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Old Jun 09, 2018, 05:43 PM
Amyjay Amyjay is offline
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Member Since: Mar 2017
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Quote:
Originally Posted by magicalprince View Post
For me I never really got a good understanding of "my system" or my parts... thing is I was always too avoidant of expressing myself to even have enough information to be able to figure those things out. My therapist would ask me to imagine something and would ask me what I see and I'd be like unable to even know or formulate an answer because I was so focused on "what am I supposed to/allowed to/expected to see..."

I never even felt safe enough to just simply say or even recognize that like "I see a panda" or whatever. I never even got to the point of "I can say what I want to say without being abandoned." Actually I was abandoned too, for being honest.

So a lot of it I'm not very aware about. I can't really name parts or know where feelings come from or often why. Best I can do is just go with my intuition. Any real consistency in that always eluded me so far. There's really just one part who I think is gatekeeping the whole entire thing, my whole entire inner world, and talking to that part is like talking to a sphinx, it never gets anywhere. Whatever my system is like it seems to be on lockdown.

So I can relate at least to always changing and to being undefined but I really don't even have much insight when things do change as to how they changed or why they changed. I just end up being confused and confusing mostly.

So it's comforting to think I could be allowed to just be "undefined" right now but I think people don't like that, they want to know, who are you? Only genuine answer I have to offer is, I don't know, I'll figure it out someday. BUt that would at least be a whole lot better than saying, I don't know, who do you want me to be? Yeah **** people pleasing indeed. I'm tired of that.
Wow, it sounds like it was a crucial protection mechanism for your system to be elusive, adaptable and undefined so you could change at a moment's notice to avoid being rejected. Almost like you needed to be so focused on what the other person needed from you or needed you to be to avoid rejection/abuse/abandonment etc. Is that kind of right? If so, no wonder it is so terrifying for you to hold on to and own your own sense of self and experience.

When you find a therapist it might be helpful to tak about that. It could be like a primary defence that you need to unravel before you can even feel safe enough to get to the inside parts, kwim?

Don't be too hard on yourself about it. That was what you needed to do. in the environment you grew up in it was the perfect adaptation to get as many of your needs met as you possibly could. It helped you and it served you well! And now that you are no longer in that situation it might be okay to unravel that defence so you can get to help all the parts that have been hidden safely underneath.
Maybe you could say "It doesn't feel safe enough to own who I am.... yet."

(I could be completely off track here, please ignore if so!)
Thanks for this!
magicalprince