Wounded Child In A Grown Up Body - Taking A Risk By Sharing

[Marlene]

2notbedefeated...yeah, there have been a lot of times when I felt a child in a grown up body and completely unable and unprepared to deal with my life. It's gotten better, but it's not completely gone away. Like almost everything else PTSD related, when the stress is up, this comes back out to play.

Lisa

 

[dust]

I give the child space to play and have recently started to 'speak to her' in a reassuring way when there is anxiety around an adult situation. It really helps.

 

[2notbedefeated]

Sally, Thanks for the honesty in your reply. I appreciate the challenge. You are right, it doesn't make sense to hurt and abuse your body when it has already been through that. When given the chance to be away from the abuse one had experienced, I can see how it makes sense to be gentle and caring to yourself and your body when you get the chance.

It will take alot for me to learn to be kind and gentle to myself and my body, that's why alot of my posts end with take of yourself or be kind to yourself, I keep hoping that I will be able to take my own "advice" sometime. I struggle with that idea that others deserve that, but I do not. This is because, "I am bad, so bad..." but I won't continue with that message. I have so much self-hatred I need to release.

It's a challenge I needed to hear. My abuser taught me to enjoy both pain and pleasure. "They both go together and are both good," so he told me over and over and over. I was forced as a 6 & 7 year old to thank him for the burns, the pain, etc. that he inflicted on me. I was made to say, "Thank you _____, for making me feel good. That felt good thank you," even when it physically hurt.

He created alot of confusion in my head, and there were many times when he would burn me and I would be made to say what he wanted, "Thank you ___ that felt good." but then he would cange on me and respond by saying, "you're lying to me, I know that hurt you, you said it felt good when it really hurt you. You lied, Do you know what I do to bad little girls who tell lies?" Ugh! He was always changing the rules on me, so I never knew what the right answer was to keep him from getting mad at me.

I've just recently remembered these words he would say to me. Subconciously, I would be confused as to what actually felt good and what actually was painful. "Pain and pleasure they go together" so drilled into my head. I know this sounds twisted and doesn't make sense to some, but I honestly at times don't know the difference. I haven't been able yet to deal and understand it myself.

When I began to remember some of the things he did to me sexually, some how my body would respond with crying out for that pain and that pleasure. I don't fully understand myself right now, but that's kind of the way things are with me on the self-injuring thing.

Again, though I think you have a very valid, and appropriate point to make about it. Perhaps this is the challenge I needed to hear in order to perhaps start trying to see this whole thing from a different perspective. I would like to be able to start changing that "voice message" my abuser drilled into my head. Sometimes though, the confusion, the pressure, the intensity; what is the reality and what's not the reality; what was then, and what is now is quite blurred at times. My therapist is working with me to distinguish between these different voices.

 

[Mercy]

Hi. I have been listening to you carefully and understand the confusion of never knowing which response would be the right one. As a child prostitute, I was taught to always smile and compliment my guest for his actions. It was confusing to hear so many of them say, "good girl, good girl" with each painful thrust. 'Happily Ever After' was the name for the fairy tale ending. After playing out the story, the end was the rescued girl/princess was always responsible for making sure that her 'prince' would reach his full pleasure. So in that senario smiling was safe. In others, screaming was what was wanted.:dontknow:

It is good to hear that you are working this through. It is a long and painful road to come back from the past into the now. It is possible with time and compassion for yourself to get better.:Hug_emoticon:

Know that none of what you suffered was ever your fault, not ever your fault. Even when you got the responce wrong, the results of it were never your fault. Abuse is abuse, is abuse, is abuse always done by the adult who is the only one responsible for the abuse.

I wish you the peace that comes from accepting who you are, with a mixed up bundle of confusion and pain, and as a fully human woman who can eventually choose her future, free from the turmoil of the past.:smile:

 

[Yumeko-chan]

I hope I'm not gonna be seen as crazy or a masochist, but as bad as my injury has been (see the Me vs. Ice post in the General section) and the fact I know I will feel better and that the Vicodin makes me feel better, for now I don't mind the pain too much, as annoying as it can be. It lets me know I'm alive. And it gets people to pay a little more attention to me, ask how I'm feeling. People actually care. (Alas, my b/f still thinks I'm being melodramatic)

I guess the little girl in me still wants to be doted on. But I want people to dote on me even when I'm not hurt. I don't want to have to be hurt to get people to pay attention. Otherwise, I'm just "there," nobody special. I don't go and injure myself on purpose -- I just have a combination of clumsiness and bad luck :crazy:-- and I guess everyone is special in their own minds. It's just...I don't know. I don't like being the center of attention, but at the same time I don't want to just "exist," either. I can't really think of how to explain it.

 

[Dylan]

I related to (Not2b's): "I'm always afraid if people knew what I was thinking they would throw me into that padded cell real quick and throw away the key."

Last night I was talking to a friend about this very thing....when I finally went to a psychiatric hospital for a few months it was just the controlled environment I needed to feel safe enough to let the walls down, to drop the mask. A friend of mine once said, "You can't save your ass and your face at the same time". Being in the hospital allowed me to use the energy I'd been extending (to try and keep up the facade) and put it all into "saving my ass". But my point is (and I do have one :smile: ), and what I realized in talking to my friend last night was, I actually didn't end up acting all that different. I was always afraid that if I let down the guard I'd go crazy, afraid that inside I was alien to the rest of humanity, but, it turns out, I'm not. The sense of safety, once again, for me is the most essential thing...

