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Post by ghost on Sept 25, 2008 12:29:04 GMT -5
i know, huh? the world's going to hell in a handbasket.. it is scary out there.. but each of us has our own cross to bear and shouldn't compare suffering.. it's so subjective what makes us ache it's like trying to quantify an abstract.. too many variables.. your suffering is no less than anyone else's, you know? some of us sensitive folks even feel things deeper than people around us who are actually going through worse.. how many times my son or i have realized we felt worse in our empathy for someone else who got right through a bad situation.. pain runs as deep as the individual does.. the only way we thrive is if we have the security that love affords us to make it in the cold cruel world.. i think if you have early insecure attachment then you never 'internalize' that foundation of safety kind of feeling/security.. people that have that right off the bat have an advantage on us.. they have thicker skin and can navigate the harshness of the world better.. that internalized early security is something they can tap back into to 'self soothe' when in pain/stressed.. we have nothing to tap into.. so helping ourselves 'feel better' is an ongoing job.. we have to keep looking for something we should've had as an innate right as little ones.. proper caretakers.. and doesn't it feel like nothing is 'just right'? i mean we all support each other like here, or we have friends/lovers, etc.. but it never really fills the void because it's something/someone that's already gone from long ago.. tough.. anyway, hope i didn't depress you further?! hope you find something/someone that recharges you.. i think we just get by a little at a time.. hugs, ghost
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Post by ghost on Sept 25, 2008 19:38:17 GMT -5
my son & i have had this conversation many times.. would you rather be less sensitive than you are to make life easier to tolerate? and it's a valid question.. i've mentioned the book 'please understand me' by keirsey & bates? it's the best temperament sorter around.. a psychologist recommended it to me.. and my son & i test out as INFs (i'm INFJ & he's INFP).. we are like the most sensitive people out there and get hurt by the crap that goes on just daily.. like i mentioned, often we feel so bad for others going through something and afterward find out we felt worse than the actual person going through the difficulty!? like it's harder for us to witness it in others? my type is so on the end spectrum that it's actually considered really rare.. haha! anyway, all that to say this.. my son & i have agreed over & over we wouldn't change if we could.. it's so 'ME' to be this way, and my values all stem from that sensitivity.. i might be someone i wouldn't like without it? also i am a writer/creative type by nature.. and that would be like cutting off my senses.. so no.. it may mean i'm agoraphobic for life and have to keep creating skin for others to burn off again & again.. but for me.. i'll keep it.. just like my crazy life.. it has been hell, but for some twisted reason i wouldn't trade my life with all it's ups & downs for anyone else's.. i used to get so mad in therapy getting the impression that my therapist somehow judged my little 'life' to be somehow inviable in her eyes and trying to make me over in her image? preposterous.. as if i had any interest in being like her? hehee.. Not. sitting on her jenny craig butt critiquing the lives of her suffering clients..? i'd rather be just the way i am.. in fact i'm kinda militant about it.. don't want to be drugged out of my own authentic personality.. although i do what i can for pain relief.. there's a line i won't cross.. the hardest thing for me is being lonely when i'm panicked.. and that's a legitimate problem.. isolation is bad for anyone.. i know no one can cure me, but company helps so much.. (help me kill my time.. 'cause i'll never be fine.. ) y'know? hope i haven't hijacked your thread!! i keep digressing today.. ghost
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Post by ghost on Oct 2, 2008 11:52:58 GMT -5
hey mandy, that really is a great book pete suggests.. as well as bradshaw's others.. (there's a good link to his bio & books here if you scroll down to the last post:) www.adconnection.proboards99.com/index.cgi?board=books&action=display&thread=360in fact it was from bradshaw i learned all about inner child stuff.. like your situation now.. maybe it would help to realize why you as a kid thought you deserved the punishment even if you'd done nothing wrong.. first is you had the shame that automatically comes with physical abuse of any kind, but also as a kid we need to believe our caretakers know best because we need that security to survive sanely.. so in our minds we decide they are right so we must have deserved it.. it's our fault... in a way it's the only way we feel we have any control at all.. we think, i'll just try and guard my actions better.. if we didn't think that way we'd be terrified all the time of the next blow coming out of the blue and the massive insecurity of knowing our only caretakers were out to hurt us! of having no control.. eventually when our attempts to 'be good' don't solve it we do realize we had no control, but