I think this is a good question for anyone who might struggle in therapy, or with understanding the root of how one was hurt, even why one might have accepted some kind of dysfunction.

For myself, when I was little I played a lot by myself in my room. I also played outside a lot when it was nice out too. I used to spend a lot of time deciding on a theme for whatever I was going to play with my dolls, or animal toys that to me had people personalities. My room and everything in it was just a canvas where anything could end up being something with a little imagination. A chair would be a mountain, under the bed became a cave and depending on a theme, I could really do a lot of things. If I picked a theme for example, a story played out in a circus, I would think about different things that would be in a circus and then try to create it and see what I could find to "make" whatever it was. I could make a trapese, a high wire and trick horses, a lot of things, and a lot of my time went into setting it all up.

I think about what I did "after" I set up the stage for everything, and I did have the dolls living "in" whatever I had created. However, I often had a bad charactor that was a threat.

What I think about now is how from and early age we learn how to live around some kind of "bad guy", or something that is not right or disruptive. I think about my home environment, and I did have to figure out how to live with things that were very disruptive, even very scary. Yet, I also think about what watching Disney Movies taught me too, same thing, trying to live and thrive, but always something "bad or disruptive" that happens.

People ask "why" or even how they may have lived in a dysfunctional environment "accepting" the dysfunction at times. And I think it is important to keep in mind that from an early age we can and do receive messages that some kind of bad or disruption is normal to life. We also receive a lot of messages that the good guy eventually does win too. So, I think most are deeply conditioned to believe that eventually the bad goes away and it gets better somehow. We are presented with a lot of different scenarios where the good guy charactor doesn't always live in the best conditions with lots of things either, but, that the good guy perserveres and gets those happy things eventually.

I think it is important to understand "how the feeling of unworthiness" takes place when struggling with some kind of trauma that presents PTSD. I think that because so many have a deep conditioning that the bad or disruptive presence is normal and we "can" thrive and finally things get better, has a lot to do with a really deep feeling of "unworthiness" when somehow we think, maybe things "don't" just get better and I just "failed" somehow if a trauma takes place in our life. Somehow, for a person to feel they have reached that "better way where the bad or disruptive is now somewhere else", often what the person feels "should be" is what has been discribed "should be" from our early exposure to how stories are meant to go to get that happy ending or feel we did well.

Do you want something because you "think" you should want it due to how a story is "supposed to go"? Or, can you make/live your "own" story and decide that is "ok" too? Did you miss something you should have had that is in the stories we have been told? Or, did you manage to do somethings your way, your own story and only "think" you should have or missed the way a story line is supposed to go?

What I noticed about PTSD is that a person can get very confused about what I have just layed out above. And often the term "survivor" doesn't seem to mean that much, I didn't feel that I survived because "the story I thought I was supposed to achieve, was badly damaged". I struggle with the term "survivor" because I don't feel I survived because of how "I do struggle with PTSD".

PTSD, or complex PTSD is a very "personal challenge", that is one thing about it that I have noticed, noticed in some big ways too because of how I have had to deal with "what others think I should and should not feel". And then I began to realize how much others seem to need to tell us how we are supposed to feel. I think about "therapy" and sitting across from someone who is "supposed to provide help and healing", and how important it is that individual understands "how to validate what a person struggling feels". That is what "providing safety" means when it comes to being a "good therapist".

One common thread I have noticed in the PTSD forum, noticed other places too, yet just thinking about this forum, is everyone I have met thus far feels bad for "feeling" or has been in environments that "their feelings" went unheard or did not matter to others around them or they were supposed to be able to just ignore their own feelings and "just deal".

I had a really bad day this past Monday, I was crying badly and I was crying badly because of how much I recognized all the ways I had been treated badly for having feelings, or struggling with hurt feelings, or just feelings period and I should have done better, known more, and been stronger for everyone else around me.

