"Inner child" talk not helping?

[DogwoodTree]

Every so often my T brings up the topic of my "inner child" and lately it's come up more often. I started studying about inner child work over 2 decades ago, and I've honestly tried to embrace that kind of approach to healing. But it's been completely useless for me. Sometimes it's even been counter-productive.

Today after my session, I went searching online for articles or forum discussions talking about inner child work not being helpful, or being contraindicated. I can't find anything taking this perspective! Is this so bizarre that I feel this way? Or is it more normal than my google searches have revealed?

I've tried so, so, so many times to see that child I used to be as someone to value and protect, as being a part of myself that deserves love and recognition and nurturing. But it doesn't work. It doesn't feel real or relevant or helpful. When I was a kid, I was awkward and weird and closed off from people. I was diagnosed with autism a few years ago, so that's a big part of the explanation for my weirdness. Plus coming from such a dysfunctional family with the abuse going on, it was a perfect storm. As I've gotten older, it's been like slowly emerging from a very long, dark tunnel as I become increasingly aware of the world around me, and people, and how relationships work, and my place in all this. Even now at 45 years old, I can look back just a year ago and see myself as being so blinded and living in the dark compared to today. Each passing year brings more awakening and revelation and awareness.

Why in the world would I want to value the ignorance and darkness and weirdness of my youth? All of that is what I want to leave behind. I don't want any part of it anymore. Talking about loving and nurturing and protecting my "inner child" feels repulsive and disgusting to me, like I'd be moving in the wrong direction.

Before you ask, yes, I've talked about this with my T. I don't think he's convinced yet that this is a pointless topic of conversation for me, and maybe I'm the one who will be surprised if he finds some kind of key to unlock my affection for who I used to be (or for who I am now). But I can't just pretend to love who I used to be. I don't feel that way towards my younger self. I don't even feel that way towards myself today. (I know someone is going to say...well, if I could learn to love the child I used to be, I would then learn to love myself today...I've truly tried that approach, many times over the years, and it's been fruitless.) If anything, the more I progress in therapy, the more I'm being able to acknowledge the ways I'm weird (autistic traits, PTSD issues, personality differences), and realizing I don't want to subject people to those things about myself, and choosing to further isolate myself. I believe the more I "become myself", the more withdrawn and bizarre and weird I'm going to get. And it's not fair to subject people to those things. (I'm sure someone will point out, it's the other person's choice of whether to have a relationship with me and my weird traits, and I shouldn't make that choice for them. But when I try to approach relationships that way, the only people who spend time around me by choice are people who feel sorry for me and offer occasional "friendship" just because I don't have any other friends. I refuse to be anyone's pity project anymore.)

At any rate, basically, I guess I'm trying to find ways to describe to my T how I experience this topic and how I think about myself over the course of my life. Him suggesting that I try to "love" my inner child isn't helping. First, I don't really even know what "love" is. I don't "feel loved" by other people, even my DH or kids. I feel needed, and I feel responsible for various things, and I recognize actions they take that come from a place of commitment and loyalty to me. But I don't "feel" their love for me. So asking me to "feel loved by myself" is pointless.

I do feel what I think is love towards my kids and DH...it's a sense of intense commitment to their well-being, a level of unconditional acceptance, a desire to nurture and protect their freedom. And I can imagine that they might feel that way towards me. But I don't get a warm-and-fuzzy feeling of "being loved." So even if I manage to foster those kinds of attitudes toward my younger self, I wouldn't get any benefit from it, because I never figured out how to receive the feeling of being loved.

Mostly, I think I'm just not suited to human relationships beyond the work I do and the ways in which I serve other people's needs. I don't see myself as lovable, able to give/receive real affection, enjoyable, or personable (unless I'm performing/masking, which is common for women on the spectrum, and then it's only a performance for the other person's benefit, not my real self). I think the less I'm around other people, the better off they are. My weirdness isn't the cute or funny or admirable kind of weirdness that people see in characters like Big Bang Theory's Sheldon. If I'm not carefully masking, people think of me as being "off" and tend to avoid me. It's easier just to not even expose myself to people rather than experience my inability to fit in when being myself.

But as I've gotten older, I've developed more and more skills for doing a better job of masking. I've worked hard to learn those skills. I've slowly gotten better at learning what people expect from me, and giving them some version of that. Why would I want to treasure my earlier ignorance when I'm working so hard to abolish that ignorance?

