Quote:
Originally Posted by kateyesofgreen
I have learned this comes from 2 things: 1) never having anyone who cared to try to soothe me so having no experience or expectation of how that might be forthcoming and worth the risk of revealing my need; and 2) absorbing the idea that my pain and need and even my presence is a burden to others. As my sister said of my mother always referring to me as "a difficult baby"--you weren't difficult, you were just a normal baby and she didn't want to be bothered!
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Here's the reason why it's self care and healing to risk reaching out to a listener. In trauma, neurons in our brains are put on high alert and stuck there. Like sympathetic system dominance over parasympathetic. This causes most of the key PTSD symptoms. So if I connect with someone who can remain calm and empathetic while I am in anguish, my neurons will come to mirror theirs and my brain actually changes to less screaming and more just honest and understandable emotion of a traumatized child. I can take in soothing and learn to soothe myself. It's transformational.
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Thank you so much for explaining that. Yes, I can't imagine 'soothing' being a good thing. I've only ever had people try to encourage me with 'you can do it' a few times in my life and I always find it very very uncomfortable. I feel like they're pressuring me to do whatever it is, and I'm saying, inside my head, "I KNOW!! I'm DOING it, I'm working as hard as I can, leave me alone!!" I don't find hugs comforting, I don't find soothing words comforting - not that I've had a whole lot of either. I sure do/did hug the heck out of my kids though, lol! I can give love, support, soothing, etc to the moon and back. I just can't have it myself.
I had a T tell me that doing nice things for people (I am a little overboard in doing things for people) is manipulating them. I really don't agree. Sometimes I do it out of fear, like throwing a steak to a tiger who wants to eat you, to distract them. But most times I do it because it just feels better to be ++nice than it does to be ambivalent. I don't think I'm doing it to make people like me, (what the T thought, I am manipulating people to make them like me)
I think I'm doing it to make myself like me.
I never even began to understand why asking someone to listen could be helpful - your explanation was a real lightbulb, thank you!!!!!! So I need to figure out words for my distress, and then actually eke them out to someone. Probably multiple times. Ugh! LOL! but it gives me a starting point! I'm DETERMINED to conquer this mess. I didn't live through all this crap to let it ruin the rest of my life. So seriously, thank you - I think that's the most beneficial advice I've probably ever gotten in my entire life.