Christmas: Emotional Numbing

[lil_fighter]

Hi purple butterfly,

Have just read your original post and wonder if your father may have narcissistic personality disorder? As what you have described reminds me of my own father who did not have the opportunity or pleasure of physically or emotionally abusing me between the ages of 1 and 17 because my mother took me away with her to start a new life far away from him, but from 17 onwards when I naively made contact with him my world was turned upside down. I went away took time out, researched his condition or what I believe he has and came back temporarily.. then cut contact again, like cutting a tumour out of my life.. during those three years I grew and built my confidence up and then today when I am now in contact (just regained contact two weeks ago with the encouragement of his sister, my aunt who preached about life being short because her son was killed)..he is different because I am different and he knows he cant behave the same way but it doesn't mean I have forgotten and of course Im always suspicious of him, beware of the smile of the tiger.

Your emotional numbing is definitely a defense mechanism and people like your father having everyone around them while you feel like the only one who knows their 'game' or feels ill at the thought of how they use people to make them look good and make us feel like we're imagining it, you know the truth and he knows you know the truth. Times like Christmas, New Year etc. can seem tough and you bite your tongue and for the sake of family you play along...but at the end of the day your children love you and even if they dont understand the reasons, you are fully aware and you can use your knowledge of your father's behaviour and why he does what he does as a way of coping - you can predict his next move and even if you are being civil it doesn't mean you have to do anything you dont want to do :)

 

[ms spock]

I feels though I have nothing to say to people. What do you stay when they ask how you are??
I am tired of trying to explain

Unless they are a very close friend then I would joke off - still waiting for the next season of Breaking Bad or Six Feet Under or Enterprise.

A greeting to me is about connection. Further down the track you might want to tell people but you also don't have to tell them any thing.

Read the newspapers or the web and find a couple of inspirational things that people are doing to help other people or the ecosystems or the planet in some way and talk about how good is that. How interesting etc.

Our "stuff" on the whole is for therapy, or support groups or online groups like this one.

If you tell everyone how you really are all the time it could mean they withdraw - not because they don't care- but because that they don't have the skills or feel inadequate. Anthony has a different take on this and I think he is pretty cluey about the way he does this and interacts with people.

Muppets from Space, The Princess Bride, Monty Python, The Incredibles - really silly movies which you can giggle about with people.

If you feeling really bad and you don't want to talk you can say "I am enjoying being here with you and that is the news for today."

Sometimes I really don't want to go out because I feel inferior to other people. I haven't achieved much with my life. I am really struggling with the ptsd stuff etc etc. But once I get there I am glad I came (most of the time.)

Socially engaging with other people is like a marathon. You have to put in lots of practice.

So you start of with visiting the library and leaving well before you start to get overwhelmed. Read the newspapers or find some books - look up humour. So you do that for 10 minutes a day for a month. So you are working out around being social.

Then next step would be to visit a cafe - this will involve actual interaction with another human being - in that you will need to speak to some one to get some type of beverage. So you take a book, a newspaper and some thing to draw with. (If you draw people will stop and want to look at and comment on your drawing so you need to be ready for that - other people will want to be included in your social space.)

So you order a beverage - once you go regularly the waiter people get to know you so you will share your star sign, favourite movie, something about the weather, how it was lovely someone saved X from extinction and you might say I am having a good day today - and when you are ready for it ask them. Then later on say I have come to be cheered up by X beverage as you make it so well. Most of it is perfunctory but they are social codes that people know and they enable interaction. Make sure you thank everyone, say hello, say goodbye and when something is good -don't be afraid to say it to every member of staff you see. If that is too much then rotate spots along the beach or different cafes. Bushwalking and birdwatching are good, because if it gets too much you can look at a bird or ask what is that plant, shrub or tree.

So you see you start building up being around people. I think it could be important that you have a couple of places to do where your noble, brave and courageous attempts at healing from ptsd are not with you - so you can have a break.

So there are a few random ideas - personally as I am on the DSP (Disability Support Pension) I go to art gallerys and all the free places and free bands.

When you are up for it join a group for hobbies and go.

You don't have to tell anyone any thing and some days I don't tell people I am dealing with suicidal ideation because I am managing it well and want to enjoy a different moment or even experience a different moment.

 

[ms spock]

Dear Purplebutterfly,

I try to engage as many of the women in my incest survivors art group in general conversation as possible - because the women there have talked about having this challenge.

