.

[ForeverFighting]

My therapist says we can't think our way through this. I was an intellectual, the math kid, who came from a family full of chemestry and English professors. So I understand the whole "bell curve" hope. Unfortunately, when we walk through the door of our subconsciousness, all the intellectual stuff goes right out the window. Suddenly it's about feeling everything to the core. I had an angry part who's job was to protect me from feelings. He (this part of me) kept everybody at bay, including myself. There's a place in us that feels a terrible loss, the loss of our childhood and our innocense, the loss of hope of ever having the close family we long for, the loss of "normalcy". We have two choices. We can go there and cry and cry and cry as we mourn our tremendous loss, or we can shove it all away along with anyone who reminds us of the loss.

For me, the key to defusing the anger was to let go. I cried, and when I come and read the stories here of all the men who've lived through the same hell and suffered the same loss, I cry again. The alternative is to bottle it up until it leaks or explodes into inappropriate emotions and reactions to present things that aren't really about present things at all.

Feel it, SK. Sit with the loss and the pain. Each time we go there, the loss doesn't feel quite so painful. I know it's hard, but put the brain away. Healing from the terrible things done to us comes from the heart. Not the head.

Take care, SK.

 

[eyesopen]

SK,

FF has hit on some serious truth. I have a slightly different way of expressing it, so here goes.

In order to bury the pain and to get by w/o feeling like crap all the time you do bury the past. You may remember it and just say that it didn't effect you, or bury as much as possible.

Anger/rage come in as a substitute for your real feelings. In extrememe cases you can go as far as D.I.D., somewhere in the middle - PTSD, and just plain moody at the lighter end.

Still no matter what you come up with, it can never work perfectly. Either the temper creeps out under pressure, or the carefully crafted biography gets tattered, etc. This can be seen with things like bipolar, borderline, and lots of other mental health issues.

You are ready for the work when you are ready. The mind can come in handy to judge with some clarity what has happened, why you do what you do, and what the cost of action vs inaction might be. It is better to have the mind and emotions both on board for this work, although I agree that the actual work is done in the subC and the emotions.

I hope you do what is best for you.

Regards,
W