Was This Reasonable? Need A Detached Viewpoint.

[Sideways]

It's okay - everything you're feeling, even the confusion & the thought that "this is what I was taught, how can I think any other way?" The mourning comes after acceptance, so just pencil it in for something to come back to.

When I talk to my T about my abuser, or things that happened, I'm constantly having to ask, quite genuinely, "That's bad, right?" This was your life, it's all you ever knew, so it feels normal. That makes perfect sense. Trying to look at it differently, and see it as abuse, and not just "my life" goes against all the survival skills your brain used to get you through it at the time. "Shut up and cope" was one of your brain's survival skills, & you know what, your brain deserves credit for that, because here you are, you survived.

But we're trying to do more than survive now. The situation has changed, and it's time to say "Thanks brain, that was helpful at the time, but I need to see it differently now, I need to confront the truth of it now".

And the truth of it was you were abused. And yes, it was bad. It was really bad. What she was doing to you was really bad. Your pain is a reflection of how bad it was. That's the truth.

Accepting that won't come to you overnight. But for me (for what it's worth), just allowing others to say it for me, "It was abuse, and it was really bad", and let myself sit with that in dumb confusion, has been a big step towards acceptance.

@lostforgottensoul just said it above, and I'm gonna say it again: you were abused as a child, and it was bad, and I'm really, really sorry, but that's the truth.

 

[Sandstone]

I can manage to label it as abuse, but I can't take the step to " and it was really bad" I do not believe it was really bad. It was puzzling, confusing, inexplicable. but, in comparison to what so many have experienced it wasn't really bad. I often struggle to accept there is enouh to justify having PTSD at all

I mentioned in passing to T the events that were going on around the running away from home - I was being what we would now call groomed by an actor and had been reminded because he had appeared on TV. I was explaining how I had physically reacted to that. She very quickly asked if was part of Operation Yewtree (the UK police investigation onto high profile paedophiles and abusers) I said I doubted it as he wasn't famous, and that seemed to be the end of it. perhas there is a requirement that they report relevant facts to Operation Yewtree. It seemed to be unimportant, so it can't be really bad.

 

[digger]

I can manage to label it as abuse, but I can't take the step to " and it was really bad" I do not believe it was really bad. It was puzzling, confusing, inexplicable. but, in comparison to what so many have experienced it wasn't really bad. I often struggle to accept there is enouh to justify having PTSD at all

Would you be as dismissive of it if someone else was sharing the same story here, a child the age you were then, or if it happened to someone you cared about?

I dismiss and minimise my own shit all the time. I think a lot of people here do. Trying to be my own detached voice sometimes by asking if I would feel the same if it was someone else, while it doesn't actually go very far to bridging the gap (yet?), it does help me see that the gap is there.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

But I also have a duty to recognise when it happens and behave with respect and grace to you all.

After the tailspin (im guessing now as you seem to have some addtl insights) you generally do that, have more insight and/or self awareness.

Its ok! We all go through it. Shit, my last tailspin lasted 3 days, i was yelling at everyone, kicked a rock wall at work til my foot was hurt, hit the back of my head on the elevator wall at work so hard that the secuirty thought the noise meant it broke and had an unbelievable urge to distory everything in my house and throw my work PC across the room and smashup both monitors. I didnt but I SO wanted to.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I can manage to label it as abuse, but I can't take the step to " and it was really bad" I do not believe it was really bad. I " and it was really bad" I do not believe it was really bad. It was puzzling, confusing, inexplicable. but, in comparison to what so many have experienced it wasn't really bad. I often struggle to accept there is enouh to justify having PTSD at all

I faught the PTSD diagnosis (not to mention C-PTSD that i learned about here), to me, at the time, thats what war vets got and my past just couldnt be as traumtic as war, no way. It took me at least a month or 2 of fighting it to accept it...and that was after my therapist took out the DSM, read each symptom and we talked about each and every one and I had to accept that I had this one and that one to accept I had it.

Dont try to take that step, not yet.

