as weird as this may sound . . .

as weird as this may sound . . .
M

markgreyblue

Registrant
i am experiencing some pain - pain just in the daily routine - today - of taking care of myself -

Taz had the insightful comment that we are all frozen at the point of our sa - and this for me was 7 years old -

now having no family and having all of this actively in my mind i am still that 7 year old - inside - having to take care of myself in an adult world -

on anti depressants and anit anxiety - i am becoming more open to relationships and becoming
more stable - suddenly all of the pain is being uncovered - it started as depression and now there is just pain ... and the anti depressant is taking care of the depressiveness -
 
Mark,

I know how you feel. Still so new to me to be actually dealing with this.

You're right. The meds take care of the depression and anxiety. But I only think time and T will help me with the pain. Because pain is not depression or anxiety.

I'm here for you, Bro.

Peace,

Marc
 
Mark,

Anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications take care of the physiological aspects of the problems. Our coming to terms with our feelings take of the emotional aspect of them. The medication is a very helpful tool, but not the remedy in itself.

Frozen at the point of our SA? Hmmm... An interesting thought. Thoughts stuck at that point and rerunning it over and over and over in our minds. Maybe not frozen, but hung up at that point. Hung up until we can work through that quagmire of pain and betrayal and get to the solid ground on the other side. Damn, very little traction in quagmires. But with support and assistance; professional, the guys here, and family and friends, we have a life-line thrown across for us to pull us in the right direction.

I guess that we must first feel the pain before we can take it on. Still not fun at the least. I truly regret that any of us had to feel that pain, that we still do. I can say from experience that it does improve. With the improvement in the pain and our emotional state, daily adult life becomes easier to deal with and live. And, as an added bonus: so does having fun as a kid.

Take care and enjoy the child inside of yourself. There are so many good things about life, both as a child and as an adult AND we can experience both kinds.

Bill
 
this is a very painful and intimate thing to admit bill - but perhaps it will illuminate what i am going through -

i was perhaps sa even earlier than this but this is what i recall distinctly (7years old) I found that after this was awakened in me - I found my feelings and emotions were all mixed up - and left with the desire to gain this kind of affection over and over - it is the way i was taught through SA to gain validation - that untouched lives would not seek out - and so my view is childlike - or at least coming to terms with the pain now of this and taking care of myself - it is hard and a struggle -
 
it also took away my sense of self worth - beyond this -
 
Mark,

Yes, even bad attention is better than no attention at all.

I, along with my siblings, were officially abandoned by our father when I was 10 and my mother was working four jobs to support us. I began working at about my 11th birthday and my boss SAd me, it was quite brutal in nature and most of it had been blocked out for many years. A year later on my second job, my bosss husband befriended me and thus my second run of SA. It was attention from a male father figure and, hey, it wasnt nearly as brutal. Talk about mixed up feelings; this is what people did to me, this is what I deserved, and this kind of attention is better than having no attention at all. These feelings and way of life continued until a week after my 30th birthday, 19 years, and ended when my then-wife told me she had the right to beat me. That was the first time it ever sunk in my mind. Up until then, it was what I expected in return for attention and out of life in general, although it has taken more years to put the practice of not expecting abuse in place (I think I am finally there now).

I dont think that this mind-set is childlike. It is just the way we were raised. In return for attention that we need and desire, we must accept abuse. Without the abuse, would it be the attention that we knew? Without the abuse, the attention would be strange and unknown. Something as adults we have to unlearn, retrain ourselves. Old deep-rooted lessons are hard to let go of. With the realization that this attention we were receiving was nothing more than abuse of ourselves, comes great pain. Not limited to what they did to us, but what we continued to allow ourselves to be subjected to.

It is a hard struggle to deal with all this, to first realize what really happened, to mourn our losses, to understand what we are really feeling, to learn what we really want and need, and to retrain ourselves to live for those.

I hope this provides more insight into the quagmire I referred to.

You may have been a passenger in your past, but you are the commander of your future, take care,
Bill
 
Odd, how you post this almost same time as I post about 'pain and fear'.