So I model best practice. I talk. I joke. People ask me someone said this and someone said that - and we brainstorm ideas of how to deal with that type of social situation. You know you give someone a fish and they are fed for a day and you teach someone to fish and they have the gift that keeps on giving in that they can feed themselves and their communities for the rest of their lives. (Old Chinese Fish)

There is one woman who annoys the shit out of me, but some of the others have taken her under their wing. (Because her pain is similar to my own and she is sitting with hers whilst I am struggling to make contact with mine. Still so disassociated.)

There is one woman who was so socially phobic when she came that I only approached her from under her gaze level so as not to set off the hyperviligance and I let her know I was coming over to her space. It has taken time but last time she let me get her glasses of water and sit her in front of a fan. Everything poured out of her - she is so shy - she doesn't get to talk that often (for me because I have been involved with incest survivors and ptsd type people for 27 years now and I had looked after my Autistic, Downs Syndrome Brother for most of his life I knew that this was a big moment for her - to talk to someone outside of her immediate social circle.) So I didn't get worried or freak out and I was able to just sit and listen.

A lot of people don't know how to listen and make contact with themselves nevertheless any one else. And when they do they want it to fix it. They can't stand that someone would have ptsd because they
find it so overwhelming and unhappy making that they want to make it better. This can come across as rejection, not listening, etc etc etc etc but it is that they are inexperienced.

You don't want to talk about your stuff with everyone and most people are so caught up in their own lives they don't really have head space for it. Some days I will say to people can you keep X away from me as I have nothing to give today. So Y steps up to the plate with X and all is good.

Sharing is good.

And both X and Y reciprocated as well.

Learning to gracefully to accept reciprocation is important as well otherwise people feel REJECTED BY YOU! Everyone wants what they have to give to be valued.

Listening with an open heart and reflecting back to someone what they are feeling and experiencing is often all that is required. People need to be seen and heard. People need to be acknowledged.

Solving the problem is secondary to the being held by your community in space and time and validated.

You have to let people share your social spaces as well. There are so many ways that people with ptsd reject other people who want to get to know them without them knowing that they are doing so.

I told my incest survivors group that I had received one pink little bag and nothing else for my birthday in 2010. I know from that - they organised that everyone got some thing for Xmas this year. I know that they did this in response to my sadness at not being valued.

So friendship and caring and listening and assisting and watching people pick themselves up and dust themselves off again has to be a two way street.

If you are being used you need to step back and see how you set yourself up for this being used. I struggle with this still. I must acknowledge that I am getting better at this. I detached from two people who were sucking the life force out of me in 2011.

As always I write from the best of my heart, in the best way I know how, in this now. If it is not helpful please accept the care with which what I have written.

hi purple butterfly,
from 17 onwards when I naively made contact with him my world was turned upside down. I went away took time out, researched his condition or what I believe he has and came back temporarily..then cut contact again, like cutting a tumour out of my life..during those three years I grew and built my confidence up and then today when I am now in contact (just regained contact two weeks ago with the encouragement of his sister, my aunt who preached about life being short because her son was killed)..he is different because I am different and he knows he cant behave the same way but it doesn't mean I have forgotten and of course Im always suspicious of him, beware of the smile of the tiger.

I am SO pleased that your mother took you away from him for the first 17 years of your life! Smart and caring woman she is - wow!

You seem to be aware of the dangers so that is good! I am worried for you though.

Take Care!
ms spock

 

[soulofLC]

...Emotional abuse lays the foundation for a child, then an adult, to be abused in a variety of other emotional abusive ways by emotional vampires, bullies, sociopaths in the work place, psychopaths in the work place, emotional abandonment, being manipulated, invalidated, rejected, isolated, ignored, corrupting, exploited and terrorizing and generally put down and not cared and loved for properly.

Excluding an adult child or are younger child from family activities (by making impossible, too humilitating and too uncomfortable for you to go) is an extension of his emotional abuse to you.)

IMHO emotional abuse and emotional abandonment are the most difficult to deal with, define and heal from.

ms spock

ms spock, my sorted life lays here in your post, motionless and shocked. Is it true that "emotional abuse and emotional abandonment are the most difficult to deal with, define, and heal from"? Wow, that is heavy and sort of numbing. No wonder...soul

 

[ms spock]

people like your father having everyone around them while you feel like the only one who knows their 'game' ...make us feel like we're imagining it... Times like Christmas, New Year etc. can seem tough and you bite your tongue and for the sake of family you play along...

Over time I have seen such damage to children where everyone played along for the sake of the family. I don't think it is worth it myself. I must say though I have cut contact from my family because I wouldn't play along.

And when do people stop playing along? How much abuse is too much abuse?

