These facts are what explain why, a person being told how they shouldn't feel, what they should ignore, and that they should 'pull themselves up by their bootstraps', doesn't work. Eventually, just as one can quit smoking or drinking only when one makes a firm commitment to doing so, people can begin to form a new self-image. No matter how others may tell you how positively THEY see you, until your own self-image can be super-imposed on their impression of you, congruently, will things become clearer to you about who you really are.
Therapy helps pull people back into events that they experienced as children and have never moved away from that solidified-by-time memory of the experience. They blame themselves when they are blameless, they are feeling worthless because those they had thought of as omniscient and omnipotent didn't seem to find them lovable or sufficiently worthwhile to rescue. In therapy, when they can re-experience these memories as an adult, it occasionally becomes possible for these adult children to realize they were not to blame. They are not unlovable. They do not have to go through life hiding from the world. It is most gratifying to vicariously experience when that hood of blame, shame and guilt can be thrown off and acceptance of their lack of blame and guilt ceases to cause them shame.
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3 comments:
You are one of my hero. For someone to pull through with this understanding words, is a blessing for those of us who have been abused. Too many people feel we should just snap right out of it. Formative years, those words are exactly as they state. What you are told, how you are beaten, hugs and love you do not receive, "form" the person you become.
I am proud and fortunate for how strong I am. Never giving up hope, and just knowing that my blue prints had to bring me to a better situation some day, gave me the strenth to go on. In going on, I have met you, my dear friend, whom I love very much.
Thank you for your words, and I hope they reach many.
Your "metal bending" friend.
I should have previewed my comment. You are not one of my hero. You are one of my hero's. It is not this understanding words, but these understanding words.
Prehaps I should have signed it, your "don't speak no very well english."
Anonymous, I knew exactly what you meant and thank you for letting me know I touched a core. Epiphanies do not come often but when they do, aren't they wonderful and enlightening? It has taken me many years to be able to listen and accept the pain that so many people live with and who have a very different inner life experience than my own.
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