Quote:
Originally Posted by guilloche
. . . I find it hard to not take in what people say too. But really, if you've ever reacted to someone in anger that wasn't actually about them, snapped, said something you regret... think about that, it happens to others too. They're reacting to their own stuff and their own perceptions, which might have nothing to do with you.
If somebody on the street happens to remind you of your mother, and your mother was a terrible, abusive person... and this person stops you to ask a question or for directions, and you give them a suspicious look, before you reluctantly answer them in as few words as possible - that has everything to do with you, and nothing to do with the woman.
Sometimes it's not even that clear, but it's still the other person reacting to their own stuff (fears, insecurities, hopes, whatever) - and not reacting to *you*.
. . .
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I don't tend to take what others SAY personally. But the glares and judgmental attitudes are another thing entirely. I'm responding, still maybe, to my aunts and others who I looked up to, who DID know the "right ways" to do things, at least in my little girl mind. As I have written about over the last year or so, I'm pretty sure that got "stuck" and dissociated. But now is BACK, having been triggered and hurt, again, by that last T.
So, maybe, now I can review some of those interactions I had with her in that light, that her judgment came from her (retaliatory) anger.
I actually FELT my own retaliatory anger, wish for revenge and to hurt, for the first time when I was talking to her about the termination. That may sound weird, that I never felt, or remember feeling, the "wish to kill". But I didn't -- part of the dissociation, I guess. So I thought my feeling it might just be "progress", and I paid some attention to it and sought some redress from her, risking rejection, after the termination, and got a little bit of additional discussion, for free.
But I still feel so damaged, and so old. What I now know as dissociation, including what I felt as "rage" located in my left forearm, first showed up in therapy 30 years ago.
Based on my experience, the "treatment" for this kind of thing has sure been lousy and often ineffective, or making things worse!
The "treatment" possibilities DO seem to be getting better. Just not soon enough!!!