Trauma - ours

[seeking balance]

Trauma – Ours

I am posting in leaving rather than personal inventory because I think this may help with the reality of detaching and moving into a productive life.  I do think there is plenty for everyone to build on in the PI Board with this topic.

I am in the process of my foster/adoptive program and they have been focusing on the children’s trauma.  An exercise we did really hit home with me and I thought it would be of value here.

Connections are fundamental to the human experience – how these connections impact us and their importance are how we can help view our worth, boundaries, and place in the world. 

The exercise was to take out 5 scraps of paper and write down your 5 most valuable connections.  Now, give 1 back…... have someone randomly take 3 more – what do you have?  How do you feel?

The point was this is how a child coming into care is going to feel. 

My “aha” in this exercise:  3 years ago, I lost 4 of 5 of my connection.  Of my 5 connections I listed in the exercise – not a single one of them was on my list 3 years ago.  It made me realize the extent to which the trauma has is in these breakups….my guess is many people have this same experience.  As such, I wonder why we think that in 6 months or even a year we are going to feel “normal”.  The reality is our foundation is often shaken – no wonder we reattach so quickly to someone unhealthy at times or feel depressed for a long time.

This isn’t to say that my life is unhappy – I am quite content and moving forward obviously– but I am different and it has been 3 years now.

Detaching and reattaching in a healthy manner takes time – more time than a lot of us probably realize.

Be kind and patient  to us – if we are asked to give this to children who went through trauma, shouldn’t we give this to ourselves to?

Are you being patient and kind to yourself after the trauma?  How much besides your partner did you really lose when you look at it in greater depth?

Peace,

SB

[bpdspell]

Are you being patient and kind to yourself after the trauma?  How much besides your partner did you really lose when you look at it in greater depth?

Patience and kindness are certainly virtues I have not easily accepted into my life but I've slowly eased them into my emotional world as a part of healthy self-nurturing. I didn't receive a lot of validation, or kindness or feel good love from my mother and I am only now recognizing how traumatizing it has been for me to feel those deeply repressed sad feelings of loss. The only thing that has saved me is grace, kindness and patience and the knowing from my spiritual epicenter that life is indeed worth living even after realizing that I am a survivor of childhood neglect and abuse.

When I look at the relationship with my ex I didn't lose anything. I gained me and that has been the immense blessing out of this deep pain. I gained a love, respect and admiration for myself that had been missing my entire lifetime. I am now filling up my emptiness with self-love and it's daily practice. I accept my flaws, my personality quirks, my moderate temperament and even my sense of humor. I'm owning who I am and I'm dedicated towards full acceptance. I also own that I don't always want to be responsible for myself or my choices but every day there's progress... .

I'm two years out and still vigorously and passionately changing my sad story narrative that I clung to desperately... . it was a narrative that I used to live in a state of slow drip pity for myself and a subtle form of manipulation that I used for others... . that is until it backfired with my BPDexbf.

I now have a new narrative where I'm no longer a victim of my parents but a survivor and a person who is here for a purpose and a person who is made out of love... . and born to love others. Sometimes I regress and sometimes there's still deep immense hurt from loss but I do my best to enjoy life and have balance.

Detaching is difficult work. It requires changing your sad story narrative... . a narrative of being a victim... . it's really difficult to let go of the hurt of how others have let us down. But I refuse to go back to the person I was before I met my ex. She was a sad, sad, sad little girl in an woman's body.

Spell

[Emelie Emelie]

Spell -  Wow.  I am so very impressed.  You make me hopeful.

[Mr gaga]

Are you being patient and kind to yourself after the trauma?  How much besides your partner did you really lose when you look at it in greater depth?

Patience and kindness are certainly virtues I have not easily accepted into my life but I've slowly eased them into my emotional world as a part of healthy self-nurturing. I didn't receive a lot of validation, or kindness or feel good love from my mother and I am only now recognizing how traumatizing it has been for me to feel those deeply repressed sad feelings of loss. The only thing that has saved me is grace, kindness and patience and the knowing from my spiritual epicenter that life is indeed worth living even after realizing that I am a survivor of childhood neglect and abuse.

