[Mouse_]

Before xmas when I was triggered by being in a strange place and the upcoming T break, I began to feel that my husband of 22yrs previous good strong charactor toward me had turned into someone one awful and untrustworth and unsupportive...this went of for about 3weeks and then during T one session I asked T if it was real or whether it was in my head? T said that though the feelings were real, she didn't feel that my husband had changed to that degree in such a short time and the events around my thinking this were the triggers and maybe he had been slightly less then normal during these events that had become the hook for the feelings..well I've fallen out with a very good online friend and I feel like I am dying ...I keep telling myself that the strong feelings I am experiencing are real but maybe they are from a time long ago and the friend thing at the moment is triggering them...when I say this to myself I become more aware of the deep pain being triggered inside me and less on the situation which tells me these feelings are old ones...I think this as painful as it is right now is a step forward because I am able to say now "this isn't real" and then I get slapped by reality, by the HERE-AND-NOW which puts everytihng into perspective, but I can't hold it and I find myself catapulted back into the pain and fear...but what confuses me is how does one know how much pain is to do with the situation right now and how much of it is more about feelings that haven't been dealt with from a time long ago??? I guess this is bit like saying what is the real relationship with T? But I do now believe that perhaps some of my reactions in the TODAY are not just about TODAY but are a connection to the past...

[chaotic13]

I wonder a lot about how much of what I'm sensing TODAY is really feelings pushed aside and not properly dealt with in the past that I'm projecting on a current situation. Its probaly good that you are making yourself aware of how the past may influence what your are experiencing today.

[MissCharlotte]

Yeah--I wonder about this all the time.

I don't think it's a question of whether or not we properly dealt with things (McKell) but rather things happened that overwhelmed us because we were still forming our identity. Young children do not have the defenses or the resources to manage overwhelming feelings, so their mothers are supposed to protect them. (Or it could have been some kind of unavoidable trauma like a death or a plane crash)

Mouse, can you reconstruct the situation with another person in your place? How should that person react? Will they be pissed off? Angry? Completely overwhelmed? The adult in you might be able to shed some light on this for you. Try and take a step back and you might find a degree of reaction you can shoot for in the future.

I know that I threw a few temper tantrums around Christmas that I wlll seek to avoid next year (by running away?) LOL

In the meantime, be gentle with yourself because it's not like we can foresee all of these events and prevent them from happening, is it? So, we react because of the feelings that are still in our bodies.

Go ahead and release your anger--try McKell's elliptical machine! Because those are real, real, real feelings. And they are inside of you.

Peace.

[Perna]

The problem as I see it is being triggered now by something in the past. The reaction/response now is intense, doesn't matter "when" the actual triggering event took place or how much of it was the now event/trigger or the then/old event?

I went to the grocery store and bought 4-5 items and I swear, the clerk put them in 4-5 bags! I happened to leave one behind, the cat food I'd gone to the store for in the first place. So, I get home and I had no cat food which I was out of. I was really pissed. So, I called the manager of the store and let him have it. He was kind and apologized and promised me new, etc. just come and get it but, of course, that is what pissed me off most; I'd already paid but it was half an hour there and back to get it "again," all for pennies a can. The time and effort weren't worth it, the convenience store down the street would do for now.

After I hung up I realized how angry I'd been about "cat food" (at mere pennies a can :-) and realized I'd kind of overdone it? I had ended up no better off then I started which got me to thinking about the poor grocery manager, what had I wanted from him? I then realized I'd only wanted to yell at him and that's not particularly me so I looked harder at what had happened previously during the day (at work, I'd stopped by the store on my way home from work) and found an incident where I did not fare very well. So, that incident had unconsciously triggered the call-and-cuss-out-grocery-manager and now I felt a bit foolish.

Not as "big" as your friend pain but perhaps similar. It didn't matter to me at the time that I was giving someone a hard time about cat food (and potentially getting an "innocent" clerk yelled at because I wasn't paying attention and hadn't told her what I wanted or made sure to collect all my bags); I sincerely/really felt angry, disappointed, frustrated. That Ifigured out that most of it was left over from a previous negative encounter during the day, at work, doesn't really matter; I felt what I felt when I felt it! I did what I did when I did it, etc.

I think that you can't hold on to the percentage of missing friend versus old missings is not what is important. You miss your friend and that hurts. I don't think you would miss your friend "less" you just might respond a bit differently if you had figured out what you were missing from before.

I think there's layers or a couple of things happening at once. I think if I had dealt with the problem at work, I still would have been angry from the store result, I just might not have bothered to call and tell them how I felt. However, is that always a good thing? I only figured out how I felt and what was "going on" by having the extreme reaction. I often still have to be hit in the head with a 2x4 in order to get important things across to me.

What have you learned about "missing" and missing T by having such a strong reaction to the breakup with your friend. In the past, would you not have "not cared" and/or gotten angry (as I did following the hurt from a work interchange, I got angry at the store, correctly, but too intensely)? Ripple effect backwards is not a bad thing to happen. I think eventually, as we get better at taking care of things when they happen, the intensity of things will calm down. But feel what you feel when you feel it, just check the intensity and if it's set too high, look elsewhere for additional information.

Interestingly, I asked my T this question today. I told him that I can't totally link the love/hate feelings that I have for him directly to my father. He said that it doesn't have to be all because of one incident, that it could be a cumulative affect of things that have happened with authority figures over the years. I'm like you in that I can't figure out what emotions are from when/who/where. But, yes, I think that recognizing that some may come from the past is a sign of progress.

[Mouse_]

You know what I think scares me the most isssss, I bit like Sister posted before, what If the feelings I have toward friends and T are finally moderated, worked thru? and I find I don't really like them at all? I think I can hear T's voice saying to me now "But thats already happened" meaning, that I didn't like my adoptive family unyet they were all I had amongst the fear of being abandoned again. I think I may still be carrying shame and guilt because of this. Its almost like I feel guilty whenever a friend does something less then "likeable" it triggers of my own self-hatred for disliking them and then I had to make them into "gods" so that I can save the relationship, but of course I'm not that child afraid of being dumped again and even if a friend dumps me today, I survive. Survive is becoming a big word for me at this time, It seems to be the answer for all situations, that no matter how bad I feel, I will survive, and that child that was afraid she wouldn't if she were abandoned again doesn't know that yet and suddenly I feel very aware of how it was for her without that ability to know she would survive.