It sounds to me like imagining or imagination based approaches don't fit for you and that is of course OK. We are all different. Like Shimmerz I don't find CBT helpful at all but most people do. It took me a long time to allow myself to just own that and do what worked better. For me.
The inner child thing is again something you have tried extensively and hasn't worked. Fine. I absolutely don't think imagining the inner child is the only way to change things in the present. Or deal with the past.
What I will say though comes back to the idea of separation from the past that you mentioned. I was reading up and listening to lectures on dissociation and its role pre, during and after trauma and how that could potentially effect the long term development of PTSD and at long last one academic video really hit one fact home for me - that PTSD is essentially when we section experiences off and don't integrate them. I knew that before but only partially. So what I will say is that if part of the disownment of this young you is a way of separating yourself from what happened and to you then you probably need to work on that. It doesn't mean you have to do inner child work. Just to accept you as a person that has a whole history and lifetime of experiences. Some of them traumatic and some of them healing. If you truly want to deal with the past and make a better future for yourself then acknowledging it all is important as an aim. If you can accept that all that happened to you, Dogwood Tree, and you now want to work on changing how you respond to situations in the present then I think that is a perfectly legitimate and possible endeavour.
What has worked for me? I try to do the opposite of separating out or splitting myself. I love the idea of an inner adult mode that Justme mentioned. In fact "inner adult" would still feel too much and too splitting and stress me a bit. What I do find helpful at times is a little basic Transactional Analyses. One can check to see if we are in Adult, Child or Parent mode. You, now, in the present but with different functions that we all have. Its easy to do a little check to see where I or others are coming from.
When it comes to the main difficulty you are dealing with: feeling powerful and autonomous and being able to make self caring decisions whilst in certain situations - I too found Pete Walker helpful. The 4 f's and the stuff around them. That is what made the most difference to me. I did work on emotions, actions, my feelings of having a right to them, and practicing using them. Checking if they matched the situation. DBT was helpful. Self connection and mindfulness. As you previously mentioned, learning new skills. Ones I was never taught or in fact was taught the opposite. And grounding of course.
If you think what happens in these situations and your lack of ability to say what you feel then what is it that is actually underneath that for you? Do you go into a state where you don't believe you have a right to an autonomous voice? Do you fear your husband. Are you dissociated. Are you frozen. Are you in flashback or does it happen even if not. What are your beliefs around intimacy and marriage. Around woman and men. How assertive are you usually. In the present not the past. Have you spoken to your husband about this and looked at ways he could help. Not sure how much work you have done on these things, directly.
The inner child thing is again something you have tried extensively and hasn't worked. Fine. I absolutely don't think imagining the inner child is the only way to change things in the present. Or deal with the past.
What I will say though comes back to the idea of separation from the past that you mentioned. I was reading up and listening to lectures on dissociation and its role pre, during and after trauma and how that could potentially effect the long term development of PTSD and at long last one academic video really hit one fact home for me - that PTSD is essentially when we section experiences off and don't integrate them. I knew that before but only partially. So what I will say is that if part of the disownment of this young you is a way of separating yourself from what happened and to you then you probably need to work on that. It doesn't mean you have to do inner child work. Just to accept you as a person that has a whole history and lifetime of experiences. Some of them traumatic and some of them healing. If you truly want to deal with the past and make a better future for yourself then acknowledging it all is important as an aim. If you can accept that all that happened to you, Dogwood Tree, and you now want to work on changing how you respond to situations in the present then I think that is a perfectly legitimate and possible endeavour.
What has worked for me? I try to do the opposite of separating out or splitting myself. I love the idea of an inner adult mode that Justme mentioned. In fact "inner adult" would still feel too much and too splitting and stress me a bit. What I do find helpful at times is a little basic Transactional Analyses. One can check to see if we are in Adult, Child or Parent mode. You, now, in the present but with different functions that we all have. Its easy to do a little check to see where I or others are coming from.
When it comes to the main difficulty you are dealing with: feeling powerful and autonomous and being able to make self caring decisions whilst in certain situations - I too found Pete Walker helpful. The 4 f's and the stuff around them. That is what made the most difference to me. I did work on emotions, actions, my feelings of having a right to them, and practicing using them. Checking if they matched the situation. DBT was helpful. Self connection and mindfulness. As you previously mentioned, learning new skills. Ones I was never taught or in fact was taught the opposite. And grounding of course.
If you think what happens in these situations and your lack of ability to say what you feel then what is it that is actually underneath that for you? Do you go into a state where you don't believe you have a right to an autonomous voice? Do you fear your husband. Are you dissociated. Are you frozen. Are you in flashback or does it happen even if not. What are your beliefs around intimacy and marriage. Around woman and men. How assertive are you usually. In the present not the past. Have you spoken to your husband about this and looked at ways he could help. Not sure how much work you have done on these things, directly.
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