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mamaboulet
181 Posts |
 Posted - 09/28/2007 : 07:50:57
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I've been trying to backtrack to the source of some of my feelings of anger, sadness, shame, and fear that started in early childhood. I recently moved back to my birthplace, and just 2 hours away is the little town I lived in from ages 3-7. I can actually remember much of what occurred in my life after we moved back here when I was 7, so the negatives don't tend to get mixed up in the positives. But I have gone through the little town I lived in from age 3-7 several times in recent years, and I am always flabbergasted by the emotional flip-flops that start up. My memories of that time are jumbled, some clear, some vague, some mixed up together, some only flashes. I can't separate them into good and bad, so as a whole they make me feel queasy. I know that is where the bulk of my fear/shame started. Especially fear of authority.
I suspect that is when I got the biggest, most unadulterated dose of my father's rigid authority, because my mother had a nervous breakdown and my father took care of me and my sisters by himself for months. I have NO memories of that particular time except for the one time we visited my mom in the hospital and I got hit by a car.
I still don't know WHAT my father said to me back then to make me so utterly petrified of authority figures (like the police) and scared to make a mistake or scared to admit I did something "wrong." THAT is when I went underground and became what my sisters later gleefully called a "doormat."
It's like one of those dreams where you find an old house in the woods and there is a secret room but you can't get in or you can't find the door (yes, I had just such a recurring dream when I was in my early teens).
I want to KNOW what is in that room. I realize I may never find out. I can probably extrapolate based on my father's tendencies, but it is not as satisfying as knowing.
But hey, just writing this out has helped. I can't do all this in private journaling because I have spent so much time alone in the past few years that I NEED to talk to actual people. |
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justme
63 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2007 : 08:58:24
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Mamaboulet-
I am almost finished reading a fabuluous book called Trauma and the Body. Whey I read your post I really felt that you would be helped by this book. It is pretty academic in nature, but dont think you will have a problem with it (with all the degrees you have). It is a bit contradictory to Sarno's - ignore the bodily symptoms, but I cant help but feel that it it really onto something. It is about a new branch of psychotherapy called Somatic Psychology.
The fact that you have very few specific memories about your experiences from 3 - 7 would be explained very well in this book - that is, HOW and WHY the brain does this.
Best,
Just me |
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2007 : 14:03:50
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I have gotten super suspicious about my lack of clear memories recently. I have some very clear memories of my early childhood at school, and certainly lots my later school years, and some of time spent with friends, and tons of visual memories of my home surroundings (I can still go on a mental tour of the houses I lived in as a kid and though some details are lost, I remember most stuff. But I have only a very few memories of time spent with my family, except for some specific events. This is really inconsistent and makes me wonder what it is that I don't remember about my family life. I don't mean I think there is some big trauma, but even though I kind of can guess what things were like, I just don't remember the specifics at all and it bugs me. So, I can really relate. Maybe I will have to look up that book too, justme.
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Wherever you go, there you are. |
Edited by - armchairlinguist on 09/28/2007 14:05:39 |
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jmburns
USA
9 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2007 : 12:57:35
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mamaboulet,
i went through many trails and tribulations to get to the root of my TMS. i went to a great psychotherapist and he recommended a book by dr genlin in chicago. called FOCUSING. www.focusing.org.
it can really be helpful in getting to the crux of the situation and helping you find those hazy feelings and reall clearing them up for you.
it works almost hand in hand with releiving TMS.
hope this helps
justin
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miehnesor
USA
430 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2007 : 12:11:40
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quote:
Originally posted by justme
Mamaboulet-
I am almost finished reading a fabuluous book called Trauma and the Body. Whey I read your post I really felt that you would be helped by this book. It is pretty academic in nature, but dont think you will have a problem with it (with all the degrees you have). It is a bit contradictory to Sarno's - ignore the bodily symptoms, but I cant help but feel that it it really onto something. It is about a new branch of psychotherapy called Somatic Psychology.
I've read the first section of this book and have reflected over it's contents. Personally I think the inner child work is a far superior method for retrieving repressed feelings. |
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mizlorinj
USA
490 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2007 : 08:02:50
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Mama, as you are more ready, more things will come back to your conscious memory. That's how it's happened for me.
Just last weekend after an incident, I remembered how my dad used to discreetly punish me by pinching my finger. I was incensed and actually confronted him after I regained my composure. Did verbal journaling in private first and was I in a rage about it!!
As you are ready, the things you need to remember and journal about will come to you.
Louise Hay and Candace Pert are two authors I highly recommend. Both are firm believers in the mindbody. And both have had traumatic childhood experiences which they describe.
-Lori |
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mamaboulet
181 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2007 : 08:50:20
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both of those authors are on my list when I can afford.
One of the things that has been coming back to me as I think about my childhood and the start of a bunch of anxiety-related symptoms at age 12, is that I was in extreme people-pleaser mode that year. People-pleaser was my dominant personality trait as a child, and then got bumped to second place when my perfectionist self took over in adulthood. That particular year I'm starting to remember how much I was constantly trying to please my father and live up to his expectations. It was also the year he got me a horse. Gifts from my father have always been fraught with stress. That stress lasted 5 years until the horse was gone. I haven't accepted a gift from my father in over 20 years. The price is far too high. |
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I wish I could remember