When I look at the relationship with my ex I didn't lose anything. I gained me and that has been the immense blessing out of this deep pain. I gained a love, respect and admiration for myself that had been missing my entire lifetime. I am now filling up my emptiness with self-love and it's daily practice. I accept my flaws, my personality quirks, my moderate temperament and even my sense of humor. I'm owning who I am and I'm dedicated towards full acceptance. I also own that I don't always want to be responsible for myself or my choices but every day there's progress... .

I'm two years out and still vigorously and passionately changing my sad story narrative that I clung to desperately... . it was a narrative that I used to live in a state of slow drip pity for myself and a subtle form of manipulation that I used for others... . that is until it backfired with my BPDexbf.

I now have a new narrative where I'm no longer a victim of my parents but a survivor and a person who is here for a purpose and a person who is made out of love... . and born to love others. Sometimes I regress and sometimes there's still deep immense hurt from loss but I do my best to enjoy life and have balance.

Detaching is difficult work. It requires changing your sad story narrative... . a narrative of being a victim... . it's really difficult to let go of the hurt of how others have let us down. But I refuse to go back to the person I was before I met my ex. She was a sad, sad, sad little girl in an woman's body.

Spell

This really speaks to me in so many ways. For to long have I hid in the shadows holding on to my sad story about what she has done to me. The truth is that she has set me free. Sure I'm depressed and hurt but its better than being put down every day of my life. Unlike her I don't need anyone to make me happy, when she left me I didn't rush to get anybody(Mostly because my self esteem was shot ) but I'm still hanging on. I am a stronger person after the stuff she put me through, she stomped me into the ground and abandoned me after I gave her everything but am I suppose to stay in the ground and let her have power over my life and happiness? NO I have to pick myself up, I have to do this. It's hard everyday but I can rise above this, we all can. What have I lost by her leaving me? Absolutely nothing! It isn't one thing she had that I can't get from another woman who is healthy and faithful . 

[talithacumi]

Good topic, seekingbalance ... . and I like that you posted on the leaving board because, imho, a lot of what makes makes the initial break so extraordinarily difficult is the sheer amount of unrecognized psychological trauma we're experiencing at the same time as we're trying to simply wrap our heads around both what happened and why.

The biggest trauma for me was my uxpwBPD very suddenly - as in, literally, overnight - acting like he simply just didn't care about me in any way at all anymore.

I'd been taught, and believed without any question, that the human heart not only didn't, but actually couldn't work this way.

I therefore HAD to be wrong, COULDN'T trust, and HAD to question pretty much EVERYTHING I was ACTUALLY experiencing/perceiving on every front and in every possible way in every encounter/interaction I was having with him both post-breakup as well as ultimately during the entire time we'd actually been together.

Had to reinterpret, recast, justify, argue, defend, explain it in some way that didn't contradict what I believed to be true about people being UNABLE to really just stop caring about someone the way he so genuinely seemed to have been able to do with me.

It took three years, a move out of state, a new therapist, this board and the information/stories shared here for me to STOP questioning/invalidating myself and my own experiences/perceptions in this way - to REJECT the belief instilled in me as a child that allowed my mom to treat me in whatever horrible way she needed/wanted and still have me see her as loving/caring about me no matter what, and ACCEPT the very sad truth that there not only ARE people out there who CAN simply stop caring, but those NEVER did despite how sincerely/genuinely they claimed to really do so. To accept that my mother, for her own reasons, is one of the latter. To accept that my ex, by virtue of his disorder if nothing else, can at least ACT like the former, if not BE either the former (or, even, like my mom, the latter) himself.

Three years of actively/constantly questioning everything I either WAS experiencing/perceiving, or HAD experienced/perceived did a massive number on my self-confidence, self-esteem, and ability to trust myself about anything.

This to me was the biggest trauma I suffered ... . and I resuffered it to some extent every time I had any interaction/encounter with him, remembered/thought about some interaction/encounter we'd had in the past, or speculated/worried about some interaction/encounter we might have in the future.

Everything else - the loss of companionship, sex, partnership, shared interests/concerns, family, home, business, income, financial stability, future, etc. - the numerous practical/logistical problems I was left to resolve - 25K in mutually-acquired debt I was left to repay - the lies told both to, and about me - the continuing harassment, stalking, and threats to which I as well as our grown children, family members, and friends have been repeatedly subjected - the trauma I've experienced as a result of ALL those things absolutely PALES in comparison to the trauma of losing complete faith in myself.

That's the worst - and, for me, I really hope it's finally starting to be over.