I spoke to a woman recently that leaves her son with her mother and father as she has little money for childcare. Her father sexually abused her for years. I don't think that this is okay. He is at risk. She actually said to me she hadn't seen any signs that he is being sexually abused. I think we want to get to it before it gets to that stage of actual abuse.

Emotional abuse is far worse than sexual abuse IMHO - it is more insidious and harder to pinpoint and also once your reality has been warped by the emotional abuser you just get your head more and more messed with. You end up with feelings of worthlessness, not belonging, isolation, feeling it was your fault and feeling guilty - that something as invisble as emotional abuse - has torn you to pieces. It is a perfect crime.

My 2 cents worth,
Happy New Year,
ms spock

 

[soulofLC]

Sometimes I really don't want to go out because I feel inferior to other people. I haven't achieved much with my life. I am really struggling with the ptsd stuff etc etc. But once I get there I am glad I came (most of the time.)

Ms Spock, I believe with all my heart that you have already achieved much with your life. You are insightful, intelligent, and compassionate. These are qualities that are rare; most people will never master the qualities you posess. You share them freely, along with your good humor.

With all due respect and sincerity, soul

 

[ms spock]

That is very generous soulofLC.

Thank you for acknowledging qualities that you see in me - without family
I have not much reflection, in my life, at this time. Actually it is probably
that it is there, but I lack the skills to take it in. I don't have a great capacity
for taking in the good things.

*giggles in her chair, looks around the room, thinks about the day, giggles again*

Ah thank you! but you know, I have a long way to go yet. I am getting close to understanding something too.

And Humour keeps us from pushing the daisies up from six feet under. I am particularly skilled at silliness and humour.

 

[purple butterfly]

Thank you Ms Spock and lil_fighter

lil_ fighter said

Your emotional numbing is definitely a defense mechanism and people like your father having everyone around them while you feel like the only one who knows their 'game' or feels ill at the thought of how they use people to make them look good and make us feel like we're imagining it, you know the truth and he knows you know the truth

spot on.!!

My T suggests he has undiagnosed narcissistic personality disorder. My children are 29, 26, 24, I have said to them I am not trying to effect their relationship with their grandfather. They are however seeing the light which is interesting and are getting increasingly frustrated and angry with him.

I feel like I have to justify my position to people (my extended family) who only know me as the "perfect, submissive daughter". My father doesn't need to justify himself, but I am the victim and I do!! My father doesn't understand what is happening so I guess in a sense he sees himself as the victim. I think my brothers have tried to give him some information on trauma. But I can't even even talk to him to explain.

He is elderly 81, my mother's sister said she hopes we can reconcile our differences, she thinks he will "drop off his perch soon" (her words) . In all this I keep thinking what about me , he seems to have this greouo around him that tries to protect him but I need to justify my actions.

How does that work??

 

[missing_the _sunshine]

PB - just wanted to drop by and let you know I am thinking of you. :)

Don't have anything to offer - not really good with the advice aspect, but I am thinking of you.

 

[purple butterfly]

To add insult to injury I had organized to see my mother's two sisters tonight. I am in Melbourne and one of her sisters is from Canberra ( about an 8 hour drive). I don't get to see her a lot but she holds the key to a lot of information about my mother (who passed away 18 years ago ) and her relationship with my father.

My aunty was only in Melbourne for a few days and I caught up with her very briefly, I was hoping that I could have a heart to heart with both my aunties. My father has been in contact with them and they felt they needed to see him tonight so I was shelved, yet they know how toxic he was for their sister, my mother and had an inkling that things weren't right between me and my father.

Once again I didn't matter.

Apart from my children, I had no family contact me on my birthday (18th December) and one brother out of three rang me at Christmas. Usually my three brothers and their families and my family spend Christmas together. I have felt desperately the need to contact significant females in my life and they let me down.

So I am feeling really let down again. One of my significant issues is being abandoned and not mattering.

 

[purple butterfly]

Thank you missing_ the_ sunshine, thinking of you too.
((take care))

 

[soulofLC]

So I am feeling really let down again. One of my significant issues is being abandoned and not mattering.

purple butterfly, that is my lot to a letter. Abused emotionally all my life, the scapegoat in my family, the one who "might have been switched at the hospital." Yeah, we are in this together.

I just found out my mother was in hospital for 3 days undergoing tests for suspected stroke. (other side of Texas, far far away) I yelled at my 93 year old dad for not calling me! Then hung up on him. Maybe I am getting better! I am laughing now! :roflmao: He is such a bastard, pardon me.

I wish I was numb!!!!