why do YOU continue to believe? trigger

[MikeNY]

when do i continue for my sake? that is a question that will take time i cannot conceive of at this point.

When you start to love yourself for who you currently are irregardless of who that is. Once you've done that, you can make any changes that you may want to.

 

[theo]

regardless of who i am? no, that is too esoteric. it is too abstract to have meaning. how can i love myself when the fragmentation precludes a self to love? i am told to find myself, but am left alone to do so. how can an autonomous being find a self that is always defined as a sentient as being communal? no one can persist in isolation, or autonomy. this is a part of my theology that i cannot move beyond. there is no autonomy but in relation to commuunity. where is my identity when i must find autonomously? it makes no sense.

 

Isolation is vastly underrated. Safety is not allowing yourself to be too public. Sadly, I learned that too late.

I continue, alone as always, because I am fool enough to believe that things will change, though past and present experience state the opposite.

 

[MikeNY]

theo, this is where much of the irony comes in. You already know where all of the pieces are going to fit when you find them. Yes, we all want to do that. That is why we are here. But, with everything that you have learned here, you already know how and why things work the way that they do. Knowing that, you already know where the pieces bring you even without them being in place. Once in place, the pieces bring you back to the beginning. It comes full circle. You will be starting fresh from square one when it comes to love and trust. You will start where you were before your abuser fragmented you. You were fragmented by all of the questions and things that you could not understand. You were fragmented because what you wanted to be love was something else. You were fragmented because what your abuser was telling you was love was something sick and distorted. You were fragmented by your fears and confusion. When it comes full circle, you will have to start with hope, faith, ideal love, and trust. You will have to start by facing the things that you fear most. You need to erase and give yourself a blank slate to work with, or replace the programming that was placed into you by your abuser. In psychology terms, your abuser performed both operant and classical conditioning on you and your feelings. You were literally brainwashed. You were literally treated worse than one of Pavlov's dogs and Skinner's (I think) pigeons. You were programmed so that your feelings became intertwined and overlap each other. They became mixed. Some even became reversed. That is why we have fear reactions to love. The irony is that your automated defense mechanisms, the ones that you have relied on for survival your entire life, are the main obstacles that need to be overcome in your recovery. Why is recovery so difficult? Because you are literally fighting against yourself and your automated and somatic responses. This is also why recovery is more difficult for people when they are older. This is where self-defeating behavior comes from. This is also why older survivors feel like their entire lives were nothing but a complete lie. This is why it is so important to start therapy for young survivors as soon as possible. The self to love precludes the fragmentation. It comes full circle. Even though you are fragmented, whether you can see them or not, all of the parts are still there. If all of the parts are there, then you are whole, and you do have a self to love. Besides, using probability calculations of limits at infinity, mathematically and logically it has been proven that no more and no less than one of any given thing may exist. You are the sum of all of your fragments. You are one. Being one, that makes you whole. You have a self to love.

Also, you cannot look to others to determine who you are. This goes back to what I was telling you about intrinsic and extrinsic things. You are looking for someone else to tell you who you are at the same time that you are ignoring who you know you are. You are acting like a blank screen being projected upon. When the projector is no longer there, the screen goes blank again. Everybody both projects and perceives. It is a two way four lane highway where the lanes alternate in direction. Sometimes the lanes are crossed and crashes occur. You have closed down two of the lanes in an attempt to avoid any accidents, miscommunications, conflicts, or misunderstandings. Closing those lanes only creates traffic problems. The traffic that doesn't build up like a bottleneck, finds alternate routes to take.

 

[survive75]

When I was 17, I tried to commit suicide. Slashed my wrists after taking three bottles of Tylenol and ten pills of Tylenol with Codeine. This was way before I had started to look at the abuse. I was in therapy for depression, on 60mg of Prozac daily, and having severe mood swings.

One of my good friends at the time (ok, she was a drinking buddy) had tried to kill herself a few months before me. She came to visit me in the hospital and gave me a tape of Peter Gabriel. She said that she wanted me to listen to one song because it was the only thing that got her through her own hospitalization.

Despite the fact that I tried again to check out for good, the final lyrics to this song have helped me many other times to resist the urge to end it all. Hope they help you brother...

don't give up
'cause you have friends
don't give up
you're not the only one
don't give up
no reason to be ashamed
don't give up
you still have us
don't give up now
we're proud of who you are
don't give up
you know it's never been easy
don't give up
'cause I believe there's the a place
there's a place where we belong

 

[MikeNY]

You were fragmented because what you wanted to be love was something else. You were fragmented because what your abuser was telling you was love was something sick and distorted.

.

You were programmed so that your feelings became intertwined and overlap each other. They became mixed. Some even became reversed. That is why we have fear reactions to love.

