Question:
posted and mailed – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Dear Folks – When I was a preteen and teenager, the family moved from Kentucky to Cincinnati. What that meant – and what I did not find out until I went to school in Cincinnati – was that we were being moved into a situation where we were sure to be ridiculed by unkind classmates. Kentucky and Cincinnati are right across the river from each other. Cincinnatians consider themselves to be so civilized in relation to those poor, ignorant and stupid hillbillies, and if you have an accent, you’d better be prepared for ill treatment. So that was when I really perfected my skills of dissociation and depersonalization in public and as a way of life. Recently, partly precipitated by external events (a teenagerish tangle with a friend and boyfriend – and I am married and should not be having teenagerish tangles with anyone, never mind the part about it being a friend), and by a misfire with meds (I had a bad reaction to a booster to an antidepressant, and have been in transition from one set of drugs to another since Christmas), I have been deteriorating rather badly – and people on the other end of the therapy relationship keep asking "Have you ever felt this badly before?" and "Have you ever felt this way before?" It is hard to answer those questions, but I have given them some serious thought. Have I ever felt this badly? I am not at all sure. I know that when I had post partum depression, it was pretty terrible, and I was out of control in ways I am not now. I wasn’t sure I would survive it. I know that after I was betrayed by my ex-tx, I felt pretty terrible. But I don’t think it was this bad. I know that a long time ago, feeling bad was just routine. But was it this bad and was it like this? Actually, I have more or less abandoned those questions. Because the tricky thing is that when I was a teenager and using these defenses – depression and depersonalization – I didn’t know I was using them. It just felt like me, and feeling like me felt kind of weird. Well, very weird. So I have been thinking about the fact that these defenses are here now, and knowing that they must be a response to the upsurge of teenage issues to be dealt with. So the defenses themselves let me know what there is to be defended against. Isn’t it strange that I should know by the symptoms instead of the material. Well, I guess not, any more than Freud’s "hysterical" patients were considered unusual in that they presented symptoms rather than issues and problems. Here is the thing: I don’t have a good grip on what was going on back in my preteen and teenage years because I was so dissociated and depersonalized. And – and this is the really tough one – I don’t have the reasons for hope I did when I was a teenager, at least not the external reasons. When I was a teenager – and esp. when I was a preteen – it seemed rather clear to me that my problems were going to vanish as soon as somehow, magically, some wonderful male person took one look at us and swept us away in a cloud of true love – though what that would ever look like was never specified for me. And I was going to do significant things like write or something – be important, you know. And I was, of course, going to be free of the need to be taken care of by people who I would then have to feel dependent on. Umm-hmm. Well, today, I have, externally, all the things that would have made a teenage me think I was doing great: a wonderfully loving husband, a beautiful healthy son, a house in the country, a PhD, lots of art supplies and experience and training, the ability to sell myself as a consultant and to construct and carry out my own projects of work, etc. So if I am still feeling depressed and depersonalized, I can’t hope easily, as I did when I was a teenager, for these magic things to happen to set me free from my unhappiness. (I won’t treat you to the exercise of my tearing down what I have just described, telling you how it is all false, or not what I’d imagined it would be. I’ll spare you that.) Well, okay, then, the only hope is to do the work on my own personal issues, right? But I thought I’d been doing that all along – or at least for a very long time. Guess not. Or, I guess there is a lot to do on this stuff. What say all of you? Beauty
Lionheart responds: Your childhood sounds a bit like mine beauty. We moved from a small town in the country to a city school when I was about 15. It was the last of several moves, and it was just too much. No one wanted to be friends, and they werre all so different from the kids at the school-in-the-country. I didn’t get ridiculed, but I got ostracized. The only people willing to be friends were the losers, and no way was I hanging out with them. I know, not a pleasant attitude, but I was determined not to accept myself as a loser. I remember consciously deciding that I mightr as well pack myself in a suitcase until I was old enough to leave home. And so I did. I’m not really aware of disssociating then, but my form of dissociating has been predominantly to retreat deeper and deeper inside the shell that I presented to the world. It was not good for me to choosse, and continue to choose that as an escape. I’m now at a stageof looking back at my life, and marking the stages of withdrawal from the world and from life. I think I might grieve. I’d like to grieve for the ‘what might have been’. I was innately expressive as a very young child, and it all got turned off and turned inwards to the point where I might have been a stone. I think we have to measure our losses. There are many, not just the ones directly related to abuse, but the following ones related to the coping methods we chose. We have to measure them, and then we have to grieve them, one by one. Maybe I’m luckier than you inthat the fairy tale that I imagined adulthood to be crashed very early for me. I achieved fame (yes! in certain circles) and success at 21, but couldn’t handle it. My whole life since then has been a process of regrouping, first holding the pieces together, mostly with tape and wire, and most lately making something new out of the pieces. Don’t know if this has helped anyway, but I felt like talking about this. Take care, Lionheart — For more information about this service, send e-mail to:
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Response:
posted and mailed [snip Beauty's original post] Lionheart responds: Your childhood sounds a bit like mine beauty. We moved from a small town in the country to a city school when I was about 15. It was the last of several moves, and it was just too much. No one wanted to be friends, and they werre all so different from the kids at the school-in-the-country. I didn’t get ridiculed, but I got ostracized. The only people willing to be friends were the losers, and no way was I hanging out with them. I know, not a pleasant attitude, but I was determined not to accept myself as a loser.
