Dream / Memory

If you wanted any other kid to die, wouldn't you call that abusive? I say that in the absolute most loving way. You are NOT abusive, but you're being incredibly hard on an uneducated, uninformed version of yourself.

My former T and I talked about something similar a few times. The truth of the matter is that there was honestly nothing any of these kids could have done to make things turn out in a different way. They were all stuck in a crappy situation where they were damned no matter WHAT they did. Performing the correct behavior or saying the right thing really wouldn't have made that much of a difference. Sometimes it's easier to hate the kid than to face the terror of that kind of unfair powerlessness. Or at least that's what T1 told me.

So the worst thing that could happen is showing a child compassion that you believe she doesn't deserve?

Edited to add: I'm interested in part because you have defended criminals in court before, many of whom, I would guess, were grown adults who knowingly did wrong, yet you believe quite firmly in being fair to them as people. This makes it hard for me to believe that there are any innocent children out there whom you would so vehemently deny compassion. Indeed, I have a hard time picturing you (or, er, picturing the picture of you I have in my head) looking at a little girl who was suffering from egregious abuse at the hands of her parents and telling her, "Nah, I don't really want to help you. You don't deserve it. You're weird and stupid." I have a feeling it has to do with accepting that you would have been in just as terrible a situation if you had made different choices means having to face the powerlessness and lack of control that pbutton is talking about. I don't know that for sure. But it can feel better to impose adult logic on an illogical situation in which one was a powerless child. Taking on too much blame is a form of control-seeking, sometimes.

It just seems to me that you spin your wheels with this issue, and in wondering what horrible event would occur if you just gave it a whirl -- showing compassion to yourself as a child the way you would any other child -- I am wondering what this is all about... and also hoping that maybe you will give it a try, rather than revisiting and resisting the same issue over and over and over.

This is so complicated for me. There is so much going on around this issue. Obviously, I have a lot to work on here.

First, she doesn't deserve it, so if she gets compassion anyway, it will reinforce her stupidity in bringing all this on herself, and will make things worse next time (and I KNOW that this is all in the past, so it doesn't apply, but that is the thought that is going on around this issue).

Second, she's already a drama queen (and I am ambivalent writing that. I am not sure she is, but the parents said she was so, so so SO often that it's difficult to discount that information). She does not need any more attention. She cries and she's weak and compassion would just enjoy that weakness.

Compassion being offered was always a trick, somehow. A set up. She doesn't need it. She shouldn't trust it. She shouldn't want it.

AND she doesn't really exist. It's just one of those weird, stupid, crazy things my brain did in splitting her off, and I hate that this is even an issue for me. That makes me mad also.

There is a fantastic poem by Marie Howe... I will send it to you if I find it... about how if she went back in time and tried to offer her child self affection in the form of a hug, child-Marie wouldn't even trust adult-Marie, and would instead wonder what adult-Marie wanted from her. It is very, very hard to shake the hypervigilance of a s****y childhood. It is also hard to shake what our parents say about us, even when KNOW that they're either wrong, or in the case of your mom, pathological liars.

My mom also says I was a drama queen. I have yet to find another human being who had the same impression of me as a child. Actually, when I read all my elementary school report cards, they all have the same comment written year after year by every single teacher -- that I am painfully quiet and appear to have no self-confidence whatsoever. But I did believe her for a long time and it wasn't until I accepted that the way I responded to my parents was a completely normal response to the corners I got backed into that I was able to look at it differently. This also makes me think of some research in a group I recently got involved in -- I'll send you something about that via PM. Basically about how children who have been abused have abnormal traits when compared to the whole population, but when you look at their background, the traits are a completely normal human response to their situation. I can elaborate further on this if you like.

Anyway, my mom did a lot of splitting. I got to be all the things she didn't like about herself. YAY.

And, finally, all of this stuff about Marie Howe and myself and Anne and pbutton and an entire area of research ought to help encourage you to shake the idea that this makes you weird. It so doesn't.

My T keeps saying that my responses to the abuse were perfectly normal responses to a completely abnormal, horrible situation. You and many others here have helped me see that I am not as weird as I thought, but I still find myself thinking that it's totally normal when you guys do or feel something, but still weird when I do or feel it.

You know my t was out of town last weekend, so I told him today that the best thing he did last week was when he said, "i'll see you next monday, here" even tho I asked him if he was going to stop by my apartment on his way home from the airport. He let me know that the fantasy, the problem, was mine, not his. That he could handle it even if I couldn't. That he was safe, even if I wasn't. But mostly that he heard me and answered me. My family doesn't hear me or answer me, so you never know what they're thinking. You can apologize, but they never really accept it. They're operating from a different playbook. Boy I think that's why the mafia says keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. You can't assume what they're thinking, you'll get blindsided. Unless you're in sync with them. If you're not, they'll run right over ya. Sorry for the ramble.

