profound break thru w/conflict resolution vs emotional reasoning

[bethanny]

I just read Kwamina's wise and timely share re emotional reasoning and appreciate it so much.

I have been feeling frustration that with all my consciousness raising the hard-wiring of long time alcoholic/borderline family conditioning, my pathological shame-basedness, my complex-PTSDness still leaves me at the mercy of irrational bouts of terror and negativity and abandoned relationships.  

It took me many decades to acknowledge my mother's profound capacity for terrifying-to-me bouts of u-BPD paranoia/incapacity to do conflict resolution especially with those closest to her. With me it was over-idealization to demonization in a heart-beat that so was jarring. I was locked into a permanent reactive mode often made worse, being cued to fulfill contradictory orders ... .be successful in world and never leave my side, don't be such a patsy but make sure everyone likes you and will praise you to me, etc.

So, there was a situation in which I was taking some risk-taking for me and began to trust someone and via email over-confided.  He was not as responsive and confiding back as I wanted and there circumstantially on his part were things that I immediately interpreted as passive aggressive and I entered an inner whirlwind of panic and frustration and horror and despair. Did he feel good will or bad will toward me?  I felt flipped on my head and heart.  I had trusted it was good will but WHAM.  Inner terror and confusion and pathological shame stuff got launched.

Just after that a work friend distressed me and I experienced a lighter degree of confusion and frustration and resignation, sure that a good working relationship had just henceforth soured, the honeymoon of friendship, disappointingly over.  

I recognized the old torturous pattern with me.  Closeness brings eventual pain and betrayal.  Things go south definitely and ultimately sometimes quicker rather than later.

In the first scenario the guy who disappointed and confused me made me consider backing away from an entire community I was beginning to re-participate with. That was a painful pattern.  Losing so much, giving one hostile person the power to impact too much. A confusing malice out of the blue -- like the malice that tasered me from either parent and others growing up.

In the second scenario, I would have to gird myself with an unfriendlier demeanor with my colleague in my work community.

Functional people do reality checks and conflict resolution automatically, it isn't easy but it is pragmatic and optimistic.  

I did make it there this time, amazingly, but I had to go through my usual emotional hurricane like in Wizard of Oz, mighty storm of confusion and pain to carry me and drop me on my head far removed from a recent comfort zone. This time I felt less bereft and helpless.

I managed to email the work friend and spell out how I felt about her behavior and owned what was "off" about my own and let go of the result, like the advice in 12 step rooms. Take action and let go of result.

Then, that action before hearing back from the woman, gave me a momentum to write the guy whom I have logged less time knowing, and spill where I was at, my confusion and what I wanted and also acceptance that if he didn't respect me or my writing voice (that was involved) it was okay and I could live with it and would have good will and acceptance.

Astonishing positive results.  The woman coworker had more good will after our altercation than I thought she would anyway, and the guy ... .well, so much of that negative and passive aggressive behavior seems to have been my misinterpretation.  He was distracted by so much on his plate he wasn't getting back to me, and there were other negative assumptions I had made that were explainable by him. He even validated me. I don't know what happens next in that new acquaintanceship, but fortunately I didn't blow it up from my fear.  

After a long workshift I stopped in a coffeeshop and tears rolled down my face before my head or heart had caught up with a sweet release and awe that two oppressive scenarios, sources of pain and confusion and FEAR were suddenly released.  I had kind of stated to both people, this is who I am, am human and doing best I can do, and let's coexist as best we can, okay?  Hah!

I have been so brittle in relationships throughout my life. I have prematurely surrendered and ended them or unexplaining run away because of "emotional reasoning" and irrational terror and the conditioning from years with a u-BPD mother and an alcoholic father and the learned helplessness and hopelessness that I had to endure over and over and over.  

I saw in these episodes with these two people recently how like my mother I was in my irrational terror, anger and confusion.  How I could not coexist with unanswered questions, the confusion seemed too unbearable, I could not not leap to self-terrorizing and projecting-anger conclusions.  I had to leap onto the worst possible scenario and go into hyper-protective and defensive mode.  

