So indulge a little Stuff. I think as sufferers of abuse/PTSD we need to learn to to keep such intensely personally restrictive patterns on our preferences, emotions, and self-exploration in perspective...; I know I'm like this because of my traumas growing up, and I'm the first guy to admit a moments trauma can impact a person for a LIFETIME, so the change can be hard to initiate, but once the gears are in motion, it's hard to want to turn back.
Feel good about something you want, by clearly, and explicitly deciding to yourself to ALLOW yourself to have it. Allow yourself to have it on your OWN TERMS. The act of learning executive control over one's self, and environment helps build a proper sense of self-esteem, and an understanding of boundaries, and needs for the individual. I think this helps me to develop assertiveness, and an assertive-affirmative mind set that allows me to clearly state what I feel, what I want, and what I need without being stuck in the traumatic patterns I grew up with. I never learned what I needed mattered, and that is VERY PAINFUL and disruptive/disturbing to a developing psyche.
I want to be more open as a person, and granted, I may still always be an introvert, but I'd like to be able to connect with people and not feel so detached or 'out of it' all the time. Everything else, I can accept as a normal, healthy, functional part of my personality, and not because of trauma or mental material creeping up, and influencing my behavior with anxiety, depression, and dissociation/depersonalization.
I have to shape and develop my personality, because I never got a chance to have a childhood, that was about just growing, and learning; it was a war, in which I had to navigate the most turbulent of waters; stuck between TWO major formally-allied countries...and I was/STILL am just a little tugboat in middle of it all. But no more; I have to be a self-made country with an artillery of my OWN. I want my life to work on MY TERMS and it will....if it knows what's good for it ! :cool:
