Tainted, continated, unclean ???

[DanielQ432]

What is that concept of feeling about? I guess it was always there in my mind, but now it has come forward to this place where I asked someone yesterday how they could stsnd to look at me, touch me, associate with me? It's something I always felt as a vague "why would anyome want to know me?" question, suddenly it's much more specific. It's based in the shame of childhood being abused and 2012 psych hosp.

I asked my T twice in 2 weeks as well, why treat me, why am I worth saving? I'm garbage, why is that not a waste of resources better used to save someone worth it?

 

[Ceremony]

I'm trying to be careful with this response... Take your time, please breath for a minute.....
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Inside of me, I have parts that I've only just begun to explore with the help of my T, and the training of Janina Fisher, and others. I'm finding I've needed a calm life to do this work and I don't have that. My wife is a source of agitation, sometimes it's constant, but not always. I have shelter and food because of her, and we have our son to consider. Neither of us leave, she could! She doesn't?!! I'm loving in my way, I care deeply, but my sensitivity blocks my being healthy assertive and my fear can block what I want to do, I find my messy thinking and shut down.

So, I see we share some of that. Messy thinking, aka mind storms, stinking thinking, etc... and inside of me, I have therapy homework to try and talk to my past selves, so they can know that I as an adult have additional coping options, they didn't have. They're way back there, shut down, scared, hiding, even from me, and inside they're old responses pop up like a carny Whack-a-Mole game!

To find a dialogue with them, yesterday with my T, we found what part of me can bring grounding and mindfulness breathing into play, so I can continue talking to the part I choose to talk to. This internal dialogue is not affirmations, and it's a bit deal. I calmed down a little and some tension left me when I could find the identity in me that I can put into play to accomplish this.

Can you find one part of your identity that can bring breathing and grounding up for you when you need him to? Some part that nurtures you?

 

[DanielQ432]

Well, yes ... and no. Any mention of this entire mindfullness business that is everywhere now, like the cover of Time, leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth. Aside from re-traumatized and terrified, I was livid over the 2012 experience; that was the last part of the day - "relaxation" - and I'm not trying to dispparage this for anyone who uses these techniques - to me, what was presented and done was a disgraceful example of waste of time and resources - along with "arts and crafts hour" - both would have been age-appropriate for kindergarten the way they were conducted, Plus the "recreational therapist" was a bitch. I felt like a prisoner of war, and I used the mental control tricks described in the book Hanoi Hilton that US POW's used to survive being tortured by the North Vietnamese. One day her topic was music for relaxation, she would play sappy new age stuff and then ask questions after each 4-5-6 minute track about what we thought and how it made us feel "relaxed". I didn't make friends with her, when it was my turn to respond, I told her it was sappy and obnoxious and if she wanted me to relax she should play some Bon Jovi or Green Day, loud. Bitch didn't like that, what a face.

 

[Ceremony]

Do you know the Replacements from Minneapolis? I didn't get to go see them and I was there. I was not much aware of anything, I isolated in my fear to be anywhere. I was also a scared shitless little boy of 17-20. That little boy is still fighting to be assertive.

Rolling Stones on why the Replacements debut on SNL pissed them off--- Too bad, the SNL of that era was stupid... and my own Al Franken was involved... dammit!!

I want to share this link about their SNL debut and saying the F word to piss of Lorne Michael. Lorne having trouble with that Dennis Miller era funk SNL was stuck in from early 1980's to then in Jan. 1986 Paul Westerberg said the F word to Bob Stinson, to make him play like he did (RIP).


I never got to see them live, and I missed this show. I was in a very bad place mentally in Jan. 1986.

The song I wish you would like, from my perspective, is the angst from "Bastards of Young"... in the music video at the end, the guy kicks in his speaker!! It's a hard song... meant for hard feelings... and probably best heard drunk. I heard it wasted the first time, but now I can listen to it with some nostalgia and know why I'm drawn to it still. I don't care that it's a teen angst song, I don't care it's emotionally challenging, it was a big part of my psyche by my later 20's and to some degree resonates to this day.

[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXD9sxa1Edo[/video]

 

[DanielQ432]

No, don't know them or the song, but I'll listen to it shortly when I can concentrate on it.