I hope this doesn't come across as cold or harsh or angry. (I know the inner child stuff has been helpful to a lot of people, and I don't want to discount that.) I've progressed to a point where I can discuss this without the intense anger and pain and resentment from being bullied and ignored and rejected so many times in my life from the people I wanted to be friends with. I understand more now what they saw about me that was so repulsive to them, and I don't blame them for wanting distance from me. Now I'm trying to find my way through the trauma therapy, but this inner child stuff either is pointless, or perhaps there's something about it I just haven't figured out and I need to keep working on it. I'm open to that possibility. It just seems like, if it was going to help, trying that approach so many times over 2 decades would have produced some fruit already.

 

[Teasel]

Trying it out for 2 decades is a good effort isn't it :) I should think we're all different and relate or don't to an inner child differently too.

I know when I first tried it out around 30 years ago I felt no positive feelings at all. Nothing at all to begin with. Then some fear and repulsion. And only in the past couple years have that changed to compassion and grief for the kid I was.

And that definitely enabled me to hate myself less now too.

So maybe just think about once a year 0r something to see if there's any change?

 

[Friday]

I don’t do inner child or parts work. What IF & anthropomorphising myself isn’t useful to me. If anything, the opposite. All of me, is me. Every single facet of myself. Distancing myself from aspects of myself? No bueno.

 

[Kubash16]

I definitely don’t see or treat myself in a good light. I also dissociated so much that I have very little if any feeling for the child I was. Except anger that comes out now and then. I’ve actually talked about this in my diary a little.

When discussing it in the diary, I and a few others, came to the conclusion that you can’t just jump from self hate to self love in one giant leap. That’s bound to fail. However, the compromise we reached is to start by changing the self hate to a polite, indifferent stranger type feel. Baby steps.

 

[Abstract]

You aren't alone in finding it impossible to have any compassion or affection for the inner child you. And personally even looking at it at all freaks me out. I don't find it useful separating myself. Feel quite split enough without allowing it. And if I have for even a moment I have such hatred disgust and need to harm that it is a little frightening. I have felt at risk from myself.

It may be that you aren't yet ready or it may be that this doesn't suit you. Maybe you need more acceptance of your present self first. Regardless, it sounds like you may need a break from it for a while. People trying to force me to love myself never worked.

I have to say though that some of your reasoning about why does throw up questions to consider. Wish I had the headspace or time to do a proper coherent answer to you. One point re the autistic spectrum and masking: I would see it as not automatically knowing or learning the language of the people surrounding you and them therefore misunderstanding you and possibly you them. Although masking may feel alienating still and as if you are rejecting part of who you are is it not more like living in a foreign country and learning the local language? And as you know more of it you can chose to speak it or not. In fact, further understanding of your natural original language won't stop you being able to speak the language of those around you when you chose to do so. That's the analogy that has occurred to me as that is the way I think of being on the spectrum. Different languages when it comes to certain things. Would you hate someone for merely having a different language to those around them.

What do you think it is that most stops you feeling loved.

 

[EveHarrington]

There are many ways to skin the “trauma healing” cat. If inner child work doesn’t speak to you, I’d move on and try something else. At this point I think you’re wasting time by trying inner child work for the umpteenth time.

 

[DogwoodTree]

Although masking may feel alienating still and as if you are rejecting part of who you are is it not more like living in a foreign country and learning the local language? And as you know more of it you can chose to speak it or not. In fact, further understanding of your natural original language won't stop you being able to speak the language of those around you when you chose to do so. That's the analogy that has occurred to me as that is the way I think of being on the spectrum. Different languages when it comes to certain things. Would you hate someone for merely having a different language to those around them.

What do you think it is that most stops you feeling loved

Many people have suggested this analogy. It's more like having a completely different operating system, though. No matter how well I learn to communicate in the neurotypical language, there will always be a translation process that maintains a gap between my sense of self and others. I'll never learn enough to BE different inside than autistic.

I never fit in. I never feel like I belong. No matter how good of a performance I put on, it's still a performance. And if I drop the mask, the differences become apparent to everyone else, too, and then I feel even more alone. It's not worth it except where needed for work responsibilities and social obligations (family events, karate class).

I think autism prevents me from feeling loved. I've tried so many different techniques that are supposed to help with that, with feeling loved, and nothing even begins to work. So, I've given up on that, and instead trying to find ways to manage my energy well so I can still be available to my DH and kids and work responsibilities...planning for down times and alone time and special interests as needed to help me cope and manage my energy in a healthy way.

I don't think I'll ever feel loved, even from myself. But I do need to find the motivation to protect myself, to set boundaries, to communicate to my husband when I need something. My T and I have been talking about how I might resume physical intimacy with my DH, but I'm afraid I won't be able to say when I need to stop. I realize I'm more interested in protecting him from my dysfunction than I am in protecting myself from further harm. So I can't start physical intimacy because I might not be able to stop it if I need to. T thought that if I could love myself like I love my kids...where that Mama Bear comes out to protect them...if I could apply that same strategy to myself, then I could explore physical intimacy safely. So that's how the topic of the inner child came up today. But I'd rather destroy that inner child's history/issues, and protect my DH from my emotional deformities, than protect the deformities and history I despise.

