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Ethan33
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Arrow Oct 09, 2020 at 04:19 PM
  #1
Basically, the thread title says it all, but I need to flesh this out with the story to see if this resonates. My parents did say they loved me when I was a small child, but not much after this time. I am a hetro male and seek a loving relationship with a woman. I've never had a proper relationship in which I have loved her, or she has loved me.

I was beaten as a child many times by my father. Once, my dad worked me over so hard that I 'think' this activated the "death feigning state" in my Dorsal Vegas nerve. My mother failed to protect me, which may have effected my view of women!

Later, my brother would tease me then hide behind my mother. In my mind, my mother protected him, I felt so much pain. She went to embrace me, and I flinched and pushed her arms off me and ran away. This may have made things worse - but WTF I was just a kid.

For those who don't know about the Vegus nerve, the research of Stephen Porges has revealed that rather than there being two states that our nervous system can be in, there are actually three (see "3. Death feigning state" in my notes below this section).

I view the world and the people within it from my brain, and less so with my heart. From my early memories I noticed that there were situations in which people showed empathy to others, but I couldn't work out what was going on so I had to learn "learned behavior" simulating the reactions of other people, because I felt nothing myself.

I am in my late forties and I still find myself doing this. Classic example; someone tells me that they have just learned that their partner has been diagnosed with cancer. My auto-reaction "Oh my god, I am so sorry to hear that". My real thoughts "So f*cking what, I want my life to get better".

I have never experienced real intimacy with a woman, while talking, walking together, looking into one another's eyes. These are situations in which this could happen with other people, but not with me... as if this capacity to send & receive these heart-based magnetic signals have been beaten out from the bandwidth of my consciousness. My bandwidth is perhaps therefore less broad than a normal person.

Update: I have now achieved some intimacy through partner therapy. See bottom of this page: https://psychcentralforums.com/sexua...-woman-4.html]

I walk the earth for well over 40 years. I watch other people hold hands and kiss one another. Despite being a student for many years, socially active, friendly and outgoing, it has never happened to me. At a distance I see others and feel a terrible pain of loneliness, jealousy, rejection and later - rage. But just a few times in my life, I am confronted with a woman staring into my eyes looking for a reaction (or perhaps a magnetic signal), I feel nothing.

[SIDE NOTE: I have since been informed by a therapist that when I do ever come in close proximity to women, this “feeling nothing” is actually the feeling of “No Feeling” which ironically is not the absence of a feeling at all. And that it has been constructed by my mind to protect me from emotional suffering. Under this feeling of “No feeling” may lay the feelings of suffering that I experience when I view happy couples from a distance.]

It is as if all of the couples around me aren’t really aware of the magnetics that they do actually transmit and receive… in order to end up romantically connecting. I start to think that the nervous system may be the TV antenna that is the transmitter / receiver for the power of love (and probably other magnetics of consciousness). Only their TV antenna wasn’t smashed and twisted out of shape by a tyrannical parent.

I longed to be able to read the minds of every couple I saw, so I can work out how they met, and where, and who said what. I would listen intently any time couples revealed where they met, it never sounded particularly special, and to my surprise - hardly ever in a night club, which is where I spent so many nights in my twenties.

I loved nightclubs so much back then. I became good at chatting up women, but the energetic weakness in my core didn’t propel me to any sex.. just occasional drunken kissing and dancing.
.. It was (and still is) as if my head was energetically separated from body (cue the Poly-vagal theory, see below).

If I did spend the night with a woman, it was a disaster - never got hard. Read my thread here: https://psychcentralforums.com/sexua...any-woman.html

I continue to focus on therapy, incl my surrogate therapy (see IPSA surrogatetherapy.org) in which I’ve experienced healing and great success, but this has been put on the back burner due to the Coronavirus lockdown. Who would have thought that kissing could potentially spread Covid-19 :/ I also continue to receive energetic healing, incl. cranial-sacral work, etc, to work on my nervous system. This is how I learned about the Poly-Vagal theory.