SNL has been something in my life since the early days - I was allowed to stay up late the one year when I didn't get dragged to the horrible visit with "Mama" - I was older, my sisters were in college, they had to stay home (were still living at home and commuting to school about 30 miles) because of the timing of school, no break for Easter, so the one and only time I was spared! I thought SNL was the most hilarious thing I had ever seen - this was probably 1978, Bill Murray had replaced Chevy Chase already, and was doing Weekend Update with Jane Curtain. I would have been 13. I "got" the parody of the "Point Counterpoint" debate on 60 Minutes that they did, with Bill Murray responding to Jane Curtain's point with "Jane, you ignorant sl**". Pretty funny stuff actually back then. Still enjoy SNL, it waxes and wanes in quality, of course, and still hard to beat some of the halcyion days - the original cast 1975-1979/80, the Dana Carvey/Phil Hartman/Mike Meyers era, the Will Ferrell/Anna Gasteyer era.

Music can be excellent therapeutically, or just in terms of allowing contemplation. I had a list of things I listened to in 2012, although most of them were depressing, things about loss, anything about mental illness especially. At the time, I related to a number of songs deeply, and now, well, some of those bother me somewhat, bad memories/triggering.

 

[DanielQ432]

Yeah, it's weird, about this concept. I actually just sent a pretty detailed text to my therapist about the questions, just said I wanted to give him advance warning so he could ponder where this comes from.

I skipped my boot camp this morning, last night was a little stressful in some ways, my PT thought I got a little too agitated about this, so I just said "decompress" this morning. Then, one of my friends texted me and said we're meeting tomorrow at the pool for swim workout - this is the core group, not an official, on-the-books session, which is MWF.

So, I read this text, and it's back to that why??? Why would you want me around? I'm a stain, it's almost like guilt by association, you should want to have nothing to do with me.

I guess I wasn't worth saving as a child, now I'm taking it to the extreme to prove to myself that I really am - I tend to do that, since I couldn't openly resist, I had to adopt very passive-aggressive ways to resist - one of them was sarcasm/parody - this is kind of like that, actually, a farce on my own feelings, to try to force myself to take it to the outer edge of it's possibility, to basically prove to myself how ridiculous the entire thing is.

 

[manipulated]

Daniel,

Obviously the "core group" thinks you are part of that core. Often others can see us much better than ourselves. They are not seeing through the eyes of our past and see only the person of the present.

 

[Tom E.]

You are NOT garbage! You are just wounded, & can heal.

 

[DanielQ432]

Thanks guys, obviously, my intellect knows these things, "equal protection", "one man, one vote" -- all of that stuff people learn from grade-school civics forward. But, it isn't my intellect that is my problem.

The really bad part, my emotionally-charged "false voice of the abuser" is pretty well contained at the moment, locked up tight, but still snarling and growling and straining against the bars, up there in the upper left part of my brain. The intellectual side has pulled in the far right edge of the left hemisphere, where the better emotions reside. And he needs to run the show - but I hope he's strong enough to keep the other one contained. Finally, the reptilian crocodile of a brain, the primitive "flight or fight" one, it's keeping itself hidden down in the basement in the brain stem, as it should. I haven't been having flashbacks of any significance, or nightmares.

I know all of that sounds REALLY WEIRD, but that is the way this particular therapy method, called brainspotting, works - you end up with this 3-D representational image of where various emotions, thoughts, primitive instincts, and memories reside in the brain. It's kind of strange, but it seems valid and seems to work for me.

I'm not sure what I need to get out of asking the question, and what I would expect to get from the answers I would receive from other people. I think, obviously, a big part of me wants validation - I want to hear, by proxy, the things my father should have said to me but never did, "you're ok, you're worth it". A part of me wanted that from my mother, too, not that I blame her in any way, she was as much a victim as I was of his mental health issues - but I always wished she had been a little stronger and "risked it". Yes, he definitely would have come after us, no doubt about that - but, with the right precautions, it could have ended up being a liberating situation, with him either in prison or dead.

But, that is the realm of fantasy. The sad reality is, both are mouldering away, 6 feet under, in caskets side by side in the municipal cemetery - her choice, she contemplated separate plots or even a different cemetery but decided it was more "conventional" this way. Spirits went in opposite directions so that's not a problem, no question there.