Emotional Needs

[Pencil]

Pencil, why did you take away that? :)

i"m slightly confused now, but I will simply post twice as much :D

 

[Tanishq]

My god. :wacky: Don't mind.

Something new will pop up.

 

[raven123]

I went to the bookstore looking for a different book and found this one. No Men's workbook (big shocker there...LOL), but, I doubt much would change in one. I like it better than the Courage to Heal Workbook:

Healing the Trauma of Abuse: A Women's Workbook by Mary Ellen Copeland, MS.
Dead Link Removed

"Trauma can turn your world upside down; afterward, nothing may look safe or familiar. And, if you are a woman, studies show that you are twice as likely than your male counterparts to suffer from the effects of a traumatic event sometime during your life. Whether the trauma is physical, sexual, or emotional, these events can overwhelm you, destroying your sense of being in control and altering your attachments to others. If left unaddressed, the resulting psychological trauma can lead you to a wide range of destructive symptoms like anxiety, depression, substance abuse, phobias, personality disorders, flashbacks, emotional numbing, and nightmares. This book offers proven-effective, step-by-step exercises you can use to work through and minimize the consequences of a traumatic event."

It's a lot more detailed than Courage to Heal and explains a lot more. Lots of coping stuff along the journey. I read the whole thing in the store and then bought it. I can fill this out unlike Courage to Heal's workbook. Worth a look.

 

[Abstract]

Hi Pencil :)

Sorry as I really didn't mean for you to feel that at all! I just didn't want to go on and in (as I have a tendency to do:rolleyes: ) on a topic that felt off track of Raven's thread so just wanted to check in with him first. Will come back to you asap.

 

[Pencil]

What's going on with the pixels today?? Both you and Jaret think there's something serious about my tone. I am all over the show and hijack threads with my meanderings in my own mind and appreciate it when you so carefully do the right and considerate thing and politely point it out to me - so my response was very lighthearted. Please don't think I feel rapped over the knuckles or sulky or put out or .. whatever (or should I ;)?)

 

[Abstract]

Hi Pencil! :)
I did not think you were the least bit phased! Off to bath now...:smug:

 

[Abstract]

"strong internal voice that keeps telling me trusting or not being entirely self sufficient is wrong and if I perceive anything that seems to agree with that coming from the T then I can hit severe backlash."
This is it, I guess - and this is extremely paradoxical, don't you think? Please please elaborate!

Pencil, every single thing I seem to do or think to do with how I function tends to be paradoxical! I should have Paradoxical as some part of my name.

I keep trying to think of how to put it into words as I really am not yet clear about my own reactions so struggling a bit to put it into words. Here goes. I never discussed anything with anyone and now when I do attempt to do so it is as if I am consumed by a primitive instinctual fear. I don't know if it is about feeling that someone has "the goods" on me or if it is more. I think it might also be that all the messages of it not being safe or OK to say anything (shame, fear etc) have become tied to speaking about my internal life, fears and pain. Not sure really.

When I do speak it is as if a lot of me is trying not to and feels it is wrong. That means speaking entails me overpowering all that to even be able to "hear" what I want to say. So if someone else says something that seems to be agreeing with what that internal voice is saying then my resistance to that internal voice tends to it crumbles. I seem to be improving quite a lot but there are times when it just slams home again. And anything in therapy magnifies it all by many times.

This does not happen at all with me having opinions in general and it only comes up to do with my emotional life, past and internal world.

Your T obviously was not saying that you should not want your unmet needs to be healed and heard about at all but it occurred to me that if I was in T and was triggered in the way you mention (it seems it links directly to not be protected for you) that it might hit me that way.

This doesn't really explain properly what I mean and doesn't link directly to what you were saying but hopefully it gives some idea of it.

 

[Abstract]

ot more detailed than Courage to Heal and explains a lot more. Lots of coping stuff along the journey.

I think its really great that you are looking at books/workbooks and working your way through them.

Found this to build self-worth...

I very much liked both articles.

I took a test the other night and found I might have BPD. Made sense.

I think if you do then you will be far from alone in here and it does make sense in that trauma can have a big impact on the way we relate to others and ourselves. Great thing is that we can get closer to who we really are and work on the parts that sabotage our relationships with other people and with ourselves.

Have you bought any books on dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and mindfulness? I have found them very helpful and I know many others who have as well. There is also a good information site http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/ and it occurred to me that it would be wonderful for many on here if someone took each exercise and did a thread on it. Could almost be group DBT in a sense. Just a thought.

 

[Tanishq]

I was thinking about this while sitting at park place.

I understood most people are trained to get and give physical needs. But it takes understanding and time to see emotional needs. It is not visible. You will have to work for this and emotions are very sensitive things.

Most easily give up at emotional need stuff. It can be draining, unnerving and call the difficulty you want to say. Yes, it is very difficult thing "emotional needs".

 

[raven123]

Abstract - The chronic emptiness and no clue on how I feel 99% of the time) aspect of BPD makes sense. The others I'm not sure of. I think everything goes back to the chronic emptiness thing.

I did find that "cure" to making chronic emptiness better was finding your true self in all this shit. That book I mentioned before seems to be a great way to do that. Courage to Heal focused too much on how I felt, which I had no clue how to answer. It kept asking about what my body felt and that really is primarily nothing save anxiety and chronic emptiness. Those are really the only things I feel in my body.

 

[raven123]

Doing that book, Healing the Trauma of Abuse: A Women's Workbook, has been hard. I had to admit my mom didn't reallt care much about me--my brother was her favorite and my sperm donor's violence (so he'd love her...lol) matter more than me. I have more anger towards her, and she wouldn't ever hear it, than my sperm donor. Isn't that odd? I read where if the mother lets the "father" abuse her kids and doesn't protect them much, they will grow up to hate her more than the abuser. I understand it now. I think she prays for me a lot because she's knows she did a shitty job. She bitches how my sperm donor abused her but doesn't think he did all that much to me (said that to my brother, too, about him and he got in her face over it). I'm finding I really have little use for her. I wrote her about my problems recently and she never responded. But, she can talk to my brother, her favorite, for f*cking hours on end. My emotional needs obviously don't matter to her at all. f*ck her!