I dont define my past as abuse, at all. If you, by the way (if you havent), want to read my no holes in it & completely graphic past its the first diary post of my diary in members diaries (if graphic content is triggering then dont read it) but my therapist calls it "horrible"...other say "omg im so sorry that you had to endure such horrid evil"...i dont see if as "horrible" or even "bad" or even "wrong"...i see it as ok, deserved, and justified...because it was done to me because i define myself as "other" or "not like every else". My therapist asked if that makes me alien lol. If it was someone else I would see it as those words. Im still trying to figure out how to get myself in the "like everyone else" carigory and I know the shift of the blame of it shifting off me and onto them, which happened here, was the first step in that. Im struggling to find the next step but i know im easing my way there.

You dont have to see it as "bad abuse" right now to know you are hurt by it and validate that and try to heal from that. Something caused that pain, and so you can start there.

Also, dont compare your past. Like dont read mine and say "oh god, hers was so much worse, mine isnt that bad" because that invaildates "bad" in abuse for you and its just not helpful to you to compare your abuse to someone else's. Abuse is abuse is abuse is abuse... They are all "bad", they are all traumtic, and they all leave deep wounds.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

She very quickly asked if was part of Operation Yewtree (the UK police investigation onto high profile paedophiles and abusers) I said I doubted it as he wasn't famous, and that seemed to be the end of it. perhas there is a requirement that they report relevant facts to Operation Yewtree. It seemed to be unimportant, so it can't be really bad.

Sorry to make this a seperate post, I missed it:

Maybe there are certian things, by law, that she has to report to them and being that he isnt famous, or that famous, maybe she dropped the Operation Yewtrew thing, but she shouldnt of dropped the groomed by anyone thing...and it was "really bad" but you dont have to force yourself to see that....thats just gonna make you frustrated, in my opinion.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Accepting that won't come to you overnight. But for me (for what it's worth), just allowing others to say it for me, "It was abuse, and it was really bad", and let myself sit with that in dumb confusion, has been a big step towards acceptance.

I missed this. Thats what im doing too. The more i hear/read it, the closer I get to accepting it I think.

My friend on the other site always says "take what you get"...first when it comes to my imagined "safe place" for DBT but he seems to say it for everything and if you cant "take what you get" then notice that and take that. :confused:

But he did say once that sometimes you have to hold something like a brick in your lap. Thats what my past being "horrible" is...just a brick being held in my lap. Hopefully eventually i'll be able to take it but at the moment its just being held.

 

[ladee]

@Sandstone,anytime someone pounds our self worth, our personhood , if you will, into dust, we have it so instilled in us that our feelings or thoughts do not matter....You have nothing to compare it to. This is all you know.
So us saying the words, just does not make any sense....and it doesn't convince you that you have legitimate feelings and thoughts. Growing up with a Narcissistic parent drains us of any identity. So of course you are going to dismiss that yours is not as bad as someone else.....I know for me, my sperm donor, who I refuse to call Dad, his feelings were the only ones that mattered.
No one could compete for the performances he could put on... so yes, I grew up thinking that what I felt or though was a lie.... one I had made up to get attention. Or to somehow vindicate my place on this earth.
And in turn, I used that disbelief of mine wasn't as bad as others, to just not have to deal with the pain of being a nobody going nowhere. I couldn't fathom going to therapy and saying, I am nobody, taking up space and time... can you help me? That sounded crazy , even to me.
But you coming back , and no apologies necessary by the way, says there is a tiny crack in that old belief... and maybe, just maybe, there is some truth to what your peers are saying... And you get to say how you feel. The difference between you 'taking it out on us' as opposed to your family, is because we UNDERSTAND 100% where you are coming from.
You know in some deep part of you that we care that you are in some kind of limbo and are wanting to get out of that place....I am very happy you came back... and that you read that not one of us ever intended to hurt you in any way or invalidate your feelings and thoughts....Just very happy you are back... We ARE here for you.... hugs if you accept them. If not ready, put them on a shelf and get them down later when you feel safe...