I read in a book called ":)o I Have to Give Up Me To Be Loved By You" that there are two basic intentions in human relating, to protect or to explore -- you can't do both and have to choose one -- and to explore is the healthier way to function. Protection is necessary at times, but if there is a possibility to explore so much more rewarding and empowering.

It seemed so simple to sit there and email them and explain where I was and do a reality check. And to be ready for whatever to happen.  But these victorious and monumental moments had come with years of recovery hard work and relapses.  Maybe even returning to BPD family website a day earlier?  Rejection or acceptance? The specter of both possibilities, the despair of rejection no longer blew me literally away. Risking facing it, the tension, instead of fleeing first because I believed I couldn't survive rejection or abandonment. Better for me to do it first. I would be in control.  

I still had myself and that was enough was what grounded me to contact them.  I had a new sense of dignity and safety.  Maybe that was the difference.

The PTSD-whirlwind beforehand with the guy was that childhood panic when I seriously needed for physical and psychological survival some minimal support at the very least from a parent figure whom from a young age I recognized was realistically dangerous and dis-eased and unbalanced.  

My mother had become that way from her childhood.  I haven't wanted to acknowledge my own irrational freak-outs as like what must have happened with her.  But it seems natural now to.  To help forgive her and to understand myself and not deny my own dis-ease.  I think feeling the latest victories makes me stronger to face it all down. One more layer off the proverbial onion of self-understanding

Thanks for listening.

[claudiaduffy]

I am applauding this whole post and high-fiving you on stepping out on a limb with trusting people to let you be human and to be human back to you. Good good good stuff! And so hard when we're used to... .not being allowed to be human!

[bethanny]

And so hard when we're used to... .not being allowed to be human!

So appreciating you getting this victory and the power of historical conditioning.

Best,

bethanny

[bethanny]

The following day I had a sustained crying jag.  Part of price of feeling and proaction.  Sigh. 

[Sunfl0wer]

The following day I had a sustained crying jag.  Part of price of feeling and proaction.  Sigh. 

Maybe with greater strength and awareness, comes safety and understanding to feel and process more emotion?

Still progress and a reason to appreciate?

[bethanny]

Sunflower,

Crying jags are not fun, but I feel they are like the stinging sensation recovering from frostbite. It is the numbness that is the long-term danger, the grieving and sadness is fighting the de-pression, and honestly facing down the dis-ease!  Coming back to life, real inner life.  My inner child banging on the pipes wanting the ego-driven shame-based over adapted adult me to stop and feel and get grounded and honest.  To  let myself feel the hurt, the toxicity, the threat from outside I am enabling rather than fighting and/or detaching from.

Thanks!

best,

Bethany

[Kwamina]

Hi bethanny,

I'd like to repeat here what I said in that other thread. I think the fact that you were able to recognize what was going on and react in a constructive and assertive manner, is significant progress

Crying jags are not fun, but I feel they are like the stinging sensation recovering from frostbite. It is the numbness that is the long-term danger, the grieving and sadness is fighting the de-pression, and honestly facing down the dis-ease!  Coming back to life, real inner life.  My inner child banging on the pipes wanting the ego-driven shame-based over adapted adult me to stop and feel and get grounded and honest.  To  let myself feel the hurt, the toxicity, the threat from outside I am enabling rather than fighting and/or detaching from.

Though you managed to handle things differently this time, the whole experience was of course still very intense and your crying is perhaps a release of all that emotional tension.

The point you raise about the numbness vs. facing reality is very important I think. We can only change the things we acknowledge and that's why it's important to get out of denial and try to find constructive ways of managing our emotions instead of numbing ourselves or reacting destructively to our emotions. Letting yourself feel all the pain can be quite scary and overwhelming, yet to heal and move forward I to believe it is necessary to try to move through the pain.