How do you stop doing the "would have could have should have" sort of stuff to yourself?

[Sweetleaf]

I can't stop thinking about how horribly my life went, how I should have done x y z things at x y z points... I've worked on a lot of trauma and made a lot of progress but... I can't help but look back and go "holy f*ck I seriously f*cked up. If I had just handled this one little thing differently..." so on and so forth, ad infinitum, ad nauseum, whatever friggin fancy Latin phrase you wanna insert.

I'd prefer to stay positive though, it's kinda pissing me off that I'm having these thoughts, too.

I wish I could just go "f*ck it all" and just be like, "ahh whatever" at my past. I wish I could sit here and go "hey holy shit I'm f*cking alive who gives a f*ck how much I f*cked up, I should be dead several times over by now" and f*cking -appreciate it-... appreciate that I am even f*ckin' writing this. I wish I could be like "hey, 2nd chance at life, forget the past was even there, just, start over, you got a reset button, just recharge and go back at it"

But it's not as easy as just wishing.

I'm having a hard time not thinking about the trauma, but now instead of the very panicky moments, the weapons stuff, the gun stuff, I'm thinking about the other aspects of the traumas. I'm also thinking about the rape a lot, the shame, the guilt, the disgust, so on.

I keep thinking about how I shouldn't have let any of that happen, how I could have prevented it, even with the whole "lol hindsight is 20/20" thing, which I say all the time haha... even with that, I'm like, really being down on myself and feeling like I f*cked up my life really bad.

I don't even know what words to put into it. A lot of self-negativity, with a hint of anger at the people who did this to me. But mostly just self-negativity, feeling like I f*cked up, feeling like I missed out on so much shit, feeling like my life could have been f*cking awesome by now but instead I ruined it.

Feeling like I just ruin everything - I think that's something related to my childhood trauma. My mom basically, my whole life, has gone right to me as the family scapegoat. I was always guilty until proven innocent, at which point I get a scolding to make sure I don't do whatever it is she was blaming me for and... yeah just, horrible f*cking mother. No love for me as far as I am concerned, in regards to the definition of the word "love" in my head.

My mom has always had no confidence in me, or my decisions - I guess writing this all out has helped me kinda maybe pinpoint some of the source of these sorts of thoughts. Having it beaten into me as a kid, and having a f*cking dickwad of a mother.

But anyway...


What do I do to stop having all these thoughts of regret? These feelings of loss? What can I do about this shit I typed about?

Anyone relate? Any pointers?

 

[somerandomguy]

It is hard.

The thing about the "what-if" game is - where do you stop? There are literally millions of things that I could have done differently that might have prevented my trauma. But maybe they wouldn't have. At some point, it just becomes a way for your brain to torture you.

Basically, I had to consciously decide to stop thinking about "what-if" and accept that yes, it happened to me. From there, I had to accept that it wasn't my fault. Lots of people here and my therapist all made compelling arguments for exactly WHY it wasn't my fault, and eventually my self-blame mode just got overwhelmed.

Yes, it happened. No, it wasn't my fault. No, there really wasn't anything I could have done about it. Those three statements work together and reinforce each other. If I start to doubt one of them, I have the other two to fall back on, and that helps me see the truth of all of those statements.

I still have bad days that are full of self-blame. I come here and read some stuff that other people are going through, and I don't blame them at all one bit for what they've gone through. If I don't blame them, I feel like I can't blame myself, either, and I start to feel better. But some days are harder than others, which I think is normal. Eventually you'll have more good days than bad days.

As far as the feelings of loss ...

Yes. You lost out on a lot. Gretchen Schmelzer says that the grief we feel isn't just for what happened to us, but what DIDN'T happen to us - for what we missed out on because of our trauma. You missed out on having a loving, caring family, and as a result missed some key developmental milestones in your childhood and teen years. You lost out on having a loving, caring relationship, because you had a shitty abusive one.

Her solution to this is that we can be the parents to ourselves now that we should have had then. We can love and care for our child selves (and our current selves, too) now the way we never had at that stage. And we have to grieve for what could have been. Grieving is healthy and healing. Grieving eventually brings acceptance.

But, like everything else on this path, grieving and caring for yourself is difficult. It won't seem natural at first, because you've never really experienced it from others. It takes a lot of practice and it is something a good therapist can help you with. Personally, I'm still working on this. At least I love my child self, which is a big step right there because I used to loathe myself and my needy parts. Most of us start out with extreme self-loathing, but it's really worth working on because once you stop hating yourself, some things suddenly become a lot easier.

 

[ladee]

Also being the 'scapegoat' of the family, when we are 'bad and wrong' , even if we weren't, those are hard wired into our brain and very hard to overcome. Or to stop believing is true.

My sister is my mental abuser in this situation, and she told the 'story of Ladee' so well, that others jumped on board and I felt surrounded by people who never believed in me.

