Lately I have been visiting two support forums...
http://forum.psychlinks.ca/ and http://daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.webs.com/apps/auth/login?why=pw&try=1&wp=1&next=WEBPROTECT-index.htm
They both have been immensely helpful...
I am glad to hear from a few people on these forums that I am not the only one going through this. Well I feel bad that they are going through what I am going through, but I feel better that I am not alone...
I had to distance myself from my parents, right? It's almost like instead of them dying and leaving me an orphan, it feels like something inside of me died. And it's sort of like, instead of my parents dying, I let them go, and they are dead to me in a way. Still pretty harsh, right?
So I saw my therapist a couple of times. One of the things he said to me was that this was a healthy decision for me. No doubt about it. The other thing he said was that my intentions were honourable. I was doing this to protect myself. The other thing was, I was not a bad person. Also, there isn't anything I can do about my mother; she is what she is and she refuses to change and I can't change that, so I will have to learn not to dwell on that. He told me to repeat those sorts of statements to myself when I meditate.
It may be a necessary step, but it's a really hard one. Parents tell us things that get stuck in our heads as a way of thinking. We didn't just think it, we lived and breathed it. My therapist explained it this way: even if you know logically that it was not your fault and you had to close them out and walk away just so you could survive and live a healthy life, there is still some kind of recording playing the background (subconscious) that is whispering to you that your healthy choices were wrong, and that you are a bad person, and that you should feel shame and guilt. So in order to combat this in myself, he suggested I try those positive statements I mentioned earlier, and repeat them, and make my subconscious eventually accept this as habit and truth instead of all the crap that I was raised on. That's gonna take some doing, but I am willing to try anything right now.
It took me years to finally say "ENOUGH!" and I have felt a level of peace I have never had before, but still somewhere deep inside I feel like a jerk. I worry if I did the right thing. I have people who support me, but I don't think they quite understand the turmoil. It's like I logically know that it was healthy to break off from them but I feel something isn't quiet agreeing with my logic...
I had to distance myself from my parents, right? It's almost like instead of them dying and leaving me an orphan, it feels like something inside of me died. And it's sort of like, instead of my parents dying, I let them go, and they are dead to me in a way. Still pretty harsh, right?
So I saw my therapist a couple of times. One of the things he said to me was that this was a healthy decision for me. No doubt about it. The other thing he said was that my intentions were honourable. I was doing this to protect myself. The other thing was, I was not a bad person. Also, there isn't anything I can do about my mother; she is what she is and she refuses to change and I can't change that, so I will have to learn not to dwell on that. He told me to repeat those sorts of statements to myself when I meditate.
It may be a necessary step, but it's a really hard one. Parents tell us things that get stuck in our heads as a way of thinking. We didn't just think it, we lived and breathed it. My therapist explained it this way: even if you know logically that it was not your fault and you had to close them out and walk away just so you could survive and live a healthy life, there is still some kind of recording playing the background (subconscious) that is whispering to you that your healthy choices were wrong, and that you are a bad person, and that you should feel shame and guilt. So in order to combat this in myself, he suggested I try those positive statements I mentioned earlier, and repeat them, and make my subconscious eventually accept this as habit and truth instead of all the crap that I was raised on. That's gonna take some doing, but I am willing to try anything right now.
It took me years to finally say "ENOUGH!" and I have felt a level of peace I have never had before, but still somewhere deep inside I feel like a jerk. I worry if I did the right thing. I have people who support me, but I don't think they quite understand the turmoil. It's like I logically know that it was healthy to break off from them but I feel something isn't quiet agreeing with my logic...
