I know what you are saying, as I have had very similar dysfunctions all my life...
I think for me, the change came when I began to see myself as an adult, (same level as every other person) and that as an adult I have choices. I stopped seeing myself as a victim. Instead of being in the blaming mode, I began to see that it was my dysfunctional patterns in adulthood (learned from childhood) as the catalyst to my problems. This is when healing began, when I took responsibility.Once I could 100% acknowledge this, I started to feel in control, because it was something I could work through and change!!
Through EMDR therapy I was able to work through & process my traumas and all the negative emotions associated with them, so that they no longer hurt & triggered me. I was able to move forward which is very key. Also, in therapy, I was allowed to vocalize my thoughts and emotions to my P, and I was never judged, questioned or criticized. This helped me tremendously to the point, where I don't fear what other people think of me so much anymore and I actually feel like I have the right to speak! I found self respect for myself.
I think that therapy really helped me a lot because it gave me a safe place and a safe person to start practicing this and it boosted my confidence to be able to speak up and express myself and set boundaries in real life. I think through this experience, I see it as
a muscle.. Like, the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. In fact isn't everything like that? Each experience or encounter you have to stand up for yourself, take care of yourself, speak what's on your mind, the easier it gets.. the fear starts to lose it's grip and you start to see that not everyone is your abuser when that is what you were seeing. And it is fear of ____________ (rejection,abandonment,their anger, your anger, etc) that is the root, it's not about not wanting to hurt someone else's feelings as I always believed. Being able to deal with conflict
can be done with both truth and grace.
There's one thing that has stuck with me, that I read from a book. It's that when you are confronting someone about something, it means that you care, that you care enough to want to talk and work it out with one another because you want to maintain and have a good relationship with the other person. Not speaking up about it, on the contrary, would be the opposite, because things would start to slide. That was really a paradigm shift for me when I read that because I always saw confrontation and speaking up as such a negative. I still do have to remind myself of this new thinking whenever I revert back to a flash of my old thinking & I feel some hesitation...
It really does work because it is the truth, and the truth sets you free.Watch this video and see if it helps you..
I really love this website, it addresses some really great issues!
http://www.cloudtownsend.com/v...p?clip=townsendA1657
take care Flicka