Why is it so painful and disagreeable for me to become "my own good mother?" I've got C-PTSD, DDNOS, and GAD and have been in therapy for several years. I've made great progress in many areas, but NOT when it comes to healing that part of me that feels like a terrified, abandoned, needy little child who is in some kind of dangerous, life or death situation with nobody around to notice, help, or rescue me.

When I am not being triggered, I realize of course that I am an adult who is capable of standing up to pressure and stress and cope without needing to feel afraid or like I need someone else to protect me. But when I get triggered into that C-PTSD state of mind, the feelings of being helpless, in danger, and terrified are overwhelming!! It is such an awful feeling that I have had a hard time not just dissociating so I don't have to feel it.

My t is working with me on feeling it and learning how to cope, but it sometimes truthfully hurts so much to get into those states that it feels like I am going to die. We have tried EMDR, but it never worked well because I was either too reactive or too dissociative. I've learned lots of coping skills, including DBT, and I understand how to use them, and I practice them.

The problem is when I get triggered into that PSTD panic...then everything I know and have learned (including my normal adult state of mind) just vanishes. I panic and cry and feel like I need my t to protect me at those times. Then, when I come out of it, I feel stupid for having acted so needy and childish! But I can't seem to help it at the time it happens.

My t and I have worked for awhile now on helping me to become my own good mother, to increase communication between parts, and to tone down my critical judgement and be more understanding of what those parts of me need, as well as trying to soothe them when my PTSD triggers happen and those other parts of me react like that. But I always find it very hard to keep my adult mind present when the other parts take over. I also don't feel much motherly-type love for those parts of me. They know it too. And they don't seek me out for comfort. They want my t's comfort.

Somebody please give me some guidance here. When does this get easier? I still have times when overwhelming feelings of feeling separated from my t and needing to be with her and be comforted by her overwhelm me. I find those feelings almost unbearable!! Sometimes if I can "wait it out," the feelings go away later and I can cope fine. But sometimes they don't go away for several hours or even 2-3 days. It's horrible to live with feelings like that. I know t can't be there for me anytime except during my 1 hour per week, and so I usually try not to even email her in between. But the feelings always come back.

Peaches