RECENT NIGHTMARE -- It was post-apocalyptic. Something was wrong with the sky. The moon was out, through the window. I was alone in what I perceived to be my childhood house growing up, and in the dream I might have been around 10 years old. I was scared in this dark house, and it looked trashed, and the garage had the car in it, but my brothers and parents were gone. I kept looking for them but I couldn't find them. Then there was these army-type men intent on rescuing survivors (had night gear on so they could see in the dark, had big guns, boots, helmets, masks, etc)... They came smashing through the house trying to rescue me, because apparently it's not safe to stay long in the houses on the ground in the area where I was abandoned (or survived or whatever reason I was alone). But there was Someone in the house with us. I had always thought there was someone watching me, always fearful. It was less of a Someone and more of a Something. It wanted to eat flesh. It attacked all the army men, amazingly strong, grabbed their legs out from under them and dragged them into dark corners and blood was everywhere. All you could see was another child's arm around one of their throats, or braided hair or a silhouette of a girl about my age. I was so scared I ran into this little bitty crawl-space or little tiny closet, where I was jammed into a little box of a room with the door only about an inch from my face. This girl smashed her arm through the thin wood causing splinters to fly and I just gave up then, and shoved the door back and stuck my arm out for her to bite or grab. But she never grabbed it. She disappeared. Those men who tried to rescue me were all dead and I was alone....
Strange, eh? When I look at it now, I am wondering, was that other little girl (who didn't look like me) my mother? Or my other side of me? Strange that she didn't want to hurt me, but yet wouldn't let me get rescued either. Interesting...
Strange, eh? When I look at it now, I am wondering, was that other little girl (who didn't look like me) my mother? Or my other side of me? Strange that she didn't want to hurt me, but yet wouldn't let me get rescued either. Interesting...
Then, like many of these times that I wake up from a bad dream lately, I then cannot shut off my brain. Immediately a painful or embarrassing or humiliating memory jumps in there from my past. Sometimes it seems like quite a shock that I will remember things because... I honestly thought I had completely forgotten these times. They aren't as bad as when I was recalling times where I was molested, but they are still enough to make me cringe and make me feel down and aggravate me.
My psychologist thinks that these memories are coming to the surface for a reason. Now that I have relaxed somewhat on the Cipralex and with the meditative breathing and such, my brain apparently is deciding that now I can deal with those rough times in the past that I kind of swept under the carpet because I could not handle them at the time they occurred. So my therapist suggested that I try to reminisce about the past during the day, when I had more control, and to give myself some time to allow myself to be emotional if need be, and to also give myself some time to get back to relaxation before I have to go somewhere like work, or before bed. So I am taking the opportunity now...
I remember I was in elementary school, it must have been mid-grade around 5 or 6, because this memory was on the side of the school with the younger kids. The older kids were always on the other side of the school ground and went in the doors there after recess. I am somewhat confused about the time, because I thought we were in grade 6 or 7, so it is possible that I just happened to be on the other side of the school ground for some reason that I can't recall.
So two older boys from my class confronted me. It wasn't pleasant. One of them was a boy who liked the only girlfriend I had. I remember she had asked me at a party we had been invited to, should she go out with this boy? She said to me she didn't feel attracted to this boy, but that she liked him and didn't want to hurt his feelings. She asked me if I was faced with the same decision, would I date this boy or not? I said well if she didn't really like him, and dated him anyway, it wouldn't be real, and it would be a lie. So she thanked me for talking to me and apparently turned this boy down.
Well either she told him she had talked to me about it, or he saw her talking to me. So he and his friend wanted to get some information out of me. He asked me what I had told her. I can't remember what I said, I don't even know if I answered. I just remember feeling afraid as his friend pinned me up against the building (all the other students and teachers had gone into the building because the bell had rung)... And they were both very close to me, very close. Too close.
I was wearing winter boots at the time, and they were the "moon boots" with the really big sole about an inch thick or more. I hauled off and kicked the boy who was interrogating me.
Later he showed me the huge scab I had caused on the front of his leg. I might have even apologized, but I noticed I didn't get heck from the teachers, so he hadn't told on me. So I didn't really feel very bad, because I literally had been frightened about what those two boys were going to do to me.