For some reason, this reminds me of something – a story that starts in high school and ends in an alley in City X a little over a year ago. In high school, there was someone I’ll call M, and he was a short little guy who was considered a loser by the powers that be. But he was a kind of pugnacious loser, so people didn’t make fun of him, and he did have some friends. I don’t even know if he thought of himself as having been put into the group with the losers. Well, one day he was tormenting someone who was a complete pariah – no one would ever speak to this boy, who had "victim" written all over him in pimples. I watched M torment this boy – and I did not stop him. I was grateful it wasn’t me. Yet, I felt so culpable – and I was. In not stopping this, I was part of a world in which such victimizations are ignored – part of a world which allowed the abuse which harmed me. Anyway, it turned out that I was not entirely safe, because M turned to me and asked me one of the questions he had been asking the boy – it was a s*x**l question, but coded, so that M thought he had me and the boy fooled – wanted us to answer "yes" to having participated in a certain practice. I gave some answer which was supposed to indicate to M that I knew what he was talking about and was not shocked – but I am not even sure he got it. (I will tell the full story – it is something like a joke, but it would need to be spoilered – to anyone who is interested.) Anyway, another year or two passed, and this punk M suddenly appeared in flowing hair and beard, metamorphosed into a flower child freak, with his own rock band and a gentle, pretty, "loser" girlfriend. That is, she was a loser according to the powers that be. She was not an outcast, she was just not of any interest to those adults who measure social success in the world. And at about the same time, people began to grow up enough and become interested in the fact that the 60s were just about to pass them by because they were still doing their suburban cheerleader and football player thing – and suddenly, I was "interesting" and somebody to be respected. So M, among many others, began saying hello in a friendly way to me as we passed in the hall. Nothing more. But this impressed me. The fact that M could go from being a mean punk to being someone who was genuinely interested in being gentle impressed me. Now it could be that he just didn’t remember or care that he had been cruel to me previously. Or it could be – it just could be – that in turning over a new leaf, he just discarded all that old garbage and more or less bravely marched on into the future. In the years after high school when I ever thought of him, that is what I would think. I heard that he married his pretty girlfriend, that he still had a band. And then last year he was m*rd*r*d – by punks who just happened upon him after a late night gig. They needed money. He had $14. And it came out in every obit and tribute to him, and from everyone who spoke about him, that he had been the most generous of souls, loved his music, would talk to anyone, etc., etc. People can change. That’s part of what this story tells me. I think M really did change. I think he found what he was supposed to do (music), and it saved him. And he saved himself. I feel good that I was able to let him change in relation to me. I never held him to his commitment to cruelty earlier. Well, it was little enough in comparison with what others had done to me – others in that very same school, for a start. And I was glad that I could witness the change, even have it confirmed, though in such sad circumstances. I can’t say exactly why I thought of this story in relation to what you say, Lionheart, but thanks for the opportunity to tell it. I remember consciously deciding that I mightr as well pack myself in a suitcase until I was old enough to leave home. And so I did. I’m not really aware of disssociating then, but my form of dissociating has been predominantly to retreat deeper and deeper inside the shell that I presented to the world. It was not good for me to choosse, and continue to choose that as an escape.
