- Post starter
- #73
Ironlady
Platinum Member
I will.. definitely Albatross.. You are awesome! Thank you for the support. :hug:s if you accept.
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Shadows In The Midst Of Flames
- Post starter Ironlady
- Start date
- Post starter
- #74
Ironlady
Platinum Member
Feelings numb then all at once feelings rush in like the electricity of exposed nerve.
Voice wanting to scream and yet too afraid to utter.
Seeking connection and yet too afraid to engage.
Under this spellbound feeling of entrapment.
Seeing prison bars under a clear blue sky.
Abandoned child ever searching.
Emptiness
f*ck.
Voice wanting to scream and yet too afraid to utter.
Seeking connection and yet too afraid to engage.
Under this spellbound feeling of entrapment.
Seeing prison bars under a clear blue sky.
Abandoned child ever searching.
Emptiness
f*ck.
D
Deleted member 12723
I have not been getting a lot of my alerts so I had to go back and finish reading to get up to date. I learned so much and I can so relate to what you have experienced in your young life. I also need help in regulating my thoughts and emotions and I have mostly been flight or freeze most of my life until I got into therapy for some real help so I have been learning a lot in your conversations with Alby who is a good soul.
I think that you are managing very well, I went through the changes with my husband as well, and he wanted to be my white knight which he was. When I began to change and set boudaries with him it changed the dynamics of my relationship with him which eventually caused some real good.
I think what helped me the most was boundary setting and learning how to stand up and learn to talk. I wish you the very best.
I think that you are managing very well, I went through the changes with my husband as well, and he wanted to be my white knight which he was. When I began to change and set boudaries with him it changed the dynamics of my relationship with him which eventually caused some real good.
I think what helped me the most was boundary setting and learning how to stand up and learn to talk. I wish you the very best.
- Post starter
- #76
Ironlady
Platinum Member
I am no longer moved to seek comfort because nobody else can comfort those parts of me that need it...only I can. But it is a very lonely place too. Things are becoming real in my marriage and relationships and it's startling to me how much of a mess I am in and am. So much has been more like a play than reality. More about surviving than thriving. I'm so afraid I can not seem to take the action needed to move forward, backwards or sideways.
Thanks Dad for teaching me that obedience is the only way to not die. Thank you for teaching me that I am just a pawn, a thing. Thank you for teaching me that perfectionism is the only way to loved. Than you for teaching me that mistakes bring unfathomable emotional punishment and torture. Thank you for being a cult leader. Thank you for causing me to fear you so much and your authority and for forcing me to marry someone I didn't really love but probably could have loved but whom I now I only resent. Thank you for telling me when to have children and how. I mean home births are great and all but not when your forced to. Thank you taking every choice a woman should be able to have away from me. Thank you for the emotional incest and trauma bonds that still haunt me everyday. Thank you for creating within me the voice that says I am nothing and when I try to do something good I hear "who do you think you are?" Thank you for building up my ego and creating confidence in me just so that you could Kick me down. Thank you for showing me what a narcissist is. Thank you for showing me what spiritual abuse is. Thank you for showing me what emotional abuse and neglect is. Thank you for teaching me that happiness is a sin. Thank you for all those things because now I know what I will never do to my own children.
Thanks Dad for teaching me that obedience is the only way to not die. Thank you for teaching me that I am just a pawn, a thing. Thank you for teaching me that perfectionism is the only way to loved. Than you for teaching me that mistakes bring unfathomable emotional punishment and torture. Thank you for being a cult leader. Thank you for causing me to fear you so much and your authority and for forcing me to marry someone I didn't really love but probably could have loved but whom I now I only resent. Thank you for telling me when to have children and how. I mean home births are great and all but not when your forced to. Thank you taking every choice a woman should be able to have away from me. Thank you for the emotional incest and trauma bonds that still haunt me everyday. Thank you for creating within me the voice that says I am nothing and when I try to do something good I hear "who do you think you are?" Thank you for building up my ego and creating confidence in me just so that you could Kick me down. Thank you for showing me what a narcissist is. Thank you for showing me what spiritual abuse is. Thank you for showing me what emotional abuse and neglect is. Thank you for teaching me that happiness is a sin. Thank you for all those things because now I know what I will never do to my own children.