Thank you for reading. Does any of this resonate? Or… is this you?

Oh yes… as promised, my amateur description of the Poly-vagal theory and the dreaded Dorsal Vagal activation state below. Please feel free to correct me where I’ve misdescribed it:

The vagus nerve splits into two branches, the newer / mammalian "ventral vegus nerve" for social interaction, and the ancient / reptilian "dorsal vegus nerve" for [regulating heart, lungs, etc (?) ]

1. Rest and digest. The nervous system is relaxed.

2. Fight or Flight. The nervous system is suddenly hyperactivated to deal with a threat, like a predator jumping out from behind a bush and starts chasing you.

3. Death feigning state (Dorsal branch of the vegus nerve activates, Ventral branch goes to sleep). The predator has now overpowered you, despite your best efforts in Fight or Flight mode. It holds your body firmly in it's enormous jaws. Your nervous system changes gear suddenly. Your body is limp and lifeless, no movement, as if you are dead. Connection between the [most ancient parts of the brain (?) ] and the body (via the vagus nerves) are minimized. The predator is chewing on your body but you don't thrash about because you are desensitized due to this state. As you’ve stopped moving, the predator loses interest and drops you down on the ground. A few minutes later, you open one eye and spy the long grass just a few feet away, your nervous system has changed gear from 3 back to 2. You sprint into the long grass. Lucky, you barely made it.

Reptiles snap out of it easily (they don't have the Ventral branch). Mammals (incl. humans) are more complicated due to the need to switch back over from the Dorsal vegus nerve to the mammalian Ventral vegus nerve (used for social engagement) but get stuck between the two states, hence the problem!
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Default Oct 10, 2020 at 06:59 AM
  #2
I've never been loved, not even by my parents (who tried all they could to abuse me and make me feel unwanted)

I didn't have a school crush, I didn't have a boyfriend, I've never had a kiss.. actually it got to the stage where someone even actually asked me if I wanted them to send me a valentines card. so embarrassing. they just felt sorry everyone had one but me and not me.

oddly enough, I'm okay about it.

I mean the way I see it is that I don't even love myself. how is anyone else expected to?

not having my parents love me was a bit... well, tragic. but they made their choice
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Arrow Oct 10, 2020 at 04:06 PM
  #3
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Originally Posted by raging vortex View Post
I've never been loved, not even by my parents (who tried all they could to abuse me and make me feel unwanted)

I didn't have a school crush, I didn't have a boyfriend, I've never had a kiss.. actually it got to the stage where someone even actually asked me if I wanted them to send me a valentines card. so embarrassing. they just felt sorry everyone had one but me and not me.

oddly enough, I'm okay about it.

I mean the way I see it is that I don't even love myself. how is anyone else expected to?

not having my parents love me was a bit... well, tragic. but they made their choice
I'm sorry to hear of your suffering. If I may ask, what approaches have you tried to fix this? .. Psychotherapy, Spiritual Healing, Applied Kinesiology, etc.

Blessings to you
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Default Oct 10, 2020 at 04:34 PM
  #4
I can relate. I wanted to reply, but was hesitant. I'm not very proud of myself for my experiences being the way it's been (or is now).

I hate to admit it, but I am at least slightly older than you are and a male. I haven't had much of intimacy myself. I did have some when I was much younger but not a whole lot. It was a wonder to me how it ever happened and it's a wonder why it's been so hard since I got older.

I didn't grow up in a great environment myself. Though for a long time, up until now, I thought that I had great parents. They were "pillars" from other people and they had provided for me very well materially. They were not physically abusive with me that much except for discipline. But they were very discouraging to me. For some strange reason, whenever a girl had interest in me and I felt the same way, my parents felt threatened. They would tell me that a girl was bad for me. That happened a lot. My parents were never encouraging to me about having a woman in my life.

I've reached the point now that getting a woman in my life doesn't matter much to me. I still feel bad that I don't have one, but far from feeling devastated. Recently a woman asked me out for a small date but I wasn't too crazy about her.