MKAC

I see this much as Sally and pbutton do. Your feelings about yourself as a child seem very much to me the feelings and attitudes of those who abused you. To adopt those views is the only way a child can make sense of what's happening, and it naturally fits in with the only way children can see the world: they are the center of the universe (drama queen?) and control all.

But, of course, they control nothing. The terror of that would be paralyzing if recognized, preventing the child from growing, so the child flips the switch and magically thinks she is all-powerful in her thoughts.

One of the worst consequences of abuse, I think, is that the abuser robs the child of the positive aspect of this amazing ability to create a way of thinking that defuses the terror of powerlessness. They replace it with the blame and false agency of their actions: "You deserve this," "If you weren't bad, I wouldn't have to punish you," "You make me do this."

They use the child's way of thinking to absolve themselves and deny their abuse.

I think we carry that identification of perception with us as part of our self-definition, our truth. Even when we can intellectually see the fallacy--and see the fallacy for others--the deep terror of powerlessness fuels the twisted sense of emotional truth for us.

Since we can't go back in time to "correct" ourselves as children, we cling to the twisted logic, perhaps experiencing it as a kind of strength and control in the present. Because if we were to hold the child blameless, accept the terror of powerlessness, and love the child we were, then how do we make sense of what happened?

I also think, for me, the issue is different for those abused by blood family: we share genetic ties with our abusers--they are tangibly part of us. How do we differentiate from them, yet accept ourselves? Creating distance by rejecting the child self, or making the child self the repository for the hate, may be one way, but painful because to do so is an assault on our core identity.

I agree with a lot of what feralkittymom has expressed, as painful as it might seem to take in. Though I have experienced something like this, I'm going instead to talk about a figure in the development of this attitude toward this particular kind of abuse. He was a student of Freud's but had radical views, including co-analysis, which he actually offered to Freud. His name was Ferenczi and he has a famous paper that at the time raised eyebrows. What he talked about was the difference between the child's view at the time of the abuse, which he calls sweetly by the name "tenderness." And that of the adult who for whatever reasons is using the child's vulnerability to meet other needs that the child can't possibly understand. My own therapist called this "perversion of tenderness" probably the worst betrayal that could possibly happen, or at least so strikingly wrong that he actually got a little angry about it.

What the child in this kind of situation does, according to this account, is "identify with the aggressor," in order to continue the feelings of "tenderness" and not really able to let in the abuse or harm in a complete way. (This is actually more complicated but I'm simplifying just to make the general sense of it). So the child can take on aggressive aspects that aren't really part of one's own make-up, but rather come from this kind of experience. Since later on people tend to develop a sense that they are responsible, this aggression can result in all sorts of problems depending on what else happens. Some turn it onto themselves. Some act out. Some do a combination. Some go numb. It really isn't clear until examined more closely exactly what the situation is or how it is coming out. And in my experience it also can change with time. Our past isn't as solidly formulated as we think so it can shift with time and different experiences.

I think the key thing here is to realize that whatever happened or however you are taking it now, there is a strong possibility that something traumatic in your past like something abusive was simply not in your control and you have no real responsibility for it. However it has manifested, the basic fact that you were a child and did not have the capacities of an adult to understand or manage is just not your fault. And anything you may have done to try to make it work somehow doesn't change that basic fact. It is tragic that something like a child's tenderness could be so taken advantage of or violated, but it is also not the truth of all of who you are or will be. There is always potential for strength and compassion, but learning to access it and direct it toward oneself doesn't come that easily.

I think a lot of us know that feeling well. I'll appeal to the rational part of you, as a fellow intellectuallizer, and say that your rational brain must be aware that this cannot be true, that even an exact replica of your life and your choices lived by another person, even your own genetic clone, would be ok, but not ok when it is you the individual. Hanging onto a logical fallacy can prevent us from seeing the truth -- although this runs directly into our emotional brains, which have devised all sorts of other mechanisms for separating the truth from illusions created by others (i.e., showing yourself compassion when you don't deserve it may cause you to be blindsided by others). That emotional side likes to make itself SOUND rational, but if you look at what it's saying all written out, it's clearly not.

I'm going through another cycle of this now with T. Things start going really well and I start getting nervous and upset and withdrawing because when someone is being so good to me I am terrified of the fall that is about to come when I inevitably screw it up. It's a long, long road.

I know it's really hard. But I do think this will keep coming back for you again and again. It can be hard to convince someone to be kind to herself when she has been cultivating reasons not to be for a very long time. But maybe you can try treating your child-self like any other child, for the sake of logical consistency, to maybe find truths that you have been missing?

I really appreciate the comments, insights, and things to think about. I obviously need to think more about it. I did think I was making progress in general, but can see where it seems I'm spinning my wheels on this one topic and may need to try something different. Thank you to everyone.