relationship thoughts
I had a good therapy session yesterday. I was able to be pretty frank with my T and was able to start to get a handle on my trouble with relationships due to SA experiences.
The stuff I talked about pretty much centered on three things.
Agressiveness.
Emotional Independence.
Boundaries.
I've just started along this healing path so it is still difficult to put into words but I'll try.
I have had some insight into the value of beginning to match my level of agressiveness with my partner's. (In SA and other abuse experiences, I was forced into being passive and have followed that pattern in relationships ever since) and I have applied this only in verbal situations. I haven't applied it in s-xual situations (yet?).
One of the old negative terms I have for this is "talking back." The lessons I learned taught me that I am not entitled to assertiveness. This is not what it truly is. It is just being myself, holding my own, acknowleging for myself my distinct identity as an individual human being.
I am concious now of the importance of emotional independence in my life. I am sorry that people who care about me may feel cut out or left out, including my partner, but the most important thing now is for me to become conciously aware of who I am. If I am to recover, it is necessary for me to practice taking back some, perhaps eventually a large part, of what was taken from me.
This doesn't mean, I think, that triggers will be entirely removed. Concious awareness of them has just begun to diffuse their power over me. The past, as I have acknowledged before this, will not be changed. (That was a big step for me.)
Emotional independence for me means independence from the judging voice(s) in my head. Let them scream all they want if I know for certain they are not true and not my own. Perhaps they will largely go away then...I haven't had much experience with that yet.
Boundaries. It is coming clear to me, or clearer, that I can have boundaries, that it is okay for me not to be enitrely "open," not entirely "honest" when those words are used to sneak into my personal autonomy. The negative term I've had for this is "secretiveness."
There always was a lot of real secretiveness in my family and, of course, my abusers enforced that violently and with threats so it was easy to buy into the idea that adhering to boundaries was a negative thing.
That has been used from within and without as a way to label my boundary making as witholding behavior, dysfunctional behavior, which it is not.
I'm not at all a great fan of telling all to anyone even with those who would be or are intimate partners. I had a teacher who, when talking about successful relationships, made a clear distinction between what she called old business and new business.
She said that what I and a partner share is new business. All that preceeded it, particularly in other similar relationships, is old business and not only has no place in the new relationship but also, if it is shared, can undermine the new relationship.
This was, I think, about living in the present moment long before I read and heard much about that concept. Lately, I have begun to think of SA and particularly its affects in the context of her old and new business.
I am glad to help people understand male SA better when they ask. I even feel some responsibility for doing that. And, I think I feel comfortable helping a friend or partner understand a particular situation or behavior that they are puzzled by.
I remind myself that my partner is not my therapist. I don't want him or any other potentional partner to try to be that and I don't want to try to make him into that.
I want "partnership" for me to be about sharing present-moment joys and challenges, about making a new history together.
As my self confidence grows so does my emotional independence. I hope this will allow other relationships, friendships, etc. to become established and to thrive.
I think this has just begun to free the partnership from the strains of being forced, maybe forced into being something it is not. (I think I am feeling forced--mostly by myself--in terms of who I am supposed to be in the partnership.)
I don't know what these things will become. It is for me a process of becoming, not something fixed in identity.
Brett
The stuff I talked about pretty much centered on three things.
Agressiveness.
Emotional Independence.
Boundaries.
I've just started along this healing path so it is still difficult to put into words but I'll try.
I have had some insight into the value of beginning to match my level of agressiveness with my partner's. (In SA and other abuse experiences, I was forced into being passive and have followed that pattern in relationships ever since) and I have applied this only in verbal situations. I haven't applied it in s-xual situations (yet?).
One of the old negative terms I have for this is "talking back." The lessons I learned taught me that I am not entitled to assertiveness. This is not what it truly is. It is just being myself, holding my own, acknowleging for myself my distinct identity as an individual human being.
I am concious now of the importance of emotional independence in my life. I am sorry that people who care about me may feel cut out or left out, including my partner, but the most important thing now is for me to become conciously aware of who I am. If I am to recover, it is necessary for me to practice taking back some, perhaps eventually a large part, of what was taken from me.
This doesn't mean, I think, that triggers will be entirely removed. Concious awareness of them has just begun to diffuse their power over me. The past, as I have acknowledged before this, will not be changed. (That was a big step for me.)
Emotional independence for me means independence from the judging voice(s) in my head. Let them scream all they want if I know for certain they are not true and not my own. Perhaps they will largely go away then...I haven't had much experience with that yet.
Boundaries. It is coming clear to me, or clearer, that I can have boundaries, that it is okay for me not to be enitrely "open," not entirely "honest" when those words are used to sneak into my personal autonomy. The negative term I've had for this is "secretiveness."
There always was a lot of real secretiveness in my family and, of course, my abusers enforced that violently and with threats so it was easy to buy into the idea that adhering to boundaries was a negative thing.
That has been used from within and without as a way to label my boundary making as witholding behavior, dysfunctional behavior, which it is not.
I'm not at all a great fan of telling all to anyone even with those who would be or are intimate partners. I had a teacher who, when talking about successful relationships, made a clear distinction between what she called old business and new business.
She said that what I and a partner share is new business. All that preceeded it, particularly in other similar relationships, is old business and not only has no place in the new relationship but also, if it is shared, can undermine the new relationship.
This was, I think, about living in the present moment long before I read and heard much about that concept. Lately, I have begun to think of SA and particularly its affects in the context of her old and new business.
I am glad to help people understand male SA better when they ask. I even feel some responsibility for doing that. And, I think I feel comfortable helping a friend or partner understand a particular situation or behavior that they are puzzled by.
I remind myself that my partner is not my therapist. I don't want him or any other potentional partner to try to be that and I don't want to try to make him into that.
I want "partnership" for me to be about sharing present-moment joys and challenges, about making a new history together.
As my self confidence grows so does my emotional independence. I hope this will allow other relationships, friendships, etc. to become established and to thrive.
I think this has just begun to free the partnership from the strains of being forced, maybe forced into being something it is not. (I think I am feeling forced--mostly by myself--in terms of who I am supposed to be in the partnership.)
I don't know what these things will become. It is for me a process of becoming, not something fixed in identity.
Brett
It actually means "to take again," or "to seize again."