Facing into fear

Facing into fear

HealingHope

Registrant
I’ve done a lot of work this past week, since my melt down on Monday, looking at what fuels my loss of hope and self doubt.
I’ve looked at fear, but really deeply into the face of it for me. Surrendering into that seems to go against something so deeply unconscious it’s like the most powerful magnet seems to pull me back into old patterns, which I’m trying so hard to unlearn.

For me, fear of rejection was the focus and the pain that brings, but deeper still I went, it’s within, I discovered my own hard wired belief system that I’m not worthy. Stemmed deep within my inner child from memories of rejection and judgments from my own father and neglect from my mother.
Now, I really thought I’d got to this months ago, but nope, there it was fueling my fear reactions unconsciously and old patterns. Not truly surrendering to the way of things because the feelings triggered by the time of year overwhelmed me.

The reason for this ramble is because knowing how powerful this fear magnet is within me, dragging me away from faith and surrender, I’d be so grateful to know how as survivors you have overcome this enormous survival mechanism and faced changing your situations? By that I guess I’m thinking cutting ties from abusers, even disclosure. Is there a middle ground? Can you heal without disclosure? I feel I know it’s impossible to heal amidst those who abused you. Is there a middle ground here as well?
I guess what I’m seeing is how enormous a survivors journey is again, given how quickly I plummeted last week. I see if I’m affected this way, how my survivor copes is beyond me.
 
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I see the clarity you expressed, the inner child effect, being wired toward a type of response, and wonder of it all...

Those are major steps of this recovery. Each small bit of healing some childhood pain, has meant exposing myself to a core part of that time and focusing on a specific reaction... It's always been deep pain... Which seems honest to me. I've had to do these in session, they're sometimes, no, always too powerful... I break a bit, then work on that a bit, then seek to find myself in the now, now reaching back to me then... All alone, scared, deep pain, unable to operate, just dissociate.

I've had 9 months of 2017 under my belt doing that work, almost weekly sessions. My neuroplasticity can be felt, a physical reaction. I know it's hard to do! It can be overwhelming. I push, I break, I cry like never before. It's so much pain, the physical response is visceral and lasts. We end the session with self care, and a bit of nuanced talk about work at home. Which I've tried to do.

Your husband isn't doing any of the work to manage pain, and must be pushing it back with something? Drinking maybe? I coped like that for 15 years, now over 18 years ago.

HH, he's not in recovery, when he's refusing the step by step healing of the myriad pains in our past. I can't imagine coping with the needs I have. And let's have a bit if perspective, I'm one if the lucky ones. My CSA was less a problem, than the one rape, but too much bullying, and neglect. I read ms, I share compassion towards the brothers... I'm sort of lucky that I focus more on none family, or any close, or somewhat close. Their being either shorter term friends or strangers makes enduring my anger and fears seen in path of parts to heal.

This work is going to be with me for the rest of my life. When I get to manageable, then I must do maintenance.

What do you see in my post?
 
Hi Ceremony,
I see from your thoughts here that each step of recovery is about facing fears, but as you have, each time something has revealed itself about your real self? The pain is worth it? I see self compassion too for the endurance each step demands and a knowing when it’s time just to regroup, recover and then battle on?

My SO and his recovery? I honestly don’t know if he’s in therapy these days. He was? Before he went away, but his situation I do know presents many risks around disclosure and leaving his environment, which is why I tuned in, I think to the reality of those facing fears, and how do you? When I’m struggling with such minor triggers compared?
 
Hi hh.

I've found myself that while fear seems the simplest of reactions, actually coping with it, much less changing it is no simple process sinc like a lot of things it comes in many different forms and variations each of which takes different strategies and approaches.

