While trauma recovery seems like a chaotic experience, I have noticed in hindsight the surprising structure it seems to follow. My memory recovery follows themes. While I do address themes multiple times, it is at progressively deeper levels, as if I am traveling a spiral. I have also noticed how my external and internal world mirror each other, and it gets much more intense as I come closer to a new realization or belief change. I have also noticed that the inner parts get older and more defended as I work through recovery. It isn’t that my memories follow a linear age, but the beliefs become more sophisticated and complicated over time. There seems to be an understanding that I need practice. And I continually progress toward more challenging recovery experiences. Now, I am not suggesting it works this way for everyone. I am suggesting that my higher self is particularly organized, which may explain why organization is my defense mechanism of choice.
But recently, I have noticed another pattern. And it does seem to be a bit more universal, as other survivors are telling me the same. When I started recovery, I was focused on setting boundaries. And I practiced and practiced. I wasn’t intentionally clearing people out of my life, but when I said no, the people who had been in my life didn’t like it at all. So they left. I also realized that certain situations and life circumstances were not working either. I started to leave some things behind. I came to a place where I could say no well.
But as I have been working with my inner teenager lately, I have been faced with my resistance to life. It seems that I have been avoiding the yes part of life. I have also noticed that saying yes to life is substantially harder than saying no. And there are a couple of reasons for that.
1) Saying yes requires trust. Don’t get me wrong. After years of abuse which was far worse when I fought it, saying no required trust too. I had to trust that I would not get punched in the head when I told my friend I didn’t want to go out that night. That being said, saying yes requires trust on another level: the life level. I have to trust that life won’t take advantage of my yes by retaliating and throwing failure after failure at me. Of course, failure is a normal part of life, but I am speaking of the kind of failure that creates destitution and hopelessness, the kind of failure I am used to.
2) Saying yes requires the understanding that I have a future. I can still sense the part of me that believes suicide is always an answer if things get bad enough. And in many ways, I have not planned to be around for more than a couple of years. The sense that my time is limited was ingrained at an early age and it is a hard one to break.
3) Saying yes requires me to feel worthy of something great. I have to admit, my ideas are a bit grandiose. But who dreams small? Our actions might be small, but our dreams aren’t. I want big things. I want to make the biggest difference possible. I want to do things that defy all of my defense mechanisms and fears. But am I worth that kind of accomplishment? I intellectually know I am. I know I am just as worthy as anyone else. But a part of me is still undecided.
4) Saying yes requires me to feel safe. This work can be seen as a bit dangerous. Abusers are often seen as much more powerful by their child victims. And that image can stay with us in the adult years. In reality, pedophiles and child abusers are the weakest of humanity. I intellectually know that. But my child part remembers the abuse, the nastiness and the threats. I also have to trust that my abusers won’t try to sabotage what I am doing. Or if they do, that they won’t succeed. That is a significant power shift, and while it is possible and even likely, it is hard to accept.
So as I travel this recovery path, I do know that I will take the steps necessary to make my dreams a reality. I know it for a fact. That proverbial train has left the station. But it takes cooperation with the part of me that doesn’t think this life has anything amazing in store for her. It takes an understanding between the parts that find this to be the scariest step ever taken. It takes a willingness to take back my power despite having no proof that life will respond differently. It takes trust to say yes to life.
I hear you on this. My own one,tied to trust: Saying yes means tolerating ambiguity (aka relinquishing control and certainty). A hard journey especially when the first step of trusting to say yes is sooo tender and uncertain.
My future one is a variant on yours. It’s not as much a “Will I opt out?” question as the trust that one day I might want to be here for me. Right now, I’m just here for my kids and it feels as if I’ve had this “I don’t want to be here” malaise within me forever.
Xo
Yes! The ambiguity, the unknown, the lack of control is all tied to trusting. And it is so difficult to overcome.
And I completely understand the later. I know I would never have made it this far in recovery if I had not had the kids here to care for. But keep in mind, when they move out, the job’s not over. 🙂
While my story is quite different from yours, what you have expressed here resonates with me at this point in my life. Middle age has brought many unexpected trials and I have stagnated. It is much harder to say yes – to believe in myself enough to embrace life, to dream, to act. Amazing things are being revealed in your healing process. Thank you so much for sharing.
Thank you so much. Thank you for being aware and reading and examine your own life. Your awareness will open up your yes to life.
Your writing brought two thoughts to mind. First, that the flipping drives me crazy. I have period of feeling extremely competent. I am ready to conquer the world. Then, I will flip. My inner “tormenter” (as I call him–and yes, it is a “him”) starts in on the criticism, telling me that I am a fraud. If I try to continue on with whatever I’ve got going, I start to feel extreme anxiety. He finally convinces me that I can’t really pull off what I’ve started, and I relent. Then the depression starts in. When I finally pull out of that, I start to act confidently again, and the cycle continues. It is vicious, exhausting, and almost too much to bear at times. You are right–I have not opted out of the suicide option.
The second thought I had was that I haven’t said, “Yes,” to getting “better.” What if I improve to the point where I don’t need therapy anymore? Then I won’t be able to get the love, care, and validation I so desperately need. This probably encourages the therapy-interfering behavior. I don’t want to learn to validate myself because I believe that it really isn’t possible. I haven’t committed myself, or said, “Yes,” to getting “better.”