I was overwhelmed with sadness, and alone trying to just allow that feeling to come out and just cry. My husband came in and I felt "panicked" really because I was not in a place where I could stop crying. I was not even in a place where I could discribe verbally all that was involved with this episode where I could not stop crying, just had to let whatever was there out. I really felt "cornered" too because I felt that no matter what I did manage to get out verbally, he would immediately tell me "not to feel that way" and I knew that would make it worse and that is when I began to get the heaves.

I talked about this in another thread too. I don't "know" how I managed to get to where I tried to even talk, I was cornered and I had to I guess. But, as I did "try to verbalize" and cried hard when I was verbalizing, my husband not only said "stop", but he motioned to my mouth with his hands to "stop" too. As I mentioned somewhere else, whatever I did say, he always replied with his own feelings, "Well I don't care, well I think, I think" and everything he responded to me with was how "he" felt over whatever I felt.

I even can see this in my medical records where I was really traumatized, and very emotional, and trying so hard to explain. In my records, that did not matter, what mattered more is "what the professional decided" and that decision was that "I was wrong to feel". I have seen this happen with others too.

I read a post that someone wrote and said, "forget psychologists/therapists, many of them are narcissists and sit and just judge you based on what THEY FEEL YOU SHOULD BE FEELING. You know? When I think back, honestly, yes, I have noticed that, and, I can even see that in my files too.

And, when one actually does find a "good" therapist as I have myself, that is when they begin to finally realize how "good therapy" can actually help A LOT. Because "now" they have someone who can listen to their history and describe the "dysfunctional" people in their lives that hurt them emotionally, and typically what that is about is being around individuals that were "emotionally selfish" and how they had to hide their emotions, or, be subject to being told how they are wrong for even having "their own emotions".

What upsets me, is how that sense of "deep unworthiness" comes from actually "having hurt feelings and feeling you have no right to feel, like it is terribly wrong", that if we have them we are unworthy as we should be able to function "without feeling or having our own emotions".

When I began to get very dark thoughts, and they were very powerful too. I really felt it would be easier for all around me if "I" did not exist. I was at the point where I was struggling so much emotionally, that I honestly felt it would be too much of a burden for others, and quite frankly that was how I was being treated from the moment I broke, even by the professionals I reached out to for "help". Any therapist that tells a patient, "don't get so dramatic about it" is not in any way a "good" therapist. Yes Mowtown, I am thinking about what you described.

I was more alone than ever with that challenge. And quite frankly, when I heard about Robin Williams, I really feel in the end, he was very alone that way too. I think when he revisited the AA support to stay sober, he was looking for a way to fill that void in himself and it just was not there for him. I think he knew so much about "feelings" and he was a nice man, but, I don't think he ever really found someone he could entrust his own "hurts" with. I think people just needed "him" to recognize their emotions", yet there was no one he could find to "trust" to recognize his. I have "yet" to hear anyone who knew him to really be able to verbalize Robin Williams own deep challenges. Most people talked about him as kind and caring to "them".

One day I went to see my T at my usual time. He had changed the time, but did not make me aware of it. So, when I got there he was leaving and I was triggered, but I kept myself together and he told me that he had scheduled me at an earlier time because he had a doctor's appointment. Then he told me that he was a cancer survivor, and had found a lump and was going to be tested to see if it was cancerous. I stopped all of my own feelings, and noticed he was going "alone". I gave him a hug and told him he must be scared. He said, "Yes, I am scared but I have not told anyone, so as not to worry them". I hugged him caringly and validated his "genuine fear" and in that moment I noticed he was relieved to be able to "tell someone" he really was alone and "afraid". He really did "need" a hug and "someone" to recognize what he was feeling. I am so glad I was able to do that for him. And he is a man that validates the "feelings" of others constantly, yet, here he was "alone and scared".

Are we "crazy" if we actually "feel"? I think "NOT". Are we "unworthy" if we feel? NO. If we were not meant to "feel" we would not have the "emotional" area of our brains.

OE