For example, my fear of crowds and social phobia is something I just need to work through. Yes, it was probably because of all the bullying and the sexual abuse at school as a teenager, not to mention the bullying and emotional abuse at the boarding school that preceded it (I learned how to be an outsider when I was eight), but there wasn't an easy answer other than just plugging away.
yes this has meant occasions when I've been inside for four or five days at a time, points when I've gone out somewhere to a rehearsal, spent ten minutes waiting for a late train and concluded "people don't want me there anyway and come home" not to mention a huge amount of anger when people tend to drop contact with me since it is so muchh harder for me to maintain contact with them.

Still with this the only way out has been through and its something I still have trouble with, since the line between introversion and social phobia is a thin one and something I'm stil trying to get around (especially with moving to a new town where we don't know anyone and trying to find groups of people and friends, both of which are sort of none starters at the second).

On the other hand, some things I have had to evolve distinct techniques for, techniques which are often based on accepting the way things are rather than trying to change them.
For example, my sense of worthlessness and self disgust. I understood where this was from, I thought about it, but I just cannot shift it at I positive thinking, I tried all the feel good phrases I could, but they just didn't work for me. Either they would simply feel embarrassingly wrong, or still worse, I'd start castigating myself for my own arrogance.

This is when I developed the concept of Shadow. Shadow is not actually real, or even another identity (though Shadow does have its own voice). Shadow (both name, title and description), is that part of myself which believes me to be worthless. I cannot rid myself of Shadow, all I can do is recognize that Shadow is not reliable.



if I write something and start to think "that is terrible!" just because I write it, I've had to train myself to think "That is Shadow talking", I have had to recognize that I am unbiased about myself, that Shadow's opinion is just the same as that of a man hating ultra feminist one of those many people I've met who assume that me having none working eyeballs automatically means intrinsically compitant at things.

When I get off after a performance, or on the occasion a couple of weeks ago where I read a couple of my poems publically (well played recordings I'd previously made), when people complemented me and my first response was to damn their complements and point out everything that I felt was wrong with me and what I'd done, I had to remember "no! that's Shadow's response"

When asked for self assessment my usual response these days is to either refuse, or at least say what I tried! to do, rather than how I did.

On the other hand, there are some forms of fear that there is literally no way to cope with without changes in circumstances.

For a long time I suffered accute genophobia. I could not even wear shorts in public, sexual humour made me uncomfortable, often to the point of panic. My own reactions would cause me to go a state of fear, a definite pavlovian response. Almost worse, was the fear that I! might hurt someone. That if I so much as hugged a girl or touched her arm, I'd be a pervert. I used to literally jump if people touched me and intensively avoid physical affection, especially when I did! feel an attraction to someone.

I knew where this was from, it hardly took a genius to work it out, not with how down right unpleasant my teenaged sexual experiences were, hell one of the worst experiences happened in a so called sex education lesson after the teacher walked out.

the problem?there was absolutely nothing! I could do about this. i'd talked to councillors about this, I'd written about it here on ms a lot, since it was the thing that bothered me most. It literally hurt! I mean physically hurt that nobody had ever wanted to be close to me, indeed nothing fuels a sense of worthlessness quite like the knowledge that the closest you've been to someone was while having your face spat in, that you've literally never been kissed, and all the "you'll find someone", or "Your such a nice guy" or "you'll make a good boyfriend/husband" doesn't change that.

There was! no way for me to heal from this where I was, anymore than an elective mute could cure themselves on their own. I tried avoidance, I tried systematic desensitisation, I tried giving up on the hole thing.

Nothing worked, and nothing would work until I met my lady and we were able gently change things.

So, how you deal with your own sense of worthessness and fear of rejection? I don't honestly know. Perhaps try the technique I tried with Shadow myself, carry on thinking about it and posting here. Unfortunately its one of these cases where you just need to try things and see what works, and unfortunately just live through it.

counselling might be helpful, (provided you have a halfway decent councillor), though even that can only go so far.

Unfortunately as my lady often says, everyone has their baggage.

Hope some of this sort of vaguely helps.
I can say I really admire you myself Hh, the way you've both stuck with your husband, tried to understand where he is but also not neglected yourself is absolutely beautiful,I also appreciate all the help you've been to me my lady, you've got a great way of putting a partner's perspective coherently.

