SG just wanted to chip in here about the idea of rescue fantasies. (Sorry BB hope you don’t mind a bit of a digression.)

The way you describe them you could have been talking about the stuff that’s been going on in my head. For years, even right from when I was little, I’ve have a head full of this kind of fantasy - where I’d imagine bad things happening to me (safe bad things of course, bad things that the world would stand and weep over) in order to feel myself a poor little hard done by but totally innocent and totally good victim (kind of Cinderella/Snow White characters) - that would let me feel sympathy (I used to call it self pity) for myself BUT of course the payoff was that Prince Charming, Mr Right, or just plain Barry from form 2 at school, and as I got older men such as Bodie and Doyle of the Professionals *sigh swoon* would rescue me, emotionally - would come along and see my suffering and be so moved by it and by my ‘goodness’ that they’d love me and care for me, take me away to live in the land of happy ever after where all my needs and wants would be taken care of - blissful one way total love and total belonging... (and yeah, always men...)

(Wow just had a flash that it’s not so long ago I would never have DARED admit anything like that to anyone. This forum makes it so easy to talk about things that I’d experience as totally shameful in real world.)

Anyway when I got to my thirties I got a terrible shock - I realized that I’d spent most of my life living in these fantasies, driving to work, going shopping, at night in bed, or daydreaming at every opportunity, my head was always in one or other of these fantasies and it nearly destroyed me to realize that I was living in these fantasies and they just weren’t REAL, nor did I stand a chance of ever acting them out - that I’d spent my life fantasizing because reality was so shit.

The worst bit about that realization was that I totally lost the ability to fantasize in that way, or in any way come to think of it. Sometimes I’d catch myself going off into a daydream (no longer about being rescued by a man, that had long gone) but about maybe doing something really well (at work for instance) and being hugely praised for it, having my intrinsic worth and value openly recognized and accoladed. But I’d know I was fantasizing, and that always made me really miserable.

Sometimes I wish I could get the ability back - but I also know that the reason I can’t fantasize myself into a good-me place anymore is because I’m not and never was good in those ways. Reality made sure of that!

It’s not all a downer though, these days I’m working on making good-me a reality IN reality, identifying and trying to accept all those unmet needs and wants so I can try and do something about getting them met IN REALITY, instead of having to live in a fantasy world in my head just to survive the pain of past reality.

I also believe that fantasies are really important as a way of learning what is going on inside - a direct route to identifying needs and wants and feelings that are too painful to experience directly. A bit like dreams, but much clearer and more direct. Not that I’m about to reveal the intimate details of my (now long past) fantasies to anyone else in a hurry lol. It’s funny, the fantasies themselves have gone, but the needs and wants are all still there. *sigh*

p.s. Songbird, I hope you do enjoy that week in the country

LL

quote:

Russ said: In the end, whatever factors went in to our parents ability, inability and/or willingness to provide what we needed to become healthy, integrated people is almost beside the point. The point is the result.

If you're a child and you're reaching out for a hug or some other kind of contact from your mom or dad and you don't get it ever...in my opinion, you might as well have been left on the side of the road.

Thank you for this, Russ, that the point of therapy is dealing with the results. For so many years I refused to look at the results, in the name of "forgiveness", because I knew my parents' background. I understood that my dad had done better than was done to him and his sisters, and I understood that my mom had hurt me out of her own experience of being hurt, lost, and confused. In fact when my family went through some therapy when I was twelve, they both "apologized" to me...but it was presented in the form of an explanation, as if the explanation automatically fixed the hurt. But I don't remember there being any actual regret of the effect it had on me or my siblings...in fact, the results of their behaviors on us were not even looked at. For example, when I started to cry at my mother's explanation, which included revealing to me that I had a different biological father than the rest of my siblings, she became irritated and said "Oh come on, it's no big deal." And that was it. And my needs continued to not be met after that, in fact it was shortly after that that she abandoned us altogether. And for years I rejected any thoughts of doing "inner child work" as some kind of wallowing in self-pity. But I certainly don't see it that way anymore. Now I see it as insurance against doing the same thing to my "chicks" as BeeBee put it. Not the same exact things, but the main thing of not seeing and responding to their needs, whatever they are. Whatever they are. It is truly horrid to think that one of the effects of having had my needs neglected is that I would neglect my children's needs. But how can I see them if I don't acknowledge my own unmet needs from the past? And every day I look at this stuff, the blinders come down a little bit more, and I see and respond to their needs a little bit better. And there are so many little needs I miss, and I deeply deeply regret that, it is overwhelming sometimes. But when I miss them, at least I can truly apologize and try to do it different next time, instead of making excuses. Like in therapy, when I don't do it perfectly, because I will never do it perfectly, there can be healing in the repair.