- Post starter
- #77
Ironlady
Platinum Member
It's been awhile since I posted. I actually had to go back and reread things. Lol.
I go back and forth as I dig deeper into the why's. I was forced to marry my husband and up until I cut my father off he was in the middle of our marriage the entire time. I'm finding most of the problems I am having in my marriage is because there is an imbalance of power in it.. I had so little self before that the self that is emerging isn't meshing too well with my husband. I am sure he's scared of the changes and I project my father onto my husband a lot which triggers me back into that scared child state. I am also finding I'm resentful because although my husband would like to be my rescuer he has also been my captor and I'm truly struggling with how to get past that. He is a good person but I am really grieving the fact that I don't even know what it is to desire a person or want a person. Our relationship now is a combination autonomy and tolerance at best. I am at the point where one part of me doesn't want anyone and the other younger part is desperate to have someone.
I'm glad you are finding new ways to be with yours.. It sounds like you are making great progress there. I'm hopeful that we can too. Warm Hugs to you dear. <3
- Post starter
- #78
Ironlady
Platinum Member
Today was so hard.. Leaving this here to remind myself of what can help when things get hard again.
When powerful emotion surges – when you are hooked, triggered, and your vulnerability is erupting within you – it does so longing for two responses.
First, to be met with your presence. To be held as valid, as worthy of your curiosity, openness, and warmth. You don’t have to pretend to “like” the feeling, but will honor it in any case, as the way reality is appearing in this moment. In this sense, it is pure, it is part of who you are, filled with intelligence, and a reminder of your vow to no longer abandon yourself. The invitation is to stay close knowing that arguing with what is is the root essence of all suffering.
The sad one, the raging one, the shamed one, the unworthy one, the scared one, the confused one, the flat one, the jealous one – though they can be quite intense, they are not obstacles on your path. They just want to be heard, to be felt, to be cared for, to be re-parented, and to be allowed to share their experience, which until now perhaps they have not felt safe enough to do. They are not in the way of your path, but are the path itself, coming forward in a disguised form to reveal something about love that has been forgotten.
Please listen – not just with your ears, but with your heart. Each carries sacred data, but this information is released only into a field of kindness… not aggression. See that it is the abandonment of these ones that only reinforces their centrality in your tender inner circuitry.
Next, with your awareness, realize that the feeling is not who you are. It is not fused with you and does not in fact carry any information about your worth as a person. I “feel” bad does not equal I “am” bad. This was the organization of little one at an earlier time, trying to make sense of an environment of empathic failure, but is surging now to be reorganized and re-written. You must slow way, way down and discover this for yourself. For it is the key to a new world.
Pull back slightly and enter into relationship with your feelings. Separate a bit from them, but not so much that you dissociate and disembody. You may discover there is so much space around your experience. Practice intimacy while not fusing. This is a holy art that you can learn.
You are the warm, open field of awareness in which all feelings and emotions can come into being for a short while, dance within your nervous system, and then dissolve back into the vast, spacious ground from which they arose.
Find the sacred middle and rest there, in between the ancient pathways of denial and fusion. It is here in which the great process of metabolization by love will unfold and illuminate.
The new way is alive now and rippling inside you. The pathways are revealing their flexibility and their longing to be reorganized. Soothe the fire with your presence and a fiery compassion. Open your heart to your vulnerability and meet it with just one moment of awareness and with kindness. And then slow way, way down, and see what you are.
When powerful emotion surges – when you are hooked, triggered, and your vulnerability is erupting within you – it does so longing for two responses.