I could tell you you are anything but worthless, though I suspect if your sense of worthlessness in any way resembles mine you might find this difficult to handle, so I'll just say thank you, and that I hope things get better for you and your husband.

Luke.
 
Thank you Luke, for taking the time to help me with this and your very kind words. You’re right it’s hard to take when someone says something so nice!

I think the thread running through this is awareness isn’t it? Trying to be present when as you put it “shadow” takes the lead. The unconscious is so baffling.

I love how you lovely wife also puts it, Yep, we do all have baggage. It’s what makes us human, the imperfections. Thank you again, best wishes to you both
 
Hh, to an extent yes it is self awareness, but it often isn't quite that simple or at least I've not found it so.
For example, I've had a lot of things I've been "Aware" of but have been totally unable to change, such as the sense of worthlessness so have just had to live with, or at least find a way of continuing with them as background elements, these days I just assume that I will think badly of something I do so leave it at that, instead I try to focus on what I'm intending! to do rather than on any positive quality of what I've actually done.

Shadow is not always unconscious, indeed Shadow can sometimes be very, very! conscious, especially at actively nasty moments, in fact I admit I have a few problems with the idea of the literal "unconscious" since by basic definition if we are totally "unconscious" of something that makes it a theoretical black box, we can put whatever we want in there, which isn't the case, this is why I really found my university councilling service crap when they wanted address the "guilt of my premature birth" rather than talk about the abuse, and their arguement that "well its unconscious guilt" really didn't mean much to me :D.

In one of C S Lewis's screwtape Letters, he says the chief job of devils is not to provoke evil thoughts, but to muddle, to fuz everything and make things less defined, and if the devils do this properly people will start doing it to themselves, focusing on trivia, making themselves unaware of their own actions and desires.

#This is it. Though previously I thought my huge breakdown in 2007 was an isolated event,I now realize that it was the culmination of a number of factors previously, inferences I could well of made.
I knew! I was genophobic, I suffered because I hadn't got a girlfriend, I knew I was uncomfortable in crowds, but surely this had little to do with my abuse since that was over and done years ago right? I was fine?

It wasn't so much that I was literally unaware, rather i was willfully unaware. I never had amnesia or trouble with memories, everything was still there, but it was watching a film with the sound turned down, it had no substance.

My lady is dead right on the baggage angle, its just that one severe problem with said baggage is that the combination on every lock is different, and sometimes your dealing with a box within a box within a box, and sometimes a metal detector can help and sometimes not, its just a case of humping it around and opening a box or not when you can :D.

Luke.
 
Hi Luke
Yes, I totally relate to the opening a box within a box and the different padlock combinations to each lock. That’s exactly what I think I experienced when I thought I’d already dealt with the neglect and judgemental/ rejection stuff from my parents, but found myself wrestling with the wrong combination!

There was another box inside that too! Discovered today something new in that just this morning with a peer of mine, she helped me see I was trying to rationalise the extreme panick and fretfulness I was feeling as a child but from my adult self. You can't because a childs mind isn't rationale as my now adult mind is.

This is one heck of a rabbit hole.

But I think that’s your point too about sometimes we’re just not aware it’s happening. I think I’m seeing I fret when triggered by dates and the memories they bring, but the intensity of the feeling is as I did as my child self, that’s where the self awareness now can kick in if my 'shadow' takes the lead again. I realise I was fretting and seeking reassurance and alsorts of irrational stuff because I was feeling deep deep unhealed hurt of the same feelings but from my own childhood and not from our relationship. They sort of added a charge to feelings about missing him. I'm so annoyed with myself! But in a Doh! way. I'm ok with it..

And Ceremony’s point about sometimes stopping the introspection for maintenance Time to be still and pause for a while I think.
I’m also reminded of something a dear tutor of mine said “ keep one foot on the bank, don’t jump in the boat completely”

Thank you so much.

