dao nunder ...

[travailler]

This is my third post and people seem to be quite real and also respectful and that is really warm and ... well, it feels safe.

Have done a lot of work of recovering ... colours and smells and feelings are growing more crisp and clear now.

Inner child stuff has been closest to the mark for me and it is time to approach the core issue of attachment ... the relationship with ... and the feelings of dependency and neediness and rejection and other hurtful stuff.

It just makes sense that if a baby or child is smart enough to 'feel' that his parents and family aren't safe and the feeling is justified by experiencing abusive behaviour over a period of years that he is going to carry that feeling in to relationships, work, everything.

It seems that my little one 'absorbed' bad feelings as 'self' when they are not really 'self' ... just 'correct' perceptions of the time that have remained stuck.

I've played a bit of a self harm game in thinking that they were not correct perceptions ... sort of a way of distracting or invalidating that part of myself really ... but they were correct. It was very dangerous. Those feelings are so strong they seem to magnetise or bring about similar situations to keep themselves alive.

Isn't it amazing that we have the ability to use our brains to analyze feelings in our bellies as if they're far away ducks or rabbits that can be shot at.

Well ... thanks for access to this hidy hole. It's very scary experiencing this stuff.

[sleepflower]

I know what you mean - it's scary but it's for the best. At least there's a purpose in experiencing it, if you know what I mean, that it helps you to make sense of it all.

Sorry, I'm not making much sense today. I'm glad you feel safe here though: we're glad to have you here!

[ghost]

i think in a way we want to be able to 'blame' ourself..
only because it's the only way we feel even a little bit of control over it all..
it's so hard to accept that we honestly had no control over how we were treated.. are treated..
then we must see others/parents as neglectful flawed humans..
when we want them to have been so much for us..


ghost

[travailler]

yes ... that makes sense ... thank you ghost and sleepflower ...

I remember having a dream when I was about 19 ... it was like visiting this angry demon that was all red ... just before I woke up. It had a face just like a baby that was maybe only a few months old and still in the womb. You know ... like big forehead and big gums and stuff ...

The same vision came to me a few years ago and the same face is coming again now as I think and paint.

At those times I thought it was a scary thing from some other space ( its not like I see dead people or anything but I take a lot of notice of dreams and images ). The thing is ... it's really me ... an unhappy, angry, hurt little one who doesn't trust words at all ... for good reason.

I remember the two things that I wasn't allowed to do was run around and exert myself or get too far away ( I remember being really angry about that) and I wasn't allowed to give or get hugs and stuff.

I did blame myself ... its true ... and my mother was rhesus negative ... I think those core memories are coming back ... I think I'm ready to start understanding and feeling different ways that the original hurt happened ... I wasn't loved and I think I and my younger sister weren't really wanted. I think I'm beginning to understand the full 'shock' of that. Thank you for the space to be able to share these things.

[raining]

May 27, 2008 11:42:05 GMT -5 @thumper said:

i wasnt allowed to go/do anything but when i was around i just got shouted at, hit and made to feel like a nobody...

I so relate to that.

[ghost]

when i first started therapy years ago, it was for nightmares..
and in them was this scary skinny baby that was sometimes all black or sometimes had no head! another time it was hiding behind a curtain & when i saw it it reached it's arms all the way across the room to get me!

the imagery certainly gets one's attention..

(i call my inner child 'toxic'.. after the john bradshaw 'toxic inner child' concept/books)


ghost & toxic

p.s.
oh you paint?

me too!
hope you'll share sometime in the art/pix thread..

[travailler]

Sure ... thanks ghost ... will scan some things or post some jpegs of computer diddlies later ...

I'm reading the John Bradshaw 'Homecoming' book now.

The inner child I am experiencing does appear toxic but maybe that is what the snake and apple bizzo is about ... I mean the ability of the conscious mind to 'project' evil on to anything it likes. It's like ... maybe anger turned inward and ... as you say ... it was too threatening at the time to blame the real abusers.

It is quite a challenge facing the vulnerability of the little one inside when the inner child has always 'seemed' to be the 'cause' of the problem. I mean, if we weren't vulnerable and childlike ... whacko parents wouldn't have had a chance to do so much harm. When they first come out kids do look kind of ugly and when they are in the womb they look a bit 'bulbous' but ... maybe that's beautiful ...

Talked to the only 'therapist' I've allowed in ever today. He agrees I'm on the right track. There is self hate (as I perceive it) but also a really primal, cold, me first sort of anger from surviving stuff in the womb.

Stuff that happened later from the jerks that I correctly perceived as threats only confirmed what my early antennae was saying anyway.

It hurts and its shocking but it's so much better than not having a fix on the radar ...

Other dreams are confirming that 'good' things (which I previously thought were bad) are coming up from under water - the ability to love and play for example. I'm going to focus on swimming heaps because I think my body is starting to show the way.

[travailler]

'Healing the Shame that Binds ...' - thank you Pete. That will be the next one I think.

All the best in discovering things with with tw.

I love the dinosaur character from toy story - he is so cool.

[travailler]

some associations i have strung together while working this 'role' stuff out ...

and also