This is why people who are abused are drawn toward people who abuse them. This is why people who are abused are drawn toward things that are bad for them and repulsed away from things that are good for them. This is why repeat bad relationships occur. This repetition reinforces the fear of things that are good and posistive. This is why the people that you see on TV who are badly beaten are always refusing to press charges because they "love" the person and know the abuser "loves" them etc.. As the person gets older and has more and more of those bad relationships, the fear of the things that are good for them becomes stronger. This is where the come here go away dance comes from. This is where all of the wobbles come from.

The traffic that doesn't build up like a bottleneck, finds alternate routes to take.

This is where the anxiety and other similar things come from. This is where acting out and acting in comes from. This is where self-destructive / self-defeating behavior comes from. This is why things build up. This is why they build to extremes.


These are reasons why (without seeking help) things get worse as you get older. Your defense mechanisms are working against you. The dissociation and other things are slowly destroying what is left of you. Others can help, but only you can stop it from happening.

 

[Aden]

Here is a cynical response to why we continue, drawn from my own experience. I continue because I am allowed no choice. My attempts to leave have been sincere and at times almost heroic. But whatever powers that be have chosen to override my will. I still sit at this table because I have yet to be excused. My point in going on is that I simply have no choice. It is as if the powers of universal judgment are saying, You may not leave this prison. Learn to live with it. Find your own reason to continue. Neither God nor I can do it for you. The positive side of that formula is an affirmation of free will with an acknowledgment that some things are just out of our control.

 

[Bill_1965]

To do anything else would be illogical and irrational.

Natural instinct is to survive. Survive by whatever means necessary. To flee danger when possible. To turn and fight when needed. Years of fleeing didn't get me any further away, so the point came to turn and fight.

Survival is the name of the game. The only natural response.

Don't mess with a cornered wounded grizzly bear.

Take care,
Bill

 

[MikeNY]

Years of fleeing didn't get me any further away, so the point came to turn and fight.

You can run as far and as long as you want to. Nomatter where you run to, you will still be there. You can't hide from yourself.

 

[reality2k4]

How many of us would be here, if we did not believe?

How many can't be here? Who should/have been here.

So many fight
So many fall

We are the one's who found the survival techniques to deal with so much sh*t.

My faith was the only thing that kept me going in this cauldron of v*mit, that and those who I love and care for.

When all seems to be lost and we think of the quick way out, I stood at the edge more than once, but it is only my faith that intervened.

That's another story.

We are all brothers who have the same goals and experiences to help each other out, and beleive me it so much helps me to know that I can now see the answers to so many questions that I never thought I would ever know.

Hugs and prayers for all

ste

 

[Lloydy]

Theo
"why do I continue ?"
For ALL the above reasons, and Mike's post is simply stunning - what's left after that ?

Not much, but I continue because I can't go back.
I remember the dysfunctional shit I lived for so long, and there was no 'fun' in my dysfunctions.

So maybe life isn't all apple pie and fluffy kittens ?
I look at, and talk with my friends, and neither are their lives, there's a hard world out there and we are a part of it.
Our abuse has undoubtedly made some aspects of our lives more difficult, but as Survivors we have had to overcome many of the difficulties just to get this far. Look at what we've learned to get here ?
It's stuff we can / do use in 'normal' life.

And having learned some of lifes skills, even at my age, I'm determined to use them just to see what I can do with these new skills, so 'curiosity' can be added to my list of why I carry on.

The first skill or tool I learned when becoming a Survivor was using the tiny fragment of self esteem and confidence that I must have had hiding away within me. I used it to disclose for the first time in 31 years, and my world didn't come to a sudden end. Since then I've found a whole lot more of that, and I like it. So I'm loathed to waste it, and there's another reason I carry on.

Basically, I just want to see what my true potential is. Of course 'failure' of me achieving all my hoped for potential is a possibility, but isn't that true for everyone in this world ?
The dissapointment however doesn't lie with not actually achieving these ( unrealistic ) goals, the dissapointment would lie in not trying.

Dave

 

[ak]

I continue to believe because I am afraid not to. Because to not believe, to give up on everthing, it would be too easy. Life is not meant to be easy. It is meant to be lived.

andrei

 

[whendoIcry?]

I went through many years of thinking I would either die an early death from all the pain or just end it all by hanging myself. I stayed alive for my family...and learned I had to stay on for myself...but that meant I had to face myself...all of it. I entered AA, got with the program and almost lost my mind until a doctor helped to stabilize me...now my life is complex, rich and mostly, alive. I came to believe, as we say, in a power greater than myself and that has made the difference. I had to find the faith that I would be OK, no matter what. I am not suggesting that you need an addiction program but I am saying that learning how those of us who need it...get it. Read about the 12 steps with an open mind...it might help.

You are in loving hands, among these angels of hope.