I also need to say that I felt some anger regarding sallysellsseashells' post. ("Why cut? You are meant to be healing.......it doesn't make sense!") I understand that you can't relate at all to this coping/survival skill, and that it in fact triggers you due to your own past trauma. I appreciate that you asked about it in order to try and understand.

The self-harm coping mechanism, however dysfunctional from your point of view, developed out of a splendid, elegant, marvelous will to live/survive. We are all doing the best we can, working to bring our coping skills more into alignment with a healthier approach, but that takes time and, until then, have to be accepted (if not respected) for what they provide.

I no longer need to cut, but I had to cut until I had other things in place that provided me with the same release, relief and safety.

-Dylan

 

[Tinyflame]

Dylan, I believe that is well said- it helps me to understand better, too.

25 years ago, when I stopped the self-harm (which no one knew about), I had 2 suicide attempts (which no one knew about either)- both "serious", but the second one particularly so.

Even then the one thing I do recall is that I had gone through my entire "repertoire" of options available to cope and had "run dry"- I remember that and the sadness/despair/grief distinctly.

I think you are very right, it makes more sense to me, which it never really did.

-(Hey..25 years, guess I'm a really slow learner. :wink:)

Thank you.
:Hug_emoticon:

 

[Dylan]

Oh, I relate to your post, Junebug!

Once I went in to my counseling session so discouraged (I'd gotten blind drunk a few nights before).

The therapist said, "So tell me what happened, starting from when you got home from work."

And what happened was: first, I did 45 minutes of step aerobics, then I did some yoga, then I did some meditation, then I watched some tv....and then I started drinking!"

He pointed out how I did actually did try everything else I knew to do to fix, work with, or distract me from my distress. That helped me a lot, to realize I wasn't just hell-bent on self-destruction, or even a sucker for self-indulgence. I really did do everything I knew to do - my repetoire just wasn't hefty enough to meet my distress level!

-D

 

[Tinyflame]

:hello: Oh Yes dylan- past and present- isn't that so true how it can just come out of the blue and flatten you like a truck!
-You are so very right.

Thank you again!
:Hug_emoticon:

 

[2notbedefeated]

Dylan, Junebug. Mercy, and others,

I appreciate how you have been sharing your stories and supporting me. Thanks:)

I picked up the book and started reading "Women Who Hurt Themselves." It is so helpful to know I'm not alone and there are a few people "out there" that are trying to understand the self-injury dilemma. For me the self-injury is not to attempt a suicide, which most people who don't understand seem to think. There are some therapists out there still don't get it and that is scary to me. I hope I don't end up as their client.

I promised a women from a local crisis line to call before I started self-injuring and I did. The "not so smart" answering service operator put me on hold. So I called another number I was given and the person who answered the phone. Ugh, I was so frustrated, because she treated as if I was sucidal. I could tell she was new at it too, because was shakey and unsure while talking to me. I was sooo frustrated.

Anyway, that book helps to bring to my mind some sanity to my "insanity" if you know what I mean. All of you are helping me to not see myself that way - that I am not crazy and insane even though I feel like it and to some it may look at it.

I never realized that I was reenacting the trauma abuse on myself and that was part of why I did the self-harm thing. The author of this book mentions that this behavior serves as a type of relationship.

This really struck. When I do self-injure it serves as a relationship for me because it is providing me with "a way" a "listening ear" to express my inner feelings freely and no I will not be criticised or told not to feel that way, or to be rejected. I struggle with believing that is okay for me to have feelings and for it to be okay to express them. Doing this also relieves that need.

Self-injuring seems to be the only acceptable way for me to grant myself permission to express my feelings. Does that sound crazy or what?

Feelings were never allowed in my family and when it was shown it was "anger" and it was a "out of control" thing. Also, love and acceptance was used as a punishment if we did not do what we were told or we did something that mom didn't approve of, well then, this is how she let us know she was not pleased with us.

 

[Tinyflame]

Hello 2,

No, it doesn't sound crazy at all.
It IS ok for you to have feelings, to express them, - and to express them even if it's not what others "want" or "expect" to hear.

The good thought is that it feels more "normal" and gets easier with "practice" and giving yourself permission.

And it' s good to express yourself in other ways, too- whether it's punching a pillow, screaming in your car (with the windows up, lol), or painting/ drawing what you're feeling -whatever appeals to you. I find the more I can express the "little things" the easier the "big ones" become later.

Good for you to have discovered so much already!
:Hug_emoticon:

 

[2notbedefeated]

Thanks Junebug, I have such a hard time being okay with my feelings. We never did "feelings" in the family I grew up in. Only time I saw emotion was a few times each year when Mom would "blow up" and do something crazy like a plate of pancakes flying through the air, or grapping my brother by his hair and dragging him into the bathroom to dunk his head in the hot bath water - just to name a few things.

It seems I go from one extreme to another. I go from no feelings to very intense feelings, and there seems to be nothing inbetween. No grey. I need to understand grey. I can't seem to accept any feelings except the ones were I feel self-hatred, guilt, blame and shame.