking the code.

Can you leave a trail of bread crumbs, so the rest of us can follow along?

That's what this thread is meant for, and I'll keep adding to it as I go. I hope others will too.

One thing I can say is helping is learning to look for patterns. So in a situation that's getting to me, the question is "what other situation does this remind me of? When did I feel this before?" Then, instead of each trauma, of which there are overwhelmingly many, being like, say, an individual bead that I am trying to pick up with a pair of tweezers, I can pick up the whole necklace as one piece.

 

[sun seeker]

I started to feel incomplete and ILLOGICAL. And I value logic!!

This made me smile. Whatever works! Our responses to trauma are a particular kind of logic unique unto themselves. The kinds of defenses we build up to survive at the time make perfect sense. It's when we don't reevaluate them that they become a problem. Sounds like you've done a lot of reevaluating.

Part of my difficulty with the concept of compassion for self has been simply that I didn't remember a lot of what happened to me. It's a lot harder to forgive yourself for reacting to something when you don't know what it is you're reacting to. I had people tell me for years that it was obvious just from observing me that there was serious trauma, but because I couldn't remember it, it was easy to brush that off. "Nah... that's true for other people, but not for me." Negative specialness I think they call it. I alone among the world's population displayed symptoms of serious trauma just to make life harder for myself, even long before learning what the symptoms of serious trauma are. Right. Not likely. But this is pretty much what I believed for a long time. As I write this I feel such compassion for all the caring, patient people who tried to tell me. I had to see it for myself though.

I can take a regular adult life situation (financial concerns, etc) and tailspin into the worst of old trapped and immobilized (and oddly even "I'm unlovable") feelings...because I have a momentary sense of powerlessness. For me it helps to use that word, and to recognize that feeling.

Yes, I recognize this. Thank you. So it sounds like you are building a practice of retraining yourself to find your power, and things like going for a walk are so simple, yet I would imagine get through in a profound way, more so than just telling yourself "that was then, this is now." When anxiety is high, those words don't get through, but action is different.

Just yesterday I did something like this. Powerless is a good word for how I was feeling. Now I can't remember what was causing it except that the noise from the neighbour's lawn mower was tipping me over the edge. Like you I tend to freeze, and I was all set to curl up on the kitchen floor, feeling helpless. Somehow, I had enough brain power left over to think and realize I wasn't actually helpless. I went for a walk to move instead of freezing, and get away from the lawn mower.

 

[Dana1010]

Regret and remorse can be positive, because it can lead you to do better.

The problem is that most people take it way, way past the point where it stops being useful. Instead of a tool you use for improvement and then put away, it becomes a way of life. And then there are the people who don't feel guilt at all and just wantonly slash a path of destruction through life without a care. Seems to be no middle ground.

 

[sun seeker]

Seems to be no middle ground.

I think there can be. Like you say, using it as a tool which you then put away. Reflecting on yourself with compassion. That's my working theory, anyway. :-)