I don’t know if I would go so far as to say that such a choice is not good – it is a choice, a survival choice, and one laid down as a part of an early pattern. For myself, since I experienced direct and vicious cruelty from schoolmates, the choice was pretty clearcut. I could dissociate, break down in tears, or fight. I chose dissociation. But I think I hear what you are saying – that the choice has costs. The evidence of the choice and its costs has been preserved in many writings from that time – I would also defend myself in this way – I would write constantly as a way of not being present, or of being present only to myself. I have also written here about how I used to actually unfocus my eyes to enable me to walk down the halls between classes – the random torment I encountered there was just about barely tolerable that way. I’m now at a stageof looking back at my life, and marking the stages of withdrawal from the world and from life. I think I might grieve. I’d like to grieve for the ‘what might have been’. I was innately expressive as a very young child, and it all got turned off and turned inwards to the point where I might have been a stone.
I am sorry that the expressivity was turned inward, that you were forced inward and had to survive by presenting a face of stone. I am sorry for that. And I rejoice that we are hearing words from your Lion-heart, words of passion, reflection, examination, determination. Because despite the face of stone – we know, we can see and feel, that the lion heart never turned to stone, and the expressivity was never killed – it’s all still there to be revealed, as you are revealing it to us day by day. I think we have to measure our losses. There are many, not just the ones directly related to abuse, but the following ones related to the coping methods we chose. We have to measure them, and then we have to grieve them, one by one.
Yes, I think this is an important thought, and one I will keep near to hand as I travel through this next stage of work. Measuring the loss due to coping. That is an important step of work. Thank you. Maybe I’m luckier than you inthat the fairy tale that I imagined adulthood to be crashed very early for me. I achieved fame (yes! in certain circles) and success at 21, but couldn’t handle it. My whole life since then has been a process of regrouping, first holding the pieces together, mostly with tape and wire, and most lately making something new out of the pieces.
Happy sculpting, Lionheart. I am glad you are taking us along on the journey. Don’t know if this has helped anyway, but I felt like talking about this.
Thanks for the new thoughts, and thank you for the impetus to tell the story of M. Maybe someone can help me figure out what it means. Best to you (and to all) – Beauty — For more information about this service, send e-mail to:
Response:
posted and mailed Lionheart & Beauty, Geees, I can only imagine seeing into my past as you two have done. I too was ridiculed and I was scapegoated (wish I could have seen it then as I do now as it is being repeated in circles of my life). I’ll respond all along. Dear Folks – When I was a preteen and teenager, the family moved from Kentucky to Cincinnati. What that meant – and what I did not find out until I went to school in Cincinnati – was that we were being moved into a situation where we were sure to be ridiculed by unkind classmates. Kentucky and Cincinnati are right across the river from each other. Cincinnatians consider themselves to be so civilized in relation to those poor, ignorant and stupid hillbillies, and if you have an accent, you’d better be prepared for ill treatment. So that was when I really perfected my skills of dissociation and depersonalization in public and as a way of life.
This reminds me of several times in my life. My father decided, when I was in the third grade, I needed to repeat it. This was his decision. He was and is rich, intelligent, powerful, and his wife, my step mother, was brought up in wealth and culture. Their ideas for me were wrong. I had been going to a school, "Open School" (I think I felt happy) and then they sent me to a school where I was an outcast and was ridiculed terribly. Also, when I did visit my father and stepmother on the weekends in NYC I would just BE. I didn’t interact with them. I just spent a lot of time alone, in my own thoughts, I created people I wasn’t and played them out alone. Recently, partly precipitated by external events (a teenagerish tangle with a friend and boyfriend – and I am married and should not be having teenagerish tangles with anyone, never mind the part about it being a friend), and by a misfire with meds (I had a bad reaction to a booster to an antidepressant, and have been in transition from one set of drugs to another since Christmas), I have been deteriorating rather badly – and people on the other end of the therapy relationship keep asking "Have you ever felt this badly before?" and "Have you ever felt this way before?"