I can relate to both thoughts. Just to let you know, I think the switching gets worse as you get closer to big changes in perception so try to see it as positive. You are close to shifting. 🙂
I can’t express how much I needed to hear this now! Me and my husband just decided to move to make a life change and we’re a bit stuck in the middle, and then it’s like instead of me thinking in my own positive way I keep thinking (with my parents voices obviously) how I should lay low and accept this won’t turn out my way. We’re half way there, we’ll get there eventually. For the sake of our (me and husband) dreams its worth going through a rough patch.
I understand that completely. I have been there myself. I am so glad my writing helped you today.
Hi Elisabeth, Thank you for another wonderful post. I can completely relate to everything you wrote. I was wondering if you’d be willing to write about your experiences dealing with anxiety. I find constant anxiety to be the most debilitating and exhausting aspect of my life. As I’ve tried to dig deeper into it, I have discovered that the anxiety comes from a deeply imprinted sense/fuzzy memory of having been totally defeated/overpowered/subjugated (in childhood). The sense of defeat sits on top of a huge pool of abject terror, as I imagine that my eventual defeat was preceded by a mighty fight. Everytime I attempt to feel my defeat, I feel panic. I would love to hear your own story of how you have dealt with the emotion of fear.
Ah fear! I am not sure I would know what to do without it sometimes. I have lived with it so long, a life without it seems empty. That being said, it is debilitating and paralyzing and I would desperately like to get on with my life. I do find that my anxiety is largely tied to a war of my parts. While I am not D.I.D., I have discovered my own inner system of parts that have much to say after years of being suppressed and repressed. I have parts of me that believe strongly that there is no point, that it is time to give up, even commit suicide. And I have parts that are trying to keep life as safe and stable as possible by making decent money and doing everything “by the book”. And then, I have my ego self who is interested in loving life, taking risks and occasionally even having fun. All of these differences create a battle within me and it manifests as anxiety. It is my job to find ways to compromise and work through the reasons for the dysfunctional beliefs that my parts are carrying around (mostly coming from my parents or traumatic experiences). It is also my job to realize that the fear is about the old life, not the new one. That is much easier said than done of course. I have written a few blogs recently about this phenomenon. Take a look at http://beatingtrauma.com/2015/07/26/3-steps-to-end-self-sabotage/ and the two articles posted right after it (but before it in the list). They focus mostly on my relationship with my inner teenager who is my heavy anxiety-inducer. I hope this helps.
Hi Elisabeth – Thank you for your reply. Your insight that for you the anxiety comes from the battle between your various parts is a brilliant one. I think it applies to all of us with a history of childhood trauma. I have long been aware of my own internal strife, and so your three articles on the topic deeply resonated with me. Thank you for sharing them!
There is our ego self that has adult goals and responsibilities, and there is our internal family of broken wounded children who are clamouring to have their needs met. Ignoring them doesn’t work (as every trauma survivor discovers, sooner or later), and the process of reconnecting with them feels frustratingly slow and painful, not to mention there is another part within (call it the ego’s assistant) who is constantly egging the ego on to go ahead without the inner children on board. This, for me, is almost a bigger tormentor than the inner children. It is this inner tormentor who fills me with fears of “a future gone horribly wrong” because I dared to “indulge in the luxury” of attempting to heal my wounded psyche. I mean, “how dare you!” [the abuser’s voice]. So the ego freaks out and tries to get on with its daily “to do list” and be a good adult, but the inner children won’t have any of it. What results is a paralyzing, anxiety-riddled stalemate. ie on the one hand, the inner children make forward movement nearly impossible, and on the other hand, the fear of accessing potentially destabilizing/disintegrating traumatic memories makes backwards movement just as difficult!
Because of my inner tormentor’s wagging finger, I find it very hard to slow down and connect with the traumatized child, to hold her hand and go back to the traumatic past. I find it hard to connect with the angry teenager too, because her rage is enormous and overwhelming. And when I do manage to tune out my inner tormentor and make an honest attempt to go back to my past, the moment I access any old memory of the trauma, a huge wave of panic immediately hits me and threatens to disintegrate me. Have you experienced that yourself? An encounter with sheer panic when you connect with an old memory of abuse?
I have had encounters with panic when retrieving memories. It doesn’t happen every time, and in my case, it often happens before I have sight of the memory, which can be incredibly disorienting. In very rare instances, the panic will stick around after I retrieve the memory and I will need to seek outside help (like EMDR).
I have that part that doesn’t want me to do this recovery work, but in my case, I have recognized her as an older teenager or very young adult who is repeating what my parents said. She is trying to protect me (and my inner children) against the potential fallout of doing this work. She is fearful that this process will lead to death.
Thank you, Elisabeth. I’m planning to seek help unraveling the roots of my own anxiety. I had this thought yesterday that it might have its deepest roots in the fact of not having had a mother, but I need to explore that more. Thank you for writing this wonderful blog, and for replying to reader’s comments. You are a Godsend.
Thank you Mayada.
This is really good! Sometimes it feels more right to wallow in self pity and shame for what’s been done, but stepping into the present and enjoying the beauty around me is a way I say yes to life and fight back the lies.
That is so important. Presence is not easy for survivors, but when we can do it, it can change everything.
Trust because I must learn to trust that many are good and just. Learn to say No when U know it’s not for me nor about me. I am that important born with rights I am opening up inside of me like gifts. I am grateful to learn to love life not just survive….
Yes!