A lot of trauma that those of us with Complex PTSD carry is preverbal and if this is the case the point Ross Rosenberg makes in his healing training.. Healing the Inner Trauma Child (H.I.T.C.H.) then those traumatic memories and events will not often be available as conscious accessible memories but will be stored in the limbic system in terms of vague body symptoms or cascades of affect and anxiety that appear when triggered without our conscious knowing exactly of what that trigger may refer to..(much of this may also have been passed down epigenetically by parents and grandparents and our ancestors)
Also early trauma that is not validated (as it cannot be by parents who enact it or carry their own) leads us to a deficiency of self knowing, self compassion as well as to profound deficits of self love. It occurred to me that when someone goes into a catatonic state it may seem like not a lot is happening but inside the trauma body a lot is going on in such a traumatic freeze/collapse state. The term that Ross Rosenberg uses for the core wound underlying the myriad complex and often confusing symptoms of such childhood trauma : pathological loneliness makes a lot of sense to me, it seem an apt name for what a lot of people in 12 step fellowships refer to as ‘the hole in the soul.’ and is often given the vague but somewhat confusing label ‘co-dependence.’
In the first video of his training on childhood trauma Ross clearly explains what led him to name the condition Self Love Deficit Disorder and when you look at what human beings increasingly seem to put themselves through to ‘prove’ their worth while never once addressing the underlying injuries or wounds it becomes particularly fascinating and a widespread condition for so many at this particular time in our human history/evolution. We are increasingly complex mysteries to one another.
I am giving up at the moment on my sister ever getting the right help.. I just understand so much more now than I ever did before that people are not going to understand or congratulate you on taking that inner journey and finding ways to contact past memories is difficult when they only appear as body signals or symptoms that can be baffling. This may be one of the reasons too that dreams can be so powerful in that they can record in metaphorical language deeper psychic realities we may have lived when small and unaware. I do believe and have experienced as have countless others that once we start the journey of waking up dreams images do step in to assist us in our understanding of the psyche as Carl Jung so clearly demonstrated in his own work.
For example at the moment with the way I am working with body memory and patterns all stored around my left shoulder and armpit as well as the back of that upper part of my spine around the left shoulder blade (very close to the site of my 2016 cancer surgery) is bringing to mind a powerful dream I had after Jonathan left and I was stuck smack bang in the middle of my enmeshment with my Mum and second sister. In the dream I was in my teenage years and in the change room at their clothing store and I had a dress on but the dress was partially melded to wire coat hanger that was sewn painfully through that side of my shoulder with a kind of barbed wire, in the dream I was struggling to get it off.
The issue came up this week of how I tried to orient around the both of them especially after coming home in 2011 and of how stuck and unproductive that was for me in terms of feeling my feelings. As a compensation I went along on trips where nothing interested me, just so I would not be alone.. I also tried to support them both through both multiple physical and mental illnesses a times being deeply stung by their criticism and lack of empathy and understanding.. Even in the letter I read to Kat this week in therapy that Mum wrote to me in 2001 she was still blaming me for being ‘immature’ and not taking responsibility for her lack of attunement by claiming I used to push her away when it was actually her own anger, impatience and irritability and stored up neglect that used to do that. ..
At times after Mum’s death this living sister and I have managed to connect in small ways but I still obviously carried a lot of rage and hurt that I could not give voice to and that would visit me as a kind of pent up anxiety and outbursts of silent grief whenever we connected or I tried (impossibly and all to no avail as i see it now) to support her. Lately I am just seeing how much of magical thinking was involved in ever thinking I could really help my sister and how unwise and childish it was to put any kind of blame on her son or my brother for not knowing how to help either.. I really did a disservice by writing about it in the way I did but the truth is at the time that was the only manner of ‘understanding’ I was capable of. Giving voice to some of it in the email I sent to them though I do not feel was wrong.. it was all part of my path..
Listening to some informative videos by Les Carter on narcissists and how they never take any blame and always tend to project their own insecurity and shame has also been useful this week Those of us who wish to mature must always open to necessary learning… On the pathological end a narcissitically wounded person does not see they have any flaws at all, they never do anything wrong and they are not open to learning, also when they end a relationship with you, you will be the focus of blame. This applies to most of the serious relationships I was involved in over the course of my life. Narcissists also will not let you have your own voice or point of view.. An example the other day was of someone trying to block me as I drew attention to something they did not want to have to face.. there may be a time to sidestep things but to my mind it helps to keep an open mind at times to new things we may be able to learn that may help us grow..
I am aware that I stared to understand how much I needed to grow myself and of how arrested I was when I got sober in 1993 as transiting Chiron in Virgo passed over my natal Pluto in the first house while opposing natal Chiron in Pisces in the seventh (most of us born during the 1960s have Chiron in Pisces in opposition to Pluto and some of you have Saturn in Pisces there too). It was then that I then started to turn and look towards therapy and outside of the rooms of AA alone recognising the level of pain so many carried ‘in the rooms’. That choice is not something those in my family ever seemed that interested in and some members tried to pooh pooh or actively discourage it.
So for now I am just happy to go my own way and pursue my own pathway of healing.. I do trust my dreams and I am grateful to have come across Ross Rosenberg’s training on how we can turn a deficit of self love into an abundance of self love, narcissists may claim we are being self centered or selfish for focusing on our own growth or needs but those of us who never were allowed them do have to do work to break those unhealthy trauma bonds to parental substitutes. Often this diminishment of us is just a tactic they try to use to gaslight, invalidate or derail our emotional growth, expansion and learning.
Emerging From The Dark Night 