keep on keeping on

there is quite a lot of emotional pain coming up.
we followed the impulse we were workin on in body work. the impulse ot shove people away, but then holding it back and holding still. it is a theme in our life and it seems to be a key for our shame issues. when we reach the point where we can allow the movement we sense a boundary. it makes us feel safe and independent and grounded.
on this level of the experience we ran into the years of bullying we survived. it feels weird, because we kind of know about it but only a few of us know what it was like. we read a paper for teachers with instructions on how to act and ours have done none of it. they have done most of the things you are not supposed to do. there is a test in that paper and we score insanely high in the intesity of bullying that happened. Most of it is Danielles memory and it is coming up more now. it is very painful. full of shame messages. and always close to a death wish. I wasn't aware... no wonder we are scared to speak up and we seen. that used to be a truly bad idea. struggling with self-worth quite badly.
I think things are a little better with our T. being able to write makes a difference.

Sending a lot of moral support. Realizing what caused the pain and realizing that the adults did nothing to keep us safe - or worse than nothing - is always painful.

You are doing great. It takes a lot of courage to face all of this. You are brave.

aching quite badly emotionally.
it feels a bit like having a hole in our torso and trying to hold it and protect it while it feels so raw
what a bad time for mistrust in our T. I know it is closely connected to the pain, I understand why it is there, but it just isn't a good time to hold back because we expect her to twist everything we say and use it against us

I know how hard that can be.

I hope you can let her know that you're feeling mistrust and that she can fix whatever misunderstanding or misattunement happened between you that stirred this up.

I know that for us, it's often at a difficult time that it's more likely for misunderstandings and ruptures in the relationship to happen.

Sending support and positive thoughts.

it is nothing that she has done or not done. the mistrust makes a lot of sense as a transference issue because it is part of the trauma scenes that we were looking at... we keep confusing her with other people. At least now we notice it quickly.

The fact that you are able to tell quickly it is a transferance issue, means you are doing a lot of progress. Congratulations!

we are still working with the suppressed impulses to push people away. still targeting the bullying situation as a teen. by now we had another SE session about it and it changed our stress response about the issue. we used to be in freeze, like literally the state of high alert where symapthetic arousal is held back. we keep doing the SE thing of releasing the energy through the impulse. and what an impulse we have. it developed with time which is good. now we experience a lot of the fight energy and it needs a lot of breaks to release that too. we are certainly more present and the memories feel more like memories. it is a bit disappointing to see how small the role of normal therapy is and how much we rely on body work. it means that we will probably need to find new ways to finance body work long-term. which will get in conflict with financing other therapy.

the book project is coming along. we are in the big section about working with parts. in the last third of it. it is hard to write. but also cool to see how much we know.

There is a clear development in our process right now. D. reached a phase of revenge fantasies. they don't come from a stress response, we might have moved through that. Just the need for justice and to express some strong emotions. she really hates the bullies from back then. we just allow her to think of ways she would have liked to hurt them in return and limit the time she engages wth those fantasies to make sure she is aware of other things as well.

We've been listening to Odd Thomas. trigger warning for gun use
his mother rejects all responsibility for him, even at a young age. gets utterly overwhelmed by the smallest signs of a need. she severely neglects him as a result of her own overwhelm. in the book she regularly draws a gun on him, even as a toddler, threatening to shoot herself if he doesn't stop having needs or threatening to kill him. even when he is sick and in danger of dying.
it reminds me so painfully of my mother. she didn't have a gun. but she certainly didn't have any tolerance for needy children. or responsibility. or having to take care of someone. its the same weird fragility, being overwhelmed with life and even the smallest demands. combined with ruthless neglect and treating us like we are a perpetrator for needing something. like we are the reason she needs to kill herself because we put so much pressure on her. our mother regularly left the house and drove off, claiming that she wants to drive into the pier of a bridge. she was that specific. not a tree or into a lake. a bridge. because we didn't clean her house enough. Or didn't obey something she said. the same overwhelm that turns into extreme psychological violence.

the thing is, to this day I think that a lot of the neglect is my fault. I think that if I had said more, if I has been louder, pointing out that needs were not being met, maybe she would have done something. I was washing my own clothes. she has no chance to see that my underwear was ripped and that I only owned 1 jeans. if I had just being louder about it I would not have been neglected like that. she would have been able to see that there is a problem. If I had said more about the bullying situation... I did say something. her advice was utterly useless. she never talked to a teacher or other parents.
Somehow I cannot accept that if I had said more then there would have been more of her outbursts of overwhelm. she did not have the capacity to take care of 4 kids. I cling to it being my fault. at least partially. she never had a chance to know I was being neglected. listen to me. she was doing it. but I honestly believe she never had a chance to know about it. she would be surprised if I confronted her with it. saying that I should have told her. And she would honestly believe that too. she just didnt see it at all.

in my mind there is no way out of that. simple answers are not enough. I wasn't a toddler like Odd Thomas. I was 13. I should have done something to help myself instead of trying to figure it all by myself. seek a way through without bothering anyone. and how would I have learned that this is a solution, when all my life I just tried not to bother anyone and survive. but I should have.... There was not a single person I could talk to at that time. Not in school, not at home, nowhere. But I should have... it was my normal life, I didn't know things could be different. I am only now learning about how other parents treat their kids. But I should have...

You know this thinking is incorrect, right? Totally understandable, given the situation, but incorrect, based on false premises, right?

we do know. it is a weird struggle, trying to get out of the old pattern of thinking. my guess is that it still serves a purpose. it just creates walls inside, when people tell us that it is always the parents responsibility. that is not what we meant. we don't need anyone to tell us that it wasn't our fault. the struggle is a different one.