Connecting with your inner child helps heal and detach

[Depression = 72% of members]

Some helpful advice from my therapist I would like to share has helped me in a new chapter of healing.  She has suggested I put aside some time each day to write to my inner child. I grew up in a chaotic household which was emotionally abusive (parents always fought in front of me really badly).

It was hard to do at first, but I have done this and continue to do so and it really helps. Asking my inner child how I felt, remembering incidents has really allowed me to connect and heal.  It's a process though but I can see that it does help.

I am glad that I am on this path 6+ months post breakup as I definitely have more than enough insight into BPD and insight takes you only so far for healing. Basically, I am tired of spending all my time figuring her out, and need to focus on figuring myself out.

[hopealways]

Some helpful advice from my therapist I would like to share has helped me in a new chapter of healing.  She has suggested I put aside some time each day to write to my inner child. I grew up in a chaotic household which was emotionally abusive (parents always fought in front of me really badly).

It was hard to do at first, but I have done this and continue to do so and it really helps. Asking my inner child how I felt, remembering incidents has really allowed me to connect and heal.  It's a process though but I can see that it does help.

I am glad that I am on this path 6+ months post breakup as I definitely have more than enough insight into BPD and insight takes you only so far for healing. Basically, I am tired of spending all my time figuring her out, and need to focus on figuring myself out.

[once removed]

i read about this in susan andersons "the journey from abandonment to healing". i highly recommend it, and we have a review about it here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=155621.0

in that book, there are several examples of the authors clients who have tried it, very detailed, some folks that practice this regularly and even go to pretty great lengths in connecting with their inner child.

i tried it once. from what i understand, and my one experience, it is the epitome of self soothing. on one level its like really being your own best friend or big brother, like a counseling session with the most insightful, empathetic part of yourself. the big brother has been through it, and processed what the inner child hasnt. both are bolstered in the process and can help each other overcome trauma.

from one brother to another, im sorry about what you went through, growing up in a chaotic household, witnessing your parents fight in front of you. i vividly recall, as a child, listening to some pretty extreme fights between my parents. swearing, loss of temper, crying. i felt helpless. it wasnt a frequent thing either, but ive come to believe that most arguments between spouses, especially heated ones, should be kept away from children. it was something i brought up to my ex a few times: with the way we fought, i was never going to be willing to raise children in that environment.

im really excited for you, hopealways. what a great step to take 

[hopealways]

Thanks onceremoved! I will buy that book for sure. I have almost an entire library of these sort of books now and feel like hiding them whenever someone comes over as I don't feel like explaining why I have them anymore. But they have all been extremely helpful.  I hope this new path gives me exactly what I need, the "Self soothing" which you mention.

[thisworld]

Thank you Hopealways for this post. And thank you Onceremoved for the book suggestion. It really has good reviews and I'm planning to read it, too.

Have a good day folks

[Sunfl0wer]

Thank you so much for this thread!  I just bought Susan Andersons book on audible and began listening today.  While I have felt mostly 'over' my ex, I still have something unresolved that I cannot quite put my finger on.  I already feel comforted by this book and look forward to resolving or at least understanding what is left to be resolved.  Amazingly validating so far.  Thanks again! 

[Newton]

hopealways... .this method makes absolute sense to me because it works!  

I chose a slightly different alternative by talking to myself out loud, often on woodland walks... .(I do it in private so others don't call 'authorities'  

Seriously... .adopting 'observer' consciousness and listening/explaining to our subconcious/reactive self what happened and how things actually are now is a fantastic remedy to alleviate disturbing feelings... .

Writing it down... talking it out loud... .all helps.

Very pleased you posted this thread topic!    

[borderdude]

 I actually was daydreaming about comforting and connect to my BPDex , but I wonder if she represents my inner child , as I tried to FIX her once, but it was really myself who needed fixing due to my abusive childhood.

Does something close to this make any sense at all?

[SamwizeGamgee]

... .I have almost an entire library of these sort of books now and feel like hiding them whenever someone comes over as I don't feel like explaining why I have them anymore. But they have all been extremely helpful.  ... .

Hah! So true.  I have a drawer at work filled with divorce, children and divorce, personality disorder books, all in hiding!

Funny that there is such a stigma attached to looking for and getting emotional / psychological improvement.

And, onto the thread, I will certainly look for the book too.  I feel like I have processed my childhood, which was a mostly uneventful, non-traumatic, if a bit isolated and non-emotional.  But, I have tried thinking about having an inner child when trying to get my feelings out where I can realize them.  So much of my marriage has been abusive and cold, I have buried nearly all of my feelings, and denied them mostly.  Not good in the long run.  It's the inner child who can still admit that I just wanted someone to love me and be around.