Beauty, I so hope you feel better, I know that deteriorating feeling cause that’s how I have felt over the past? few months. I ask myself that question often, have I ever felt this badly before? For me, the answer is no, this is the worst I have ever felt because I am in a more adult position….BUT, I am starting to feel support, hypno T is helping (today I had my first trance, just relaxation stuff). And maybe I’ll start to use asd more as support 
It is hard to answer those questions, but I have given them some serious thought. Have I ever felt this badly? I am not at all sure. I know that when I had post partum depression, it was pretty terrible, and I was out of control in ways I am not now. I wasn’t sure I would survive it. I know that after I was betrayed by my ex-tx, I felt pretty terrible. But I don’t think it was this bad. I know that a long time ago, feeling bad was just routine. But was it this bad and was it like this? Actually, I have more or less abandoned those questions. Because the tricky thing is that when I was a teenager and using these defenses – depression and depersonalization – I didn’t know I was using them. It just felt like me, and feeling like me felt kind of weird. Well, very weird.
gosh, Beauty, this sounds so familiar to me. Boy, those darn defenses, never realized how much they are there. I used them this weekend for family reunion. I have had such anger and mistrust for soooo long (years) and then again, for some length of time I was the "peace maker" too. So I have been thinking about the fact that these defenses are here now, and knowing that they must be a response to the upsurge of teenage issues to be dealt with. So the defenses themselves let me know what there is to be defended against. Isn’t it strange that I should know by the symptoms instead of the material. Well, I guess not, any more than Freud’s "hysterical" patients were considered unusual in that they presented symptoms rather than issues and problems.
yah, that is strange that the symptoms tell you something is wrong rather than the material/memories. I Know things were bad and I have a foggy memory of my uncle ridiculing me as he was a drunk and my father sending me mixed messages, love and disgust. Though, there are specific times in my early years that are completely blank. Like when I was 11 my father, stepmother, brother and halfbrother went to Europe for 7 months to where my father was born. I remember so clearly certain things, like having lunch every day with my Great Aunt, who was a sweet heart, but I don’t remember, at all, where my bedroom was. Last summer I asked by stepmother where it was and she said I shared it with my brother, don’t remember. And another time was when my father, stepmother, and two brothers lived in New Jersey for about two years (I was around 8, I think) and I went there to visit sometimes. All I remember was there was a tree house that I used to go in, but don’t remember anything else. Maybe this is normal bad memory? Don’t know. Here is the thing: I don’t have a good grip on what was going on back in my preteen and teenage years because I was so dissociated and depersonalized. And – and this is the really tough one – I don’t have the reasons for hope I did when I was a teenager, at least not the external reasons. When I was a teenager – and esp. when I was a preteen – it seemed rather clear to me that my problems were going to vanish as soon as somehow, magically, some wonderful male person took one look at us and swept us away in a cloud of true love – though what that would ever look like was never specified for me. And I was going to do significant things like write or something – be important, you know. And I was, of course, going to be free of the need to be taken care of by people who I would then have to feel dependent on. Umm-hmm.
I probly fantisized someone sweeping me away also. Well, today, I have, externally, all the things that would have made a teenage me think I was doing great: a wonderfully loving husband, a beautiful healthy son, a house in the country, a PhD, lots of art supplies and experience and training, the ability to sell myself as a consultant and to construct and carry out my own projects of work, etc. So if I am still feeling depressed and depersonalized, I can’t hope easily, as I did when I was a teenager, for these magic things to happen to set me free from my unhappiness. (I won’t treat you to the exercise of my tearing down what I have just described, telling you how it is all false, or not what I’d imagined it would be. I’ll spare you that.) Well, okay, then, the only hope is to do the work on my own personal issues, right? But I thought I’d been doing that all along – or at least for a very long time.
