What a great discussion!
I will add few things of where I am today. All opinions non scientific.
Self is created after birth in the environment we are born. If toxic and abuse the tiny world if a child, we close up or immerse. How we manifest the shutdown or the complete immersion as an adult is quite obvious....we can have mental health PTSD etc etc or become psychopath...depends really all the environments we live and some of the intelligence mechanics we are born with. Even having great parents does not make you live the best if one keeps choosing wrong environment and wrong relationships.
How do healthy and no major trauma experience self? It is not usually separate, they know who they are same way we all know the heart is pumping. Mostly in therapy or truama or certain jobs or education do most people can articulate self versus other... that self object. We are not just self without other we are selfobject. When it is broken is a sing if psychopathology.
Even in recovery, there is a transition of recognition of the split and then it is firm and forgotten...just like it's original development that took place in infanthood.
Having PTSD as an adult most likely means you had child trauma you did not know. Most likely.
Trauma is all coping mechanisms breakdown and self is overpowered. Tragedy is experiencing loss and grief...self is intact and able to utilize others/objects for help.
Other areas that got polarized for me are: conciousnes where I was confused temporally. My truama experience and my present were not integrated. I was triggered displaying PTSD symptoms it completely present healthy. Makes no sense. I had to learn how to close the gap....
What made bypass the gap was imagination and idealization and hopefulness of life. We may call this adaptation or resilence.
I imagine life must be better and live in my head.
So I could never learn either I am suffering in pstd or live in the present and imagined life. I had to break the wall- dissassoiction!
Not without losing ground for while though.
To me today I can truly say even when I have PTSD symptoms, I am able to cope like I have a flu or common cold. But I also see where I am hurting in the self like not knowing me or wanting to know me too much or others, relationships, engulfment of self, too much septation, abandoning, controlling etc or am I in my head in the past or too far in the future losing my sense of consciousness....or at most of time...just being.
No matter, I will say having great relationships that challenge your perceptions are good; hence therapists but also when loved, nurtured, and taken care of, it is easy for our inner child to come out safely and play and dance alone maybe even knowing she is alone and yet not.
And doing that freedom for others!
If no one to share, then nature and animals are our original parents!