[Dragon72]

I have read one of her Inner Child books, but I found the exercises very difficult.

I found the concept of a damaged "inner child" and an overprotective yet underdeveloped "outer child" within my psyche plausible enough, but I found it almost impossible to create dialogues between them, which is the essence of the healing process in the book. 

It just felt weird to have entities of myself who are challenging each other.  And I found it almost impossible to think of what they might say.  It all felt very contrived and unreal.

So I abandoned the process, maybe too early.

[JaneStorm]

I like to look at (what few) pictures of myself from when I was a baby or little kid. Maybe from being a mom, I feel love and the need to protect the kid in the pic.

I asked my BPDex if he felt that need (he is a father) when he looked at a particular sweet pic of him when he was small. He was cold as ice, "No. I feel nothing. I remember when that was taken but I feel nothing like what you are describing." I asked if he felt it for his own son when he looked at pics from early childhood. He would not answer.

I just look at myself as an awkward, buck-toothed ugly duckling, and smile. She deserves all the happiness in the world; as do all children.

[eeks]

I have read one of her Inner Child books, but I found the exercises very difficult.

I found the concept of a damaged "inner child" and an overprotective yet underdeveloped "outer child" within my psyche plausible enough, but I found it almost impossible to create dialogues between them, which is the essence of the healing process in the book. 

It just felt weird to have entities of myself who are challenging each other.  And I found it almost impossible to think of what they might say.  It all felt very contrived and unreal.

So I abandoned the process, maybe too early.

Me too.  Some people seem to have a genuine uprising of compassion and warmth within themselves when they do these exercises, so it works for them. 

The challenge I run into is that when I contact these residual past emotions, I show up "as" (identified with) the child, the person who underwent the painful thing, rather than the adult person observing the child in pain.  In order to care for the child I'd have to jump outside myself into an "adult" persona looking back at the child, and that makes it feel artificial for me. 

It makes me wonder if people who tend to dissociate from strong emotions will show up as the adult who has ignored the child and his/her pain in order to function, and those who tend to express strong emotions even to their detriment/overwhelm will show up as the child.

I recently referred to Focusing in another thread (Eugene Gendlin is the person who developed it, may help to search for his name as well).  There are different introductory methods, but this involves bringing "self-in-presence" to observe all of your parts, emotions, energies, experiences, physical sensations (more like mindfulness or radical acceptance, than letting the parent part care for the child part)

I also have my own technique, I could call it "rewind and slow motion".  I look at past situations where someone said something and I felt intense anger, fear, panic, whatever that I didn't know how to deal with at the time.  So I "rewind" and try to see if I can tell what happened just before I felt the emotions.  What did the other person say?  How did I interpret what they said?  How did I feel in response?  All the things that often, in the moment, happen too fast to be observed. 

Often, something "forbidden" tends to emerge, and it isn't always negative, it could just be a feeling that was generally not allowed/validated in my FOO, or only allowed for certain people.  Such as anger, my father was allowed to be angry but everybody else wasn't.  Sensuality and spontaneous life energy, movement towards desires, is another one (my mother's strategy in response to trauma was to control life - herself, others, including me, and desire and spontaneous movement towards things one desires is not something that she can control)

So that's a way I can move towards acceptance, first noticing that those feelings and desires are there.

[samynet]

Hi Family,

My experience... .

At Christmas I received a voucher from my cousin to an Hypnosis session... .(I was so depressed - let's try everything  )

I went to a zen space, the firs hour was like a T. session... .I told the Zen lady    my whole story, and how I felt that my r/s with my ex gd had something in common with the r/s that I have with my father since ever.

She asked me for a specific traumatic event that I could remember when I was a child... .and I remember one being at my grandma place and one of my aunts for some reason said me "you're exactly like your father" I start crying and went out of the house hiding myself in a dark place... .I was 7/8 at time.

At hypnosis session I regressed to that day and was the first time that I meet my little inner child... .taking him in my arms, telling him that he are worth of love, that he is not like his father and he's capable of give and receive love!

What a experience... .I cried together with my little Sam for almost one hour.

Now, using guided meditation videos on youtube I connect with him again once a week   . I cannot stop crying when I tell him that I'm here to protect him and to love him like nobody else.

And that is the most important love that we need to find... .loving ourselves