Lots of times with couples I've known in the past, they had shown some PDA when they'd be out and about. A year or so later, they hated each other. Maybe, don't get so taken in by what you see with PDA because most likely they'll come to a bitter ending.

I don't have any suggestion for you, obviously, since I'm in the same position. What is "partner therapy" exactly? I had some counseling, but it was never helpful.
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Default Oct 10, 2020 at 05:26 PM
  #5
Hi @will19, thanks for replying.

I wouldn't judge yourself too harshly based on the material things that surrounded your childhood. Whether your bars were made of lead or gold, you were probably still in a cage... as was I.

On the outside my family home looked pretty normal and pretty good. But if your parents didn't do a good jobs with their interactions with you, especially when you were young (let's say Under 7) then damage is still damage.

When I referred to "partner therapy" this is sex surrogate therapy. Very good, but not cheap.

I was actually thinking of ways that some of the positive aspects of this could be replicated, other than simply having sex with a prostitute - which I guess will not be the same and potentially very disappointing.

My view on this subject is that you may need to use more than one tool in the toolbox ...

Catharsis - see Osho Dynamic Meditation, great for letting it out!
Therapy that includes reading your body's energy system - like Spiritual healing, Cranio-sacral, Kinesiology, Reiki.

Your mention of your parents telling you that a woman wasn't good for you.. I'm thinking about the possibility that maybe you were "emotionally invalidated". Teal Swan talks about this on YouTube, v good.

I started with counseling but the person I saw wasn't able to penetrate very deeply into the problem, I guess this was just the place where I started my journey

Last edited by Ethan33; Oct 10, 2020 at 05:46 PM..
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Default Nov 12, 2020 at 11:58 AM
  #6
Only one family member has told me they love me and that is my middle sister. We generally care about each other but the rest couldnt give a crap. They do what is best for them which seems good at first glance but its destructive in nature. My family do not care about me, and rarely contact me without me talking first. When it comes to birthdays family members wish me happy birthday, i have 5 siblings lots of cousins, etc. Imagine that only 2 people in my family and i grew up with them. Its a cold world my friend. They are all still in my prayers though.
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Default May 04, 2021 at 01:15 PM
  #7
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Originally Posted by Prycejosh1987 View Post
Only one family member has told me they love me and that is my middle sister. We generally care about each other but the rest couldnt give a crap. They do what is best for them which seems good at first glance but its destructive in nature. My family do not care about me, and rarely contact me without me talking first. When it comes to birthdays family members wish me happy birthday, i have 5 siblings lots of cousins, etc. Imagine that only 2 people in my family and i grew up with them. Its a cold world my friend. They are all still in my prayers though.

Sorry for the time that has passed without my reply... and thank you.

If you were born into a big family this might have spread the love and affection out a bit thin. Mel Gibson said that he grew up in NY state and was one of 10 kids. One time his mom kind of lost the plot, she stacked up clean laundry in the normal place... but then poured flammable liquid over it and set it on fire.


It's great that you have your middle sister's affections.


Do you have someone who nurtures you? Finding a partner to nurture you could really help fill a void. Not 24-7, just once a week for at least half an hour, an hour would be better I think.

Best of luck to you !
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Default May 07, 2021 at 01:56 PM
  #8
My counsellor actually mentioned the Poly-vagal Theory to me (started seeing her because of my attachment difficulties). I wouldn’t say I’ve never been loved, but I’ve had a hard time believing and really feeling it, if that makes sense? I think my adoptive mum did her best in difficult circumstances, but I don’t believe a lot of the damage caused by my biological mother has been healed. Some people in my adoptive family made a few things worse, too.
I have had boyfriends, but never been able to feel settled and secure with any of them. I’ve also felt that “nothing feeling” you describe in your first post - several years ago, someone I didn’t know asked me out, but I sort of went numb. Didn’t even want to get to know him better on a platonic level.
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Default May 07, 2021 at 09:04 PM
  #9
So Sorry for what you've all been through! Thank you so Much for making this thread!
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