First, to be met with your presence. To be held as valid, as worthy of your curiosity, openness, and warmth. You don’t have to pretend to “like” the feeling, but will honor it in any case, as the way reality is appearing in this moment. In this sense, it is pure, it is part of who you are, filled with intelligence, and a reminder of your vow to no longer abandon yourself. The invitation is to stay close knowing that arguing with what is is the root essence of all suffering.
The sad one, the raging one, the shamed one, the unworthy one, the scared one, the confused one, the flat one, the jealous one – though they can be quite intense, they are not obstacles on your path. They just want to be heard, to be felt, to be cared for, to be re-parented, and to be allowed to share their experience, which until now perhaps they have not felt safe enough to do. They are not in the way of your path, but are the path itself, coming forward in a disguised form to reveal something about love that has been forgotten.
Please listen – not just with your ears, but with your heart. Each carries sacred data, but this information is released only into a field of kindness… not aggression. See that it is the abandonment of these ones that only reinforces their centrality in your tender inner circuitry.
Next, with your awareness, realize that the feeling is not who you are. It is not fused with you and does not in fact carry any information about your worth as a person. I “feel” bad does not equal I “am” bad. This was the organization of little one at an earlier time, trying to make sense of an environment of empathic failure, but is surging now to be reorganized and re-written. You must slow way, way down and discover this for yourself. For it is the key to a new world.
Pull back slightly and enter into relationship with your feelings. Separate a bit from them, but not so much that you dissociate and disembody. You may discover there is so much space around your experience. Practice intimacy while not fusing. This is a holy art that you can learn.
You are the warm, open field of awareness in which all feelings and emotions can come into being for a short while, dance within your nervous system, and then dissolve back into the vast, spacious ground from which they arose.
Find the sacred middle and rest there, in between the ancient pathways of denial and fusion. It is here in which the great process of metabolization by love will unfold and illuminate.
The new way is alive now and rippling inside you. The pathways are revealing their flexibility and their longing to be reorganized. Soothe the fire with your presence and a fiery compassion. Open your heart to your vulnerability and meet it with just one moment of awareness and with kindness. And then slow way, way down, and see what you are.
- Post starter
- #79
Ironlady
Platinum Member
So I left that piece from yesterday to comfort me and I can't be comforted at all right now.. Little good that did. I feel like a total inept being right now.. I'm so triggered... I can't laugh without crying, I can't breathe with gasping and I can't help my 2nd grader with homework because I am mentally numb and can't form words to help her. Goddamnit!!!!! Why? For f*cks sake I just want to be a mom at the moment and I can't even function and am hiding in my bedroom crying. I have an art show in a week and I was hired to public speak in two weeks and if I can't help with my daughters homework without breaking down I'm worried that I won't be able to follow through with anything else without going into a complete state of panic and make a complete fool of myself. Shit shit shit.
Well said. Though never easy.
I remember parenting my young children in state that you just described. I wanted to be their rock but felt like a little animal caught in a storm. I'm wishing you all the best today :)
- Post starter
- #81
Ironlady
Platinum Member
Thank you for your kind words.. it is certainly a hard place to parent from. <3
- Post starter
- #82
Ironlady
Platinum Member
Things I do:
I cannot hold eye contact with people. It's not because of shame it's because I do not want people to see "me" yes, ironlady's feelings and I feel too vulnerable.
Connection with people in the past brought about immense horrific pain. I look away because I can't take any more pain from connection. As a result I live a life of intense loneliness and deep anguish despite being married with four kids.
When I share my story with others I completely detach. It's like I'm just telling a story. I'm no longer there. I shut down.
I have no idea how to be there for the parts of me that are screaming for comfort and be around people at the same time. I can never integrate. So I push people away so that I can tend to the suffering wounded parts. I have no idea how to allow others to be here with me.
I am in need of comfort and rescuing when my fantasies or intrusive thoughts are me mangled in a car wreck or other catastrophes and An almost infantile need is to just be held and have connection with someone before and as I die.