And this being my 'belief of myself', it was only normal for me to seek out situations or people who reinforced this belief. If we had been taught we were worthy of love and support, our brain would have sought those things out. We seek what we were taught.

It's easy for my adult self to look back and see all the wrong choices I made. The dangerous situations I put myself in. The people I was drawn to. But at the time these things were actually happening, I didn't have a clue that I was only acting out what I had been told about myself.

If water drops on a rock in a certain place over a long period of time, the shape of the rock changes. Just as we had things said and done to us over a long period of time, it changed the 'shape' of us. A rock can't change it's shape, but we can.

I have found on my long journey, that 'unlearning' the things that were said to me was the hardest part. In order to 'unlearn', I had to put new things in place in my thinking and actions.

Instead of questioning myself into oblivion about things I can not change, I had to look at the things I did, own them, and do my absolute best not to repeat them.

If I start thinking about what I could have done different in any situation, I ask myself if I had the knowledge to do it different. Most of the time, that answer was NO. I was living what I was told I was.

And when we have no one in our young lives to tell us anything different, then we live what we are taught. The simple answer is.. I didn't know a different way at the time I was making those choices. Ya, maybe there was a small voice saying this or that was wrong, or dangerous, but it's not like we were ever taught to listen or believe in that small voice.

It comes down to self discipline. To make ourselves stop questioning things that we have already done. And do our best to not do them again. And even if we do, we are aware now, and we have others who support us, or tell us that we are not that child anymore.

I have read a lot about 'scapegoating', and that has helped me a lot. It has helped me to understand the why's of the treatment we received. And why we were so tender hearted that we believed those things.

I do understand the questioning you are doing, but I do have the power to simply tell myself to STOP. Just stop thinking about it. And put other thoughts in the place of all of the questions that have no answers.

If I am thinking about why I jumped on a Harley at 14 yrs old and rode off into oblivion of drugs and a hard life, I just stop myself. And tell myself I have choices today. It's not like I had any self worth to make good choices. And no teachers.

Hope you lighten up on yourself. If you had known another way, or had any sense of self worth, you would have made different choices. You were going on what you had been taught about yourself.

 

[EveHarrington]

Self forgiveness.

 

[ILoveLife]

Training, in my case.
Accept the responsibility of actions that were my responsibility and deny self blame at all costs about things I had no control over.

CBT exercise: Stupid thought arises - STOP sign in front of it in your mind. Does help.

 

[whiteraven]

I can't stop thinking about how horribly my life went, how I should have done x y z things at x y z points... I've worked on a lot of trauma and made a lot of progress but... I can't help but look back and go "holy f*ck I seriously f*cked up. If I had just handled this one little thing differently..." so on and so forth, ad infinitum, ad nauseum, whatever friggin fancy Latin phrase you wanna insert.

I'd prefer to stay positive though, it's kinda pissing me off that I'm having these thoughts, too.

Wow...I could have written this! I don't know how to overcome any of this, but I wanted to let you know I read it and can completely relate.

 

[Tornadic Thoughts]

It's an ongoing daily effort of intentional redirection as my brain is wired for what-ifness and I often should on myself. This song helps me shift my focus to now o'clock and gets it out of the woulda shoulda coulda neighborhood:

 

[Freida]

I have no idea. So if you figure it out first? Let me know!
One thing that really helped me? That idiot rant I went on a while back. Because it forced me to see my thought processes in other people -- and how idiotic it was. It didn't stop my self blame and 'if I had just not opened the door" blah blah, but it did make me wonder. If I believe in others I need to think about believing in myself.

I cant for one second imagine how it would feel to be raised like that -- always second guessing every decision you made because you had no one to help you learn about life and decisions and how to get from Point A to Point B. I like @somerandomguy idea about parenting yourself -- because as a parent (a good parent) you would never say to a child what you say to yourself. Maybe if you can help little you heal then the rest will fall into place?

 

[Abstract]

This is actually something I have always been fairly good at. Aspects anyway. I don't spend a lot of time doing the what if stuff. Think its self protective. It would be a rabbit hole I can't afford to fall into. Always good at blocking stuff. Hatred and judgement of self and decisions? Truck loads of that. Dont consider alternative outcomes. Would do me in. Grief about what has been and what happened including actions? Need to do way more of that. Radical Acceptance was such a huge help for me and I rely on it a lot. Very life changing for me. That dual space of acknowldging the awfulness and not trying to rewrite or change it. When I am not pretending that it doesn't exist at all of course. ??? My faviourite response to anything. Nothing happened and if it did it didn't affect me at all. Tra lalala.

The other thing I am quite good about is not wanting to go back to pre trauma or stressors. I don't see human experience that way. There isn't back only forward.Whatever that "forward" may be. Probably helped a bit by there never being a good in the past to hark after. Self or experience wise. Yay me for even being able to acknowledge some helpful stuff I do. ?

