Katie, as you already know emotional abuse IS serious (even if it sounds like nothing) as you said in your post, most people think it's more damaging than psychical abuse.
I just want you to know that I understand some of what you've said, and that if you ever want to talk you can PM me :)
Thank you.. am having a hard time formulating sentences right now. Am sort of in my child state mind. "I've never been protected."
I was over protected, but never protected from the things that were really damaging me. It's like my family were selectively 'blind' - protecting me from the 'dangerous out there', the unknown, 'other people'. But they weren't proactive on my behalf in relation to the bullying, and I wasn't protected from the domestic violence or mum's depression. Or dad's paranoia.
I wonder if Katrina is responding to your feelings of being unprotected? She is, after all, in her own way trying to protect you. Do you think you could tell her thank you for trying to protect you and that you appreciate it
Quote:
Originally Posted by roiben
That in the end, you are the one now who has that choice and control - you as all of your parts.
This is not a final exam. You can keep on walking that same path and we will be here, to support you, every step of the way. Hopefully then, one day you can look back and realise how much further you have come.
^^^ this from roiben seems really important.
I don't know who Katrina is to you...i don't know you well enough...but this seems important to me.
Katrina is an internalisation of bullying and abuse. Also everything I couldn't be growing up that was repressed for emotional survival at home and school. She thinks she can 'protect' me at the same time as attacking me.
This morning things are stirred up again, and Katrina-me/mind is telling me that the only thing wrong with me is that I'm a shit person.
Life always feels like a final exam for me.
And it always has done. Am reading my diaries from uni, with teaching practices that were a struggle, and the euphoria any time I showed I was capable, whenever I got a smidgen of praise, and wasn't shown up as an inadequate human being.
From what you have written, it seems as though you were prevented from making friendships and building relationships outside of your own family and that inside the familly you received a level of abuse. I can see how this must be terrifying now you are outside, having been led to believe outside is a threat, especially for the child-you, Trina.
I can understand how you are seeking approval from others, as a means of re-affirming your own self-worth. I also knowing that doing so can be incredibly hard on a person. If every action you take leads to a judgement, and an exam type value is put on that it must lead to an incredible amount of stress and anxiety and, a lot of emotional hope or dissapointment, depending on what you view to be the result.
I wonder if it is possible, perhaps with your therapist, to see if there is a way you can find to be your own judge. After all, it is you who is in controll now, not others. Yes, you are out in the real world and it can be an incredibly harsh place. Sometimes our means of survival in that place is to hold true to our own values and know they are right. To place a value in our own choices, over the judgement of others and in doing so, to feel more at ease with our own actions.
I may of course be completly off the mark - do let me know if I am. I will not mind, I am writing purely from observation and my feelings of what may be possible.
I know you have made a choice to take the route of homeopathy to help you with your therapy. I also know this is something you made a choice on yourself and am sure there are people out there who would disagree with that choice. I am not one of those people. My reason for saying this, is an example of something you have felt strong enough to choose to do and have followed through with - To a point where you have had positive effects from it.
I will stop rambling now - sorry.
Roiben x
If the Human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we wouldn't.
Re outside as a threat makes sense. We're reenacting that all the time. Although I consciously do try not to when there's enough of me available to do so.
It can be such a challenge to say the least when my defences work overtime, especially when they're out of date defences.
We've been working on my having an internal value of my own goodness for some time now. The Others often get in the way of this, but it is being built.
I don't see you as rambling at all.
I apologise that I'm finding things challenging to articulate right now.