In some ways I wish I was hurt on the outside to match what I feel inside because it's really hard for people to understand what they can't see. And I sometimes just need someone to get it.
I shake and tremble uncontrollably anytime I talk about my past or write down my feelings. Like right now.
I want to be alone most of the time but not when I feel like I'm being abandoned.
When I'm driving home I constantly am wondering if this is the day I go head to head with a semi and don't make it home. Or is this the day I'm killed by some random thing. I'm always anticipating catastrophe and threat. I'm scared of dying but I'm also too afraid to really live. I feel completely trapped and stuck in my life.
When I walk into a store or room with people I am so hyper vigilant and in scan mode that I can't enjoy anything that I'm trying to do. I'm anticipating an attack in the form of connection or bodily harm.
I feel really really sad and just lose hope sometimes.
I wish I had....an in my physical world friend. I have no one. I am an island of anguish, broken dreams, a broken heart and forever seeking for things (me) that I can't name and never find. I am lost.
I cannot hold eye contact with people. It's not because of shame it's because I do not want people to see "me" yes, ironlady's feelings and I feel too vulnerable.
Connection with people in the past brought about immense horrific pain. I look away because I can't take any more pain from connection. As a result I live a life of intense loneliness and deep anguish despite being married with four kids.
When I share my story with others I completely detach. It's like I'm just telling a story. I'm no longer there. I shut down.
I have no idea how to be there for the parts of me that are screaming for comfort and be around people at the same time. I can never integrate. So I push people away so that I can tend to the suffering wounded parts. I have no idea how to allow others to be here with me.
I am in need of comfort and rescuing when my fantasies or intrusive thoughts are me mangled in a car wreck or other catastrophes and An almost infantile need is to just be held and have connection with someone before and as I die.
In some ways I wish I was hurt on the outside to match what I feel inside because it's really hard for people to understand what they can't see. And I sometimes just need someone to get it.
I shake and tremble uncontrollably anytime I talk about my past or write down my feelings. Like right now.
I want to be alone most of the time but not when I feel like I'm being abandoned.
When I'm driving home I constantly am wondering if this is the day I go head to head with a semi and don't make it home. Or is this the day I'm killed by some random thing. I'm always anticipating catastrophe and threat. I'm scared of dying but I'm also too afraid to really live. I feel completely trapped and stuck in my life.
When I walk into a store or room with people I am so hyper vigilant and in scan mode that I can't enjoy anything that I'm trying to do. I'm anticipating an attack in the form of connection or bodily harm.
I feel really really sad and just lose hope sometimes.
I wish I had....an in my physical world friend. I have no one. I am an island of anguish, broken dreams, a broken heart and forever seeking for things (me) that I can't name and never find. I am lost.
Totally relate to the infantile need to be held, I often feel that too and a full body sensation and images of a young child sometimes nursing. That total need to feel close, protected and comforted.
I think you expressed well some of the things you need (comfort,safety, connection), These are real human needs, though I'm stuck on the how to find them.
- Post starter
- #84
Ironlady
Platinum Member
I have always had that feeling. I grew up a parentified child in a neglectful home and alcoholism. Being homeschooled and then after 6th grade not schooled at all isolated me then soon after my father formed a familial cult that I didn't escape until 3 years ago and Until then my life has always been controlled. Too much to list really but I was forced to marry. Told when to have kids and how (homebirths) and anytime I tried to assert myself I've become the lightning rod of intense anger, disgust and hatred. Taught that everything bad that's happened to me is punishment from god. (Which I no longer believe but my subconscious is still wired that way) I've managed to do relatively well for myself despite it but those feelings never seem to go away and I have such a fear of most people and attachment of any kind now... Those are basic human needs that I just can't seem to ever fulfill but they were never filled as a child so I don't even know what it's going to take to heal those parts. Maybe one day.. hope is all I have to hang on to sometimes even when it feels hopeless.
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