SG

SG- (((((((SG))))))))

I am soooo sorry for what you've endured...see, I find it so funny that we seem to think we don't have anything to really mourn in the past and here you have been abandoned and negated in veeerrrry serious ways by someone you should have been able to trust! So it just goes to show that the pain really IS real, whether we tend to think we are just being overly-dramatic about it or not. No one could go throught what you went through with your mom "apologizing" which was really no apology at all, and telling you to get over it, it's no big deal (not true, but cleverly designed statement to make her feel better at the expense of stomping all over the integrity of your very real emotions. I think I got a lot of the same kind of thing...when I would cry, or was just depressed in general, I would be told by my dad or by one of my (much) older siblings that I was being a drama queen, shut up, everybody loves you, (said in a most sarcastic tone) and so on. So maybe all of this inability to accept emotions and pain as real comes from this kind of negation.

LL, I think I lost the ability to fantasize, too...and I think maybe that's why I tend to shove those thoughts away when they pop up now. But I'm realizing the more I think about it, that yes, I HAVE always had that type of fantasy, whether fully thought out or more just a sense of wanting something bad to happen so that I can feel loved.

Good for you, Songbird, for not stopping the hard work of uncovering all this stuff! We just keep chipping away at it, sometimes in utter confusion, but hoping that it will get somewhere if our T's will help guide when we go astray.

BB

BB,

I haven't had time to read everyone's posts to you but wanted to say that I could have written almost your entire original post myself. Please know you are understood and not alone. We have some similar 'stuff' you and I. Neglect can do some awful things to children, things that are hidden to us and just aren't so easy to detect. Emotional deprivation is one of them and that is the hardest one to 'see'. Neglect causes a lot of damage, but it really is hard to dig up the effects and make them concrete facts to examine and chip away at. Hang in there, BB. And trust in your T. He can see these things so much more easily that can you. You're such a wonderful person, not a drama queen, and you have real pain and heartache and things to heal from. You have such a tender heart and offer so much here on the boards. That compassion is something you've been blessed with and you use it well. Take good care of yourself BB! You are precious!

MTF

BB

quote:

when I would cry, or was just depressed in general, I would be told by my dad or by one of my (much) older siblings that I was being a drama queen, shut up, everybody loves you, (said in a most sarcastic tone) and so on

...and that teaches you a very sad lesson doesn't it?..that your feelings and emotions are unimportant and if that is said often enough, without any corrective feedback, from good parenting etc, then you eventually learn to believe it too. Also I think you eventually stop looking for any comfort because you know you won't find it Well I think that's certainly what happened to me and is my default now...don't tell anyone that I have needs, just in case they are not met, even though the people near me now Would meet those needs, it still feels too much of a risk.

Kepp tweeting BB, you are safe to do it here and will be heard most definitely,

starfish

quote:

Also I think you eventually stop looking for any comfort because you know you won't find it

starfish, bingo. you get your hand slapped enough, through ridicule, sarcasm or humiliation, my parents favorite tools, and you just DON'T extend it anymore and live a very protected life!!

bb, your quote: So maybe all of this inability to accept emotions and pain as real comes from this kind of negation.

wow, that is what i asked for the first three months in therapy.."is this real"...all my spinning and fog? if i would have had a broken arm it would have made sense that it hurt, but emotions were always INvalidated as weakness and 'you shouldn't feel that way, look at xy and z' so to REALLY FEEL EMOTIONS just seem bewildering...and then to have them validated?? better than sliced bread!! that freedom to FEEL, wow, gotta remember that for my kids.

great thread, BB, thanks for starting it