Inner Battles
Planning for the future is hard for survivors. In many cases, we spent a childhood seriously questioning our ability to live to the next day, year or decade. The end always seemed to be right around the corner. In reality, it might not have been, but it felt like it. We may have even wished it was.
I am no different in this regard, although I was unaware of it for quite some time. While I have a part that doesn’t see a future, I also have a planner perfectionist part who always overrode anything else. She was in charge for all the big future-oriented events. She saved the money. She bought and decorated the houses. She planned the vacations. She made sure everything was in perfect order all the time. She pushed through the exhaustion, the flashbacks, the emotional swings and any hints of the truth. She was a direct replica of my mother in that she internalized all the survival mechanisms that were employed by my parents. The most important mechanism was the mask of perfection.
It wasn’t until I started to override her (which caused quite an internal war) that I began to notice the other parts. And one such part was holding all the futility, all the resistance to the future. For a while, I wished I could push that part back where she came from. Based on my willful default personality type, I wanted nothing to do with futility. But I knew that pushing this aspect of self back in to the shadows would do nothing but make it more prominent in my life. Of course, while working through the pain, it is certainly prominent, but I know it will be temporary.
Futility Manifesting
And with this work, comes blind spots. I believe they are mainly caused by my keenly-honed dissociation. But often I do not see the full effect of my parts until they are starting to integrate. This past weekend, I came to a realization that I have spent the summer in full “no future” mode. While living in a non-sustainable way was already smacking me in my face, there were other impacts.
I moved this summer while in full futility mode. It wasn’t because I wanted to move, but circumstances were forcing the move. I wasn’t so sure about the new house despite my kids being in favor of it. But once I got through the move and opened the most important boxes, the unpacking seemed to take forever. I was practically living in a warehouse and I used the excuse that I was too busy to get through it. The old willful me would have completed the unpacking within 48 hours of the move. That is just how I operated. I needed perfection and I was willing to push for it no matter the exhaustion.
Even though I eventually got through the boxes (sort of), I never hung a single picture on the walls. They remained bare for two and a half months until this weekend when I woke up with a jolt. It occurred to me that I wasn’t planning on staying here because I wasn’t planning on having a future. The futility of hanging pictures on my walls when I had no future had stopped me in my tracks. The perfectionist had been overridden and I was just now becoming aware of it.
What Happened?
While embodying futility is my worst nightmare, waking up from it is almost worse. It is as though I have been away in an unconscious state for ages. And I guess I have. And while I attempt to gain some level of love for this life on the other side of this experience, I can feel the push and pull of the old and the new. I can feel the futility fighting for its rightful place in the pecking order of my influential perspectives. But I can’t help but say no. It doesn’t belong here anymore. While there is evidence for its existence, that evidence is old and marred with a child-like interpretation of a past reality.
So I must find a new interpretation of my past, an adult interpretation which discerns the reality of the people who were influencing my perspective as a child, teenager and young adult. I must interpret my past based on what I know now. I live in a different world now. That is largely because I have made it so. And I can continue down the path of making my life what I want.
I can live in a comfortable house. I can make enough money doing what I love. I can be patient and loving to my kids. I can have a loving family. I can have inner peace.
And nobody can tell me that is not possible.
I know better now.
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I’m in a similar place at the moment, or maybe the opposite place. I am feeling hopeful about the future, and I am also aware of the particular future I am choosing for myself–that it’s the future I want and not what someone else might want for me. It is forcing me to confront massive amounts of grief, because I can see very clearly how it arises directly out of my past. My priorities, my particular circumstances, and the background knowledge I bring to situations are not discontinuous from what happened to me between 0 and 18. It makes it clear it all really happened and also that it really shaped me.
Yes! I can relate to every word of that. Thank you.
I feel every word of this in my bones, from the “get everything done, push through it all” place to the subconscious futility and hopelessness to the waking up and seeing all of it mirrored back.
Yes, you are empowered now, you are safe, you have choice. I also have loads of compassion for the little girl who didn’t receive that love and security from the people who should have given it to her. She was so smart and did whatever she could to survive but now she can trust that she will get all the love she needs from you and can change her thinking and ways of coping.
For me, all of those tools are so hard to lay down. Even as some light begins to shine through and I feel support and love when opening up to others, I feel I am still waiting for that magical moment when my heart will respond to affirmations such as “I am lovable” or “My life has value”. There is still a solid wall built around it that prevents those things from being deeply believed.
For now, it is enough to look at others and see these things in them, reminding myself that there is sameness, that the value and lovability I see in them is also in me. To be aware of it and open to it until I can receive it in and hope that it will be enough until that happens.
Xo
I have that same issue with my heart not responding to my affirmations. Sometimes it feels like it is made of stone and nothing can penetrate it. Keep seeing things in others. I find that the process is a mirror. If you can do one, the other comes along.
I totally get what you mean about your heart feeling like a stone. Me too. And agreed that seeing progress mirrored in others helps.
Sometimes the “heart of stone” feeling triggers me into believing I am the monster so I have to be watchful and put that stick down when I notice it.
Yes. Definitely not a monster. Just a defense mechanism against the pain.
This discussion on futility has made me realize how I have been living in this state for a long time. In fact I have spent considerable amount of time and effort in living a non-future life. Preparing for complete loss, dwindling down my belongings, connections, needs, self-care, commitments…Because many inner parts have lived with losses. so I guess I am preparing for less loss by having less in my life. Thoughts of suicide make it my choice instead having others take from me. I think this is good that I now recognize this. but I will need to think about what to do with this new knowledge/insight.
Thank you Dawn. Start with awareness. It is the most important first step. As you build awareness, you will be able to slow the current thoughts that come with the past feelings. You will be able to make different choices. You will recognize the old feelings as old. It is a process, but it can happen.
This helped so much to be able to put words to what I have noticed in myself for years now. Especially the pictures on the wall and leaving thing a undone that is something I have noticed. Just learning and being able to recognize that what I experienced as a child was actually trauma. There are clues that have pointed to this along the way but not I am em accepting it. Is it normal with trauma to experience increased futility when facing and working through past experiences and emotions? Apart from being aware of it what are other steps I can take over time to come out of this mentality? Thank you for all of your posts, they have been a huge help!
Hi Ashley, I think it is very normal to feel increased futility when working with the past in this way. Here is an article I wrote about avoiding the “thought trap” which steps through how to pull out of that “tailspin”. It isn’t easy, but it makes a huge difference when we can do it.