And yes, I've worked on mindfulness and acceptance and forgiveness and all that too. It's helped on a lot of things. With this, though, I'm at a place where I simply accept how repulsive I am. It doesn't change my opinion of myself, it only helps me not be triggered by that opinion.

 

[Friday]

I think autism prevents me from feeling loved.

. I feel needed, and I feel responsible for various things, and I recognize actions they take that come from a place of commitment and loyalty to me.

IMO... Loyality and respect are both forms of love. Not lesser forms, either.

For that matter, so is honor. My word? Valuing it, keeping it? Is about loving/respecting myself. Duty, about others and myself.

Breaking my word? Failing in a duty? Being disloyal, or betrayed? Breaks my heart.

There’s also the (paraphrased Asian) proverb I grew up with
- “Being needed? Almost as good as being wanted.”

 

[DogwoodTree]

There’s also the (paraphrased Asian) proverb I grew up with
- “Being needed? Almost as good as being wanted.”

Isn't that where codependency falls apart, though? In codependency, we do things for people out of a need to be needed so they won't reject us. It actually removes the other person's freedom to choose or not choose the relationship.

I agree, though, that loyalty and respect are legitimate forms of love (or necessary aspects of love?). I do feel/do those things for the people I love. And I can recognize the actions of others that express loyalty or respect towards me. But it's a cognitive acknowledgement, not a feeling of satisfaction or safety or comfort or warm-fuzzies or even confidence that their loyalty and respect will continue to be there.

 

[shimmerz]

Pretty difficult to love yourself when the concept of love is so entirely foreign that love feels likes a parent slamming their fist into you and stating 'This hurts me more than it hurts you'. *Tilts head* Okay then, let's reverse roles and I will slam you and we can then compare notes on who hurts most.

I didn't start with loving my inner child because I couldn't offer something I didn't know. So I started with me (adult self) taking a part of myself (inner child - although I don't call it that) out for say..... ice cream. Or for a country drive. Or to the zoo. But for me the inner child is actually an emotion. And that emotion generally involved a feeling of disconnection. Like sadness. Or terror. Or panic. And I would normally do this type of work shortly after I had suffered an attack of some sort (panic, catatonia, etc). While I could still connect to how it felt to be in my wounded self but not full on consumed by it.

No idea if that makes sense to anyone else but me.

I don't think one needs to believe in parts theory in order to do this type of work. Matrix Re-imprinting videos are a good example of recognizing an emotional wounding in one's self and working with it,

This may seem a little 'hairy fairy' to some but the reality is that you are mindfully dissociating from the event in your mind (which keeps the emotions compartmentalized) while you are constructing a 'better' scenario than the traumatic one which gives your brain an alternative and more empowering alternative to the trauma. I have been known to construct a situation where I bring in my adult self to rescue me from the traumatic event, a trusted friend, a huge scary monster to scare the shit out of my abusers etc. The sky is the limit. This is really about using visualization of a different outcome to heal. You would be amazed to know how quickly this shifts out of date perceptions.

 

[Abstract]

f inner child work doesn’t speak to you, I’d move on and try something else.

Will see if I can come back to the rest but wanted to comment on this. I wish I had approached therapy like that before instead of feeling that there was something wrong with me and I just had to try harder. For me it was CBT. I actually don't think it has to stay the same long term as where we are changes. But some things will be easier to reap rewards for us personally than others. Two ways of approaching it. Finding the obstacles and seeing if you can find a way around them (what you are doing here) or taking another path.

 

[DogwoodTree]

This is really about using visualization of a different outcome to heal.

This is very similar to one of the earlier methods I tried, actually...it was part of a church-based "inner healing" program where you're supposed to visualize Jesus showing up in the traumatic event and changing something...like taking your place, or rescuing you, or whatever. I tried earnestly to engage with those visualizations...the altered story. But it's not truth. That isn't actually what happened. And I felt like I was trying to lie to myself. I couldn't do it. I tried so hard to convince myself that the alterations had significance. It just wouldn't work. I would get so frustrated and mad at myself for not being able to benefit from that approach, even though I was trying diligently to work the process, and I saw it supposedly helping other people. And the lay counselor I was working with...the lady trained in this program...got so frustrated with me that she finally told me, exasperated, that what I really wanted was for God to rape me, and that's why it wasn't working, because God is a gentleman and wouldn't force himself where I wouldn't let him go.