 

[UnKnown-Self]

@Sandstone
There are a few things I want to say to you. I hope I don't strart going all over the place and it makes sense at the end.
First, while we don't have the right to verbally abuse anyone or each other on this forum, I think it's okay to disagree, express anger and maybe even throw a temper tantrum that afterwards doesn't make sense. I'm not saying that's what you did but I've seen it happen. This is a place to work out our shit.
For example:
I know I curse a lot on here and I'm sure some find it crude and unnecessary. But I lived much of my life in a crude and unnecessary world and while I have a better vocabulary sometimes vulgarity it the best way for me to express anger at what perhaps I find vulgar, like abuse and abusers. So this is my safe place to say f*ck you to the many abusive assholes in my life

Next:
Minimizing not only abuse but neglect, the lack of nurturing we needed and the impact it had when we didn't get our needs met.
I'm willing to go out on a limb here and say your mother's reaction to you running away was not a total 180. That perhaps you never felt like you quite measured up and for some reason you even feel guilty for wanting something more.
It might be, from the time you were born you had you basic needs met. You were fed, clothed and had a roof over you head but the sense that YOU were precious and loved, that YOU had special qualities and they were recognized, that you saw a smile of pride and welcoming joy in your mothers eyes when she suddenly saw you was not your experience.

When you ran away, perhaps it was you desperately needing to feel SOMETHING other than cold critique but instead you were told what an inconvenience you caused.
Perhaps it is not just that specific incident that bothers you so much but what it represents.
Instead of genuine warmth in your mothers eyes all you ever saw was judgment of being inconvenient.
This lesson of her always being right no matter what is so deeply ingrained you struggle hanging clothes out to dry hearing that critique that you could not be possibly doing it right.
Again, it's not the clothes pins or the way you hang clothes it's the message. If you are doing it then there must be something wrong with it.
Interpreted throughout your life to mean there is something wrong with you. Why can't you ever do anything right? What an inconvenience you cause everyone.

Just maybe.

What I found for myself is my mother and others devaluing of me became my belief system, my sense of self. I didn't need anyone else to tell me how worthless I was, well perhaps I did because I certainly invited enough men and others into my life to enforce what I already knew to be true.
Except for the occasional flash of pain at a fragment of a memory like you experienced with remembering running away, I was now my own critical judge, never satisfied with anything I did, apologizing to the world for being such an inconvenience.
My motto really was, "No one kicks my ass better than I do!" and I said it with a kind of pride. I told my youngest children's father, "You are how I punish myself." and I laughed in his face.

When he would tell me everyday before going to work how f*cking totally worthless I was because once I had my daughter, I couldn't leave her with anyone and go back to work like I did previously with my boys, I agreed with him and voiced my envy of how he was able to walk away, I was stuck here with me.
That is the power of the belief system taught by withholding necessary nurturing of GENUINE parental warmth and love.
Yes, I was also neglected and abused physically, mentally and sexually and it had its impact of course but that does not make the impact of withheld needed love and validation of my worth as a person any less damaging.

You need to take your mothers message, which may have become your own and do what might be the hardest thing in life. Stop believing it and redefine a new belief in yourself.
Learn to validate and love yourself.
It's a tough job and you are the only one who can do it.

The unfortunate truth is even if your mom had some kind of epiphany and apologized to you, it would feel nice for a moment but it would not really change anything. The reason being, you would not really believe it. Your belief system is now what you tell yourself.

That is changeable.

Do I know this for a fact because I have done it? No. Not yet but I have to believe with work and persistence it is possible. I can learn self compassion, self love and change my negative self beliefs It's the only thing that gives me hope.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

What I found for myself is my mother and others devaluing of me became my belief system, my sense of self. I didn't need anyone else to tell me how worthless I was, well perhaps I did because I certainly invited enough men and others into my life to enforce what I already knew to be true.

ABSOULTY 100% MY ISSUE AS WELL..So obviously I agree with this!

No one kicks my ass better than I do!"

My motto is "no one hates me more than i hate myself" but same thing.

Alice, you are awesome!

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I have to believe with work and persistence it is possible. I can learn self compassion, self love and change my negative self beliefs It's the only thing that gives me hope.

I havent yet either BUT I know that the negitive thinking site that JL gave me works & the negitive core belief article Anthony gave me im struggling w/ but def possible...just takes a ton of hard work, patience with yourself and def persistence!

 

[Sandstone]

I'm feeling tired and overwhelmed again. I'm sick of being so ridiculously fragile There is lots I want to reply to, but will have to leave it, except to say yes, being wrong. I'm constantly wrong both in action and as a state of being. I described myself as a waste of skin.