Feeling our original pain : some insights from John Bradshaw

Re reading Homecoming by John Bradshaw is helping me no end to make sense of so many of the feelings and thoughts of deep shame and self blame I struggled with over years. I was heartened when I learned a few years into alcoholism that I was not to blame for the family dysfunction I was asked to carry as a scapegoat or family carrier of painful shadow stuff. One of my most popular posts on here is on the Scapegoat and when I read Sylvia Bretton Perrera’s book on the scapegoat complex at around 7 years into sobriety it resonated as it is in effect about the disabled fight response that occurs in emotionally repressive families causing such childhood wounding and trauma.

Bradshaw makes the point that as children our feelings over what happened to us at the hands of wounded or unconscious adults are shamed and blocked by shame. We all know the saying “cry and I’ll give you something to cry about,” if tears and protest were not allowed at what happened to us when we were violated and we were told we were bad then, in the absence of an enlightened witness or other validator in the family, we take that on and internalise it deeply and we may turn against what our inner self is trying to communicate to us in a form of argument, experiencing ongoing second guessing and self doubt making ourselves mentally ill and taking on that label as the identified patient..

Bradshaw explains how not being allowed to have our feelings and having to turn them inwards turns us into addicts or avoiders. As we enter sobriety putting down our substance of choice is just the start, without necessary emotional recovery work, and it is okay to get angry about what happened to us even if it was not intentional on behalf of our parents or siblings, and the younger we are the more abuse and disconnection we may have suffered.

Shock is also a first reaction to encompassing our inner grief process in recovery. We have erected poweful defences of denial supported by parents or siblings as we grow. In recovery when we begin to face the truth of what happened to us it comes as a shock. Bradshaw makes the point that after shock often comes depression, debilitation and then denial. Taking on board the full truth may seem too much and at this point we may get ill on an immune level, as the body’s deep ‘No’ is silenced.

Bradshaw also makes the point that when it wasn’t okay to feel what we felt, see what we saw and know what we know we get strangled and we must cough up these feelings but only in the right setting which is why good emotional and therapeutic work is necessary with a competent and recovered therapist, as so much further abuse may occur at the hands of some psychiatrists, therapists or ‘healers’.

After depression and shock comes anger and sometimes rage… for some of us the repressed rage maybe both enormous and multi-generational.. it may not have had a voice for centuries. Facing the reality of our spiritual wounding to our sense of true self takes time and is a process, at this point no matter what happened to us at the hands of others we MUST TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR OWN HEALING.

Hurt and sadness follow anger and, in my experience, oscillate with it…at this stage we grieve what we didn’t get, what we lost, what cannot be repaired, and what we had no power over. Remorse often follows as we see what occurred as a result of our wounding and wish it could be changed, we may blame ourself when we are really being given deep lessons in triggering, inner wounds, responsibility and respondabilty (as opposed to react-ability.)

Bradshaw writes:

in grieving childhood abandonment, you must help your wounded inner child to see that there was nothing he or she could have done differently. His (or her) pain is about what happened to him (or her), not about him (or her).

Toxic shame and loneliness often also occur as we heal, when we are abandoned we believe it is our fault. This deep and painful wound may only come up later in life when the abandonment repeats on some level for the purposes of us becoming conscious of our original pain. People who feel shame, hide true feelings and vulnerability, they become chameleons or people pleasers to hide the wound. According to Bradshaw staying with these later feelings and making them conscious through expression is the hardest part of the grief process as we bring the hidden self out of isolation and hiding. When we open up to those who validate us, as in a 5th step we recover a sense of self that is true and real despite pain. There is no way to avoid our deep grief and feeling work and it hurts. ..In the end we cannot heal what we will not allow ourselves to feel, make conscious and release.