 

[Sweetleaf]

You all make a lot of good points. Also make me feel a lot less alone.

This childhood trauma shit is such a pain in the ass -when you presently live with your worst childhood abuser-

She just knows she can't hit me anymore, because she's 5'4 and I'm 5'11, young, and athletic. Her fault. She forced me to do the sports she wanted me to do. I got athletic. To avoid her after school (she worked at the f*cking high school I went to... and the elementary school I went to.....) I would go -straight- to the school's weight room after school (which had treadmills and warmup shit too ofc) - often I'd stand outside of it and do jumprope, like workout level jumproping, I'd do the treadmills, which were facing windows (I like that tbh, better than TV on a treadmill. Scenery and music is better). I also would do allll the weight machines, leg days, arm days. The guy supervising all of this, the staff member (any kid could come workout after school there) - was a former olympian, he'd give advice and stuff when he saw you doing workouts wrong. I forget what his event was. Anyway. Working out every day after school had me be team captain in a sport I f*cking hated. Funny shit isn't it?

Anyway though. In high school I got tall/fit/strong and she found that trying to hit me resulted in her punching bone every time. Then she'd blame me for her hurting herself trying to hit me and I was like every f*cking time "YOU TRIED TO HIT ME, NO SHIT I BLOCKED!!!" - acting like I hit her when all I did was block well lmao.

Of course that didn't end her yelling or blaming or anything, but I didn't give a shit when I was a teen. I don't know why I didn't see that shit as abusive. Holy f*ck. Shakey handed typing this, thinking about being hit as a kid. That's new. Guess I'm kinda digging into shit, writing this.

I had a reprocessing session today and it somehow turned into childhood stuff again. Somehow it also has my adulthood rib-breakings hurting again too, from the ex from hell.

Yeeeeah.

Whew just connected some dots. So my father treated me like an adult, like a friend or some shit, instead of a child. He was like the good guy figure, by default, because my mom was mean and he was nice, calm, quiet. Didn't yell at me. When he yelled it was like, some -real- reason for someone to be pissed off, whereas my mom just exploded just about literally every time, every 5 seconds, just, constantly. It's like sitting around waiting for a bomb to go off or some shit, it's just a yelly screamy blamey hitty bomb.

His position enabled him to do the sexual abuse stuff he did. The shit I won't talk to my pdoc about or write about here. I have written about some of it, but. Yeah.

That was quite the tangent. I blame me having EMDR today lmao. I'm kinda thinking about that shit a lot even though we only did reprocessing on the adult stuff.

I told her some shit I don't even think I've told you guys, about my living conditions in the torture - okay maybe I have. Dried vomit. Ever told you guys about that? Months old dried vomit. Yeah. Okay.

Don't even know if I sound manic but I'm taking zyprexa tonight just because why the f*ck not. I could use a good 12-14 hour nap.

Back to the thread topic though ?:
My homework for this week is to just, think about shit related to forgiving myself. Think about self forgiveness, forgiving myself for having experienced all of the shit I did - it's funny how I can look at everyone else's shit and go "yeah that's not your fault, yep, plain and clear not your fault in any way" - can't do the same shit for myself.

It's probably going to take a long time though because there's a lot of shit I have to forgive myself about, shit I shouldn't see as my fault - like just about allllll the adult trauma for example.

I like @somerandomguy idea about parenting yourself -- because as a parent (a good parent) you would never say to a child what you say to yourself. Maybe if you can help little you heal then the rest will fall into place?

I've been kind of resistant to the idea of "helping little me heal" - parenting myself - just an extension of "I'm gonna pretend like my trauma isn't a big deal and like I -don't- have to do the trauma healy stuff on my trauma" - more denial of my present/past situation/s.

I'm going to give it a shot. Little me is in some pretty sorry shape to be honest. So much self-hate.

Also @Abstract - I'm familiar with radical acceptance and have managed to do it for some things, like my sterility - pretty much totally out of my control, and as much as I've hated it I've over time started getting better at not giving a f*ck, being like, meh whatever at it - not caring, and not in a bad way either. Not being envious of others. Shit like that. Not hating myself/my body. Embracing it.

I just have a reeeeeally hard time doing it with trauma stuff. Lol.

 

[Tinyflame]

Yes @Sweetleaf , I am not sure, but you've gotten good advice. Hopefully something will work for you. :hug:

Idk, there is only forward from here, gratitude for what/ who deserves gratitude.

I try to remember we all have value as human 'beings', rather than human 'doings'. But it's hard, esp if we say: value to who, or what, within the life we live? But ya, I'm not so great on self-compassion I guess. One part of me also says nothing happened (compared to most/ many/ at least some)// get off my as*; another says to myself I am trying, why is it such a struggle, and I am so tired.

 

[ILoveLife]

Agreed that some work on self-compassion might be worth it here...
Can be a stepping stone for acceptance of yourself.