I thought I had been working on my own stuff too, but it was all in my mind, that’s for sure. Guess not. Or, I guess there is a lot to do on this stuff. What say all of you? Beauty
I say, Beauty, you have done a lot of work and maybe, so have I, it’s just putting the pieces together. +Lionheart responds: =Your childhood sounds a bit like mine beauty. We moved from a small town in =the country to a city school when I was about 15. It was the last of several =moves, and it was just too much. No one wanted to be friends, and they werre =all so different from the kids at the school-in-the-country. I didn’t get =ridiculed, but I got ostracized. The only people willing to be friends were =the losers, and no way was I hanging out with them. I know, not a pleasant =attitude, but I was determined not to accept myself as a loser. This really makes me think of my own self. I didn’t want to hang with the loseres either, so I either hung out occassionally with some cool kids, or I hung out by myself (often). =I remember consciously deciding that I mightr as well pack myself in a =suitcase until I was old enough to leave home. And so I did. I’m not really =aware of disssociating then, but my form of dissociating has been =predominantly to retreat deeper and deeper inside the shell that I presented =to the world. It was not good for me to choosse, and continue to choose that =as an escape. again you’re singing my song, cause thats what I did and do, but it was so hard to accept the fact that I get depressed, that thats not my Fault, and now dissociation too. It’s a little overwhelming. =I’m now at a stageof looking back at my life, and marking the stages of =withdrawal from the world and from life. I think I might grieve. I’d like to =grieve for the ‘what might have been’. I was innately expressive as a very =young child, and it all got turned off and turned inwards to the point where =I might have been a stone. My mom says I was a happy child, don’t really know, I mean as a very young child. After reading this post, I now know what the focus of my therapy really needs to be. This must have been kinda hard to write about and I want you to know that it does help Me. Seeing others here reflect onto their lives, withdrawal to the extreme. =I think we have to measure our losses. There are many, not just the ones =directly related to abuse, but the following ones related to the coping =methods we chose. We have to measure them, and then we have to grieve them, =one by one. Lionheart, how do we measure our losses?? You mean we have to grieve how we dealt/coped; what defense mechanism we chose? =Maybe I’m luckier than you inthat the fairy tale that I imagined adulthood =to be crashed very early for me. I achieved fame (yes! in certain circles) =and … read more »
Response:
Uncanny wrote (and I accidentally wiped out your anon number so I can’t mail this, sorry) posted and mailed Lionheart & Beauty, Geees, I can only imagine seeing into my past as you two have done. I too was ridiculed and I was scapegoated (wish I could have seen it then as I do now as it is being repeated in circles of my life). I’ll respond all along.
I’m glad you did …BUT, I am starting to feel support, hypno T is helping (today I had my first trance, just relaxation stuff). And maybe I’ll start to use asd more as support
And I hope you do this too And also that the hypno T stuff will help. Lionheart had written: =I think we have to measure our losses. There are many, not just the ones =directly related to abuse, but the following ones related to the coping =methods we chose. We have to measure them, and then we have to grieve them, =one by one. Lionheart, how do we measure our losses?? You mean we have to grieve how we dealt/coped; what defense mechanism we chose?
Yeh, that’s about it. I’ve spent lots sof time grieving over the actual abuse and it’s direct effects on me, but I’ve ignored the rest of my life, my schoolyard, neighbourhood, and young adult life. Of course, all those stages of my life were affected by the abuse going on in my family, cause *I* was affected by it. And other types of abuse happened, the cruelty of children and of SOs. Now I am allowing myself to look at all those hurts, all those losses, and to acknowledge the pain. And yea, the ways that I learned tocope also cost me stuff, and added to the hurt. So I am looking at that too. <snip Lionheart, I hope talking here has helped you, it has helped me listening. Wish I could say more for support. One thing I am learning too is that you don’t have to be s*xu*lly a*used to have had dissociated. Important leason for me. Thanks againn for your expressing yourself, it’s maybe helping me pull myself out of My shell. Thanks again, Uncanny
Well I really wish you all the best in getting out of that shell. I know how hard it is to live in, been living in one most of my life. And talking about tthis, and getting talked back to is helping me. Thanks for contributing, Lionheart — — For more information about this service, send e-mail to:
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Response:
Hi, Mick here, feeling rather unbalanced and confused at the moment, so I’m sorry if this ends up a bit disjointed but it’s about stuff that’s important to me so I needed to say some things. Lots of snippage cos otherwise it’d eat soooo much space. posted and mailed Dear Folks – When I was a preteen and teenager, the family moved from Kentucky to Cincinnati. What that meant – and what I did not find out until I went to school in Cincinnati – was that we were being moved into a situation where we were sure to be ridiculed by unkind classmates.