Is it mental pain, or physical? If you are feeling physical pain, please try to identify the cause. Physical pain is our body way of telling us something is wrong. Just as mental pain is the brain way of telling us the same thing. Please make sure there is not something serious that is the cause of it.

If it is mental pain that is somehow in the body, I have felt that before. More like 'body memories' and flashbacks. And I have yet to find a way to make those go away, other then to tell you they do not last, they do fade and become less often. If it is pain from flashback or memories, perhaps more the antianxiety medicine wil help.

Good luck to you.

leosha
 
it is emotional pain -

there is a rebirth now and a grieving in a sense -
 
Mark,

Emotional pain is as real as any other. Just like Leosha pointed out about physical pain, emotional pain is our emotions telling us when something is wrong.

The depression may have frozen or hidden the pain, but it did not go away like that. It can fade, but only after it gets its "day in court," so to speak. I wish it could be just one day. I wish we could have a road map, "When you get to this point, you have x hours/days/years remaining." But I wished for a winning ticket in the lottery this weekend, too, and still had to fight rush hour traffic today. So I will continue to make do as best I can without waiting for those wishes to come true.

Thanks,

Joe
 
Bill
Yes, even bad attention is better than no attention at all.
Click to expand...
In my counselling class recently we've been covering Transactional Analysis - Therapy. And although the title sounds complicated the guy who developed it - Eric Berne - used simple language to describe the events that lead to dysfunction, and I believe it's an excellent model for working with Survivors.
The whole concept is so logical that when it was first described to me I felt shivers down my spine.

One of the core concepts is what Berne called the "Stroke Economy" - this is the process we all go through to survive emotionally and psychologically and gain stimulation and recognition. ( it's probably where the phrase "pulling a stroke" comes from ? )
Right from infants we need those stimulations and recognitions, and we 'do' things to gain them. We smile at our caregivers and receive hugs in return, and food ! These are the 'Strokes' Berne identified.
This 'economy' carries on, and we all still do it now. As kids and adults we behave in certain ways to get a certain response from others.
What Berne also said was that there are both 'positive and negative strokes'. And in the absence of positive strokes the need for ANY stroke is so powerful we will accept negative ones.
This is why we accepted abuse, beatings and emotional abuse; this was better than no strokes at all.

And it's no surprise that we learn those ways, and even in the light of all the evidence that other people are living their lives recieving positive strokes we dont know any different and continue on not only accepting negative ones but actively seeking them. Even the negative strokes give us stimulation and recognition.

The Stroke Economy is the natural 'trade'that we all do to recieve and give strokes by "Playing Games" - the actions and behaviours involved in the giving and recieving of strokes ( positive or negative ), our abusers traded for their gain using negative ones.

Abusers withold positive strokes and give us negative ones, they might not cognitively know how the economy works - as in 'knowing' this theory - but instinctively they do know that they can trap us into becoming victims by substituting sex abuse for caring hugs and normal love and affection ( positive strokes ).
It's how they pick out the vulnerable amongst us, they recognise that maybe our family environment is a cold and unemotional one ( not neccessarily a bad one even ) and the abuser fuels their ( and ours ) economy with their version of "caring hugs and normal love and affection."

Berne's theory goes beyond this and interprates the "Games" people play to trade in this economy, he describes the process of "Scripts" - the stories we invent for ourselves that have so much influence on our lives because we believe them, and therefore follow them. He also describes "Ego States" that are a bit different to Freuds, and the way we interact with others in the different Ego States.

Transactional Analysis is a powerful model for dealing with Survivors, there is a lot of it and it can seem complicated, but Berne went to great lengths to break it down into separate parts and use understandable language. Each part on it's own does become logical and easy to use.
I know that a lot of the therapists at Axis where I work us it extensively with good results.

Sorry to ramble on a bit, but it's my favourite subject at the moment and what Bill and the other guys have posted on this topic just slots right in to TA.

Dave
 
Dave,

No problem, I was glad to set you up. :D

Thanks,
Bill
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top