Triggered by feelings of invalidaton and insignificance

[bluelilly82]

Hi as part of BPD and Complaex trauma (a lot of abuse of all kinds) I seem to have difficulty feeling significant or that I have any real worth. I feel I am nothing compared to others and have to fight to prove myself constantly. Yet people praise me and I feel full of shame and self loathing. Anyone else feel like this and how do you deal? This has caused friendships to dissolve and self destructive behaviour as well as severe jealousy and turmoil.
I was always ignored or told to go away growing up. And it has affected me deeply. Worse than the sexual abuse

 

[joeylittle]

Yet people praise me and I feel full of shame and self loathing.

I have only recently stopped flinching when being given a compliment. I can really identify with this part of what you are saying.

I think lots of folks struggle with feeling worthless, and there are many forms of therapy that will address that. Working through your trauma is important. But so is getting the skills together for your Borderline diagnosis. DBT would say that you have the thought "I am worthless", and that makes you feel panic, it sounds like. Thoughts themselves don't have emotional value. We assign that. So we can learn to assign a neutral feeling to the most triggering thoughts. This whole concept helped me a great deal.

Are you in therapy for either your PTSD or BPD?

 

[arfie]

Yup, I have been through decades of this and it has gotten better, but I still deal with it allot.

Probably the most important thing I do about it is watch the comparing. Comparing my insides to other people's outsides was one of the big sources of it for me. First off, it is not a fair comparison. I can look enviable from the outside, too, while inside I am writhing in pain and confusion. These days I believe that the only fair comparison is me as I am today compared to me as I was yesterday. Even if I knew you like a sister, comparing myself to you remains like comparing apples to oranges.

Probably the second most important thing I do about it is learning to accept a compliment at face value. I still feel the compulsion to talk people out of compliments, but I am getting there.

 

[Underdog]

Validation seems to be a key issue for me at the moment as well. Many years ago, I started working out and running hardcore. It was a stress relief after a breaking point while I lifted myself off of drugs and away from the issues that took me to the drugs to begin with. I couldn't accept failure in myself, nor accept any kind words. Sadly, a coworker commented about how muscular I was getting and head of HR saw how I reacted. I knew it was just my own issues, but the commenter stopped talking to me and avoided me for almost a year. Someone finally told me that HR thought I had been sexually assaulted based upon my reaction to the comment!!!! I wasn't assaulted at all!!! It was just me and only me, for heaven's sake. I couldn't accept the compliment at all, despite that it was my goal. I approached the lady and offered my deepest empathy and explained while apologizing because I didn't know. I told her I was not the one who filed that report and I would never have because it was my own issue. Guess what I am saying is continue to be aware of your own reaction in relation to the situation. I dealt by explaining myself as I understood myself at that time, minus PTSD since that diagnosis happened many years later.

 

[Notsowild]

I feel I am nothing compared to others and have to fight to prove myself constantly

I feel this way too. Like everyone is better than me. It comes from the incest. I've always felt different and odd and I had to keep my dirty secret from everyone. I can't make friends easily for fear my secret might slip out. And of course now with the complex PTSD I feel even odder.

 

[bluelilly82]

Thanks everyone. Yeah I had two years of DBT. Finishedin April. Been using the skills since then. Improved in many ways but still a lot of self doubt

 

[Nevermore]

Hello!
I think I've only posted once here, but I relate to this post. For me, invalidation is part of what the whole trauma was about because I couldn't somehow explain what was going on in a way that others could understand - that's what I think happened, or else maybe nobody actually cared. I can't bear the thought of that, and actually I think it's more the first. So anyway I just stopped trying to communicate, and I started trying to pretend everything was okay - and that ended up with me in total isolation, scared of everybody because it was too hard to keep up the act.
So I have been triggered really badly by casual comment about a week ago - a comment I know wasn't as bad as the way it felt to me, but led me back somehow into that whole feeling again. I tried to explain it to a friend who didn't really get it, just said, just stop thinking about it, but I said to her, it's not like that though, it's like a whole other reality. I don't feel like me, I feel like a dirty ashamed child.
It's so weird! It happened another time when I was following a friend in an ambulance to a hospital and stopped to get some cigarettes. I still had my pyjamas on under a coat, and I tried to explain to him why that was but I couldn't talk properly, and he looked at me in a weird way and said, "We get a lot of that here."
Again, I went back into that horrible feeling. And the horrible feeling lasts for days, it's been a week this time. Feeling scared and alone, guilty and ashamed - dirty. Very frightened of other people and expecting to be abused or spat on at any moment.
And it makes me despair. It's been five years now, and I keep feeling like I'm getting better, and then I end up like this again!
Argh! There must be some kind of way out of here (Jimi seems to know about this feeling)

 

[kagamine]

I definitely relate to what you feel, I get compliments from people and I'm only just being able to accept that they really see it that way, not even that it's true, but that people perceive me as attractive, intelligent, and a good person. I felt disgusting in every way for a long time, but I'm learning to see others perspectives and what might be true in them. It does have an effect in relationships because people get tired of either reassuring you or you self deprecating and them feeling helpless to change your mind, plus I personally just end up avoiding people because I feel like I'm not good enough for my friends.

I'm glad to hear things are better than they were at least