[snip] I remember that too clearly. I was born in the UK, taken to the US at 18 months for half a year, back to UK, taken to Aus at 3 for half a year, back to UK, back to US at 7 for half a year, back to UK, moved to Aus at 11, three month holiday in UK at 16, two month Euro holiday at 24 (one month in UK). Plus occasional holidays in Brittany, Wales and the Lake District. Seven schools I think (not sure). UK kids picked on me for being an Aussie cos I shared my parents’ accent and vocabulary, US kids picked on me cos I didn’t understand the cultural differences, Aus kids picked on me cos I was a Pom (English person). So that was when I really perfected my skills of dissociation and depersonalization in public and as a way of life.
Same here. ‘Ignore it’ ‘Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me’ ‘Don’t give them the satisfaction of letting them see they’ve hurt you’ ‘I can just be a different me if the current one isn’t acceptable’. [snip] Because the tricky thing is that when I was a teenager and using these defenses – depression and depersonalization – I didn’t know I was using them. It just felt like me, and feeling like me felt kind of weird. Well, very weird.
Same here again; I put little thought into those phrases, either now or at the time – they were my natural responses and I’ve only put a few of them. And they were all weird to almost everyone else. [snip] Well, I guess not, any more than Freud’s "hysterical" patients were considered unusual in that they presented symptoms rather than issues and problems.
That’s how psychologists often have to work with DID/PTSD. One symptom I presented with was the symptom of being almost morbidly determined to not tell my T what brought me to T’py in the first place. [snip] Well, today, I have, externally, all the things that would have made a teenage me think I was doing great: a wonderfully loving husband, a beautiful healthy son, a house in the country, a PhD, lots of art supplies and experience and training, the ability to sell myself as a consultant and to construct and carry out my own projects of work, etc.
[snip] Sounds good to me too, so it must be the boring old thing that goals, achievements and material success mean little if you don’t feel you are being true to yourself. The sort of trauma that caused fragmentation and dissociation also is a stimulus for all sorts of needs and wants to come to the fore in a child’s mind – sometimes these are ‘frozen needs’ that can never be satisfied, other times you can identify them and work to meet them. But ignoring them or trying to shut them out will leave you living a lie of some degree. Well, that’s how it’s worked with me, anyway. Well, okay, then, the only hope is to do the work on my own personal issues, right? But I thought I’d been doing that all along – or at least for a very long time. Guess not. Or, I guess there is a lot to do on this stuff.
I’ve given up trying to figure out how hard it is, or how much there is, or how long it will take. It’s there and it’s part of my experience and always will be – the sensitivities will always be at least a little sensitive, the healing will never be ‘finished’ as long as the world keeps turning. What say all of you? Beauty Lionheart responds:
[snip] Lionheart’s response brought out a big ‘me too’ as well, except that I accepted identifying with the ‘losers’ and rebuilt some of my failing self-esteem on the fact that at least I was tolerant and compassionate to unpopular people – potentially a little ghoulish in retrospect. I accepted that ‘loser’ or ‘martyr’ was my role in life from about 16 til 21. I think we have to measure our losses. There are many, not just the ones directly related to abuse, but the following ones related to the coping methods we chose. We have to measure them, and then we have to grieve them, one by one.
I think this is very important. People often tell us ‘don’t dwell on the past’ or ‘but that’s over now’ and it really tends to irritate me. I use this analogy to a very special vintage car to describe this process of measuring losses – if you’re in an accident and your car can just run afterwards, would you leave it at that? It can only do 10 mph, the windows are shattered, the rear axle is bent, the wheels are out of alignment and the gearbox is out-of-whack. And you have no idea what condition the engine is in. Would you try to thoroughly check and fix everything or just keep limping along at 10 mph waiting for the engine to blow up? How can I possibly learn what to do (other than random guesses) about the pain I still feel if I won’t even look at the wound? Maybe I’m luckier than you inthat the fairy tale that I imagined adulthood to be crashed very early for me. I achieved fame (yes! in certain circles) and success at 21, but couldn’t handle it. My whole life since then has been a process of regrouping, first holding the pieces together, mostly with tape and wire, and most lately making something new out of the pieces. Don’t know if this has helped anyway, but I felt like talking about this. Take care, Lionheart
You both helped me by bringing these things up. Thanks. Mick. — For more information about this service, send e-mail to:
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