not before we internalize all that shame.. because what about little things we do do 'wrong'.. we use that to justify the abuse! whenever a parent/grandparent hits it is really just their loss of control.. in my family too, that kind of abuse was often all they knew to do as it had been done to them.. it's still their wrong. even in the days before bradshaw and others, good folks figured out that hitting their kids was not only damaging, but didn't work as a teaching/disciplinary tool.. there are much better ways to parent.. i have a sister who must exaggerate everything, and yes, well outright lie! it's tricky, but it's good when the secrets/truth comes out in whatever form.. obviously people aren't black & white, but all shades of grey, your grandpa may have had good qualities right along with the faults, but one doesn't cancel the other out.. it's ok to get angry at the dead.. it will probably lead you to a more honest forgiveness in the end, you know? he was just a human like we are.. he screwed up. i'll bet wherever he is now he knows it and feels regret.. and in this day and age your father should already know better! maybe write some of these feelings down for monday? anything nice you could do for yourself this weekend? i know we can't always distract ourselves from pain using money or hobbies, but i still find myself always looking for creative ways to feel better.. ghost p.s. i just saw the last post you left last time about hating being told you have a choice whether something bothers you or not.. you don't have a choice.. when something bothers you it does.. just like when the grass is wet it just is.. you only have a choice what you are going to do about/with it.. whether you think it's something you should focus on to get to the bottom of it, or if it's just unnecessary worry over something that won't help anyway.. it's your call.. that statement was invalidating.
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Post by ghost on Oct 2, 2008 17:48:18 GMT -5
mandy, i know the feeling.. i need to get out but we have 2 major rainstorms supposed to continue steady all weekend so i think i'm stuck home.. hypoglycemic/low sugar could be happening if you're not getting enough nutritionally, also low b.p./drops in b.p... i had both pretty constant, it can add to depression.. maybe try to add something in that gives you pure protein? protein like white meat chicken with no skin/fat actually gives you alot nutritionally without fat & hardly any calories.. or there are drinks like boost or ensure that are actually kinda good tasting.. take care, ghost
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Post by ghost on Oct 3, 2008 18:53:08 GMT -5
mandy, i'm in a place where i've had to take a break from all the reading (of books anyway..) because after all this time it just makes me feel like i'm reduced down to an inhuman disease.. so i know it's good to give it a rest sometimes.. it's good you are getting protein, that's critical.. and i spent 6 years in therapy questioning whether what was done to me was really 'abuse'? my t kept trying to get me to accept it.. and i was only hit a few times.. so maybe it just seems obvious to me that ongoing physical 'punishment' is abuse? my folks were both beat all their childhoods and decided to really try not to pass it on to us kids, but my mom used to say my dad practically had to tie her hands behind her back because it was such a reflex! they don't intend it as abuse, but i guess it just is? hope you have an ok weekend, ghost
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Post by ghost on Oct 10, 2008 14:20:37 GMT -5
.. not my area of expertise really, the exercise.. i mean i was a driven kind of person during the worst of my ed.. i'd hike or work till i about passed out, but i've never been one to 'do' exercises like workouts other than an exercise bike.. i was simply a faster/restricter.. it seems the workout puts out such a great demand for fuel that you would feel wiped out alot if your nutrition was not adequate.. what i do know is your body catches on to what you're up to and holds onto everything trying to retain a 'set' point.. at this point if i begin to restrict, within days my body goes into survival and seems to hold onto water and slow systems in an attempt to avoid starvation ahead? it settles down as long as i feed it protein.. i know it may not make any difference to hear it, but there's not a thing wrong with 130.. it's a fit weight.. i know it's so personal to each person though.. i'm really tall so when i'm thin i look really thin, but if i'm even normal weight it looks big! so i comprimise and stay just under normal.. but i've adjusted so i can eat basically whatever i want.. so i only feel deprived due to stomach problems/not ed ones.. i think the exercise isn't really such a bad thing.. even if it's kinda compulsive.. if you can make it into something enjoyable or even fun like bikerides or swimming.. it seems you are almost treating it/yourself like it's a punishment though.. i sometimes watch that show 'big loser' and think i could never respond to that kind of 'motivation' those trainers use.. the yelling & humiliating name calling.. i'd punch that woman in the mouth if she provoked me that way.. hehehe.. ghost
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