Sorry this ramble is me talking my head out!
 
Nothing wrong with talking things out hh, whatever works.

I liked your tutor's comment about keeping one foot on the bank. It reminds me of an experience I had at a vocal performance recently. i was singing "race you to to the top of the morning" from Secret garden. This is an extremely sad and poignant song in which Archy craven is reading a bed time story to his supposedly crippled son, and the story sort of takes on the contours of craven's own life.

We went through line by line with me feeling emotions of each.
I don't have children, neither do I particularly like children, but when I got to the chorus in which Archy is lamenting what he'd love to be able to do with his son and almost narrating a fantasy about the life they should have had I literally burst into tears.
At that point the teacher, a wonderfully south AFrican musical director called Nico), said:

"Now you know how much emotion is too much, so go almost that far but not quite" :D.

Luke.
 
Hi HH, I'm finally home and can type... that makes posts easier to think through.

I see the question whether "The pain is worth it?", after about a year, my answer is yes. I had initial confusion, and had to study about what was going on. I have that need, to know enough, to see what's supposed to be going on, to trust it. I gained that rather early, having studied for months before I started therapy, and then all along.

I was trained to do self care by my therapist. She showed me some techniques of hugging myself/inner child to me, which gave me a sense that I was working to bring the pain of that inner me, from those decades ago, up to me the adult, to assuage that pain, and know that I'm in the present. It seems odd, it's not easy to explain, and a good therapist is the only way I get it. Maybe too, I'm able to know my imagination/reality interact toward finding myself as a 3 yr old, suffering confusion from neglect, fear of low interaction, etc... That 3yr old was my therapists first focus for me, she explained, that's where my memory can know the beginning, that's where I should start. I have hugged and loved that little guy, and it's built a small self worth in me.

That's been a very important benefit of my therapy. It's built toward more of my inner child pains, which it's seemed every year of my childhood has some to deal with. I'm being more aware of the way my past shaped my personality, my reactions, my responses, fears and pain, etc... Therapy seems the only way I can work on it and cry my heart out.

I think this work is personally made for my personality, and that each victim/survivor/managing/thriving person will need that personality shaped therapy, a focused therapist will endeavor. I have discovered the therapist is very important to me. I have had very poor experience prior to this one. My hope to continue with her is quite keen, but reality is that things change. I hope I prepare for that, before the topic of change occurs. I'm not good with that kind of change and separation. I've learned separation anxiety is huge with me.

Well, there's a lot to digest, and hope for.

-Rick
 
Hi HealingHope,

HealingHope said:
For me, fear of rejection was the focus and the pain that brings, but deeper still I went, it’s within, I discovered my own hard wired belief system that I’m not worthy. Stemmed deep within my inner child from memories of rejection and judgments from my own father and neglect from my mother.
This is very close to patterns I see in myself as well.

HealingHope said:
I’d be so grateful to know how as survivors you have overcome this enormous survival mechanism and faced changing your situations?
I wouldn't say I've overcome it, but I certainly struggle with it too. One way I try to generate new patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving is to remind myself to watch my body sensations when I'm in the fear rather than getting caught up in the story. I try to allow my body to express what it wants (shaking? breathing?) rather than shutting it down and trying to think my way out of it. I also try to see in myself what I am fearing outside of myself. Fear of disappointing Dad is a strong theme in a dream I had last night. Am I afraid to stand up for myself in the face of his aggression? Probably. Am I afraid of my maleness that he embraced so strongly and I avoided? Probably. Work in progress. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to explore this phase of my healing process with you. I hope your exploration of fear finds healthy new avenues to explore too.

Sincerely,

S
 
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Thank you so much for sharing your experience, it’s a huge help because I can see I am on the right tracks in recognising the deep healing involved in ‘unlearning’ fear responses. I’m not a survivor but this helps me relate my own journey to my how much my SO will be overcoming and navigating his own healing and coping.
 
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