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Posts Tagged ‘self-worth’

A Re-enactment or How Transference is a B**** Part II

February 18, 2015 21 comments

This is the second part of a two part series, part one can be found here.

So I showed for the next session, prepared to tackle the topic again. After telling him quite emphatically that I did not want him to answer me, I told him how the question of whether he found me attractive can press on me. I shared some things that came out of my discussion on the forum, which is that I am struggling to accept my body and my sexuality, so I think I crave affirmation from him, because if he can accept my body and even find me attractive, then I somehow become acceptable. Which isn’t remotely true, although it can feel very powerful. It is my own acceptance that is important. Besides, I wouldn’t believe him anyway until I come to terms. I then expressed that I also thought that part of the dynamic was that a father is ideally supposed to affirm his daughter’s attractiveness while keeping her safe by in no way acting on it. Basically, I’m looking at BN and asking “Daddy, am I pretty?” But the truth is, I got neither of those things from my father. Neither affirmation or safety. Continue Reading

Categories: abandonment, ambivalance, boundaries, childhood sexual abuse (CSA), disorganized attachment, Emotional regulation, self-worth, sexual attraction, shame, transference, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , ,

A Re-enactment or How Transference is a B**** Part I

February 17, 2015 31 comments

Greetings gentle readers,
I’m back from vacation, which was quite refreshing. I have not been blogging for several reasons: work was a bit busy (I am the technical documentation department so nothing gets done while I’m gone), I was catching up on my correspondence (which, alas, is still not complete) and my return to therapy was a bit rough. Note: I started writing this about two weeks back then got hit by an ubervirus that morphed into bronchitis and kicked off my asthma. I am now on enough steroids to lift a building after the second visit to my doctor and slowly trying to recover a normal energy level. And we have about four feet of snow and -1 degree weather. I am NOT a big fan of February. Continue Reading

Categories: acceptance, ambivalance, childhood sexual abuse (CSA), disassociation, Emotional regulation, grief, healing, self-worth, sexual attraction, shame, transference, trauma, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , ,

My Core of Shame

March 5, 2014 57 comments

Greetings gentle readers,

I have been doing very intense work lately in therapy, mainly centered around shame. A deep, excoriating shame provoked when I go anywhere near talking about my body or my weight. In the midst of attempting to engage with the shame (which has been a slow, disjointed process because I just DO NOT WANT TO GO THERE), a situation occurred in my life that has triggered a massive amount of shame to be kicked up. One of those “coincidences” in therapy that neither BN or I believe in. Continue Reading

Categories: acceptance, attachment styles, avoidance, disassociation, disorganized attachment, Emotional regulation, feelings, healing, insecure attachment, self-worth, shame Tags: , , , ,

Everyone Has Closets

December 10, 2013 28 comments

I just finished watching Ash Beckham’s talk at TEDx and had to share it. I thought this was a wonderful, impassioned plea to treat both ourselves and others with compassion and empathy. I really appreciated how open and honest she was about all of her feelings and thoughts, and in a very self-deprecating manner. Even if you think this isn’t your cup of tea, please trust me and take a sip. You will not regret the time you spend.

A 4-Year-Old Girl Asked A Lesbian If She’s A Boy. She Responded The Awesomest Way Possible.

Categories: acceptance, anger, art, encouragement, forgiveness, healing, hope, self-worth, videos Tags: , , , , , ,

Reliving the Shame

September 24, 2013 38 comments

I just had a deep insight into shame (which I suspect is going to sound D’oh when I say it) that I want to write down before I forget. I have been doing some rather intense work in therapy lately, which I will eventually talk about when I can find words. It has centered around my feelings about my body, my hatred of my body, the deep shame that I try to make about my body but which is actually about me, all of me (ironically enough since part of the work is accepting that my body IS part of me). Continue Reading

Categories: ambivalance, avoidance, boundaries, Boundary Ninja, childhood sexual abuse (CSA), disassociation, disorganized attachment, healing, love, needs, pain, self-worth, shame, transference, trauma, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , ,

Sorting the Past

January 18, 2013 28 comments

In the comments after my last post, It’s still no, but still helpful, a number of questions were asked that I felt needed a longer answer than I would want to put in a comment and since they were all related, I decided to address them in a new post. They appear below:

Greeneyes: … how did on earth have you gotten through the struggle of accepting there’s so much we can’t get that we want? And how have you gotten through how painful the therapy boundaries are?

MetaMantraMe: How can we tell if we really are being denied something in the current time that we should be receiving? Or if it is, indeed, a projection of the unmet, and old, need from before onto today?

Liese: … when will we know that we’ve grieved all the losses from the past and that what is happening to us in the present is from the present? In other words, when will our feelings simply be about what is going on now?

Read more…

Categories: acceptance, ambivalance, anger, boundaries, dependence, disassociation, earned attachment, feelings, hate, healing, hope, limbic resonance, needs, pain, perserverence, safety, self-worth, shame, transference Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

How do I fill the void?

September 11, 2012 60 comments

Dpblusee left the following question in response to the “Therapy isn’t enough” post:

I don’t believe I have ever felt true, authentic love in my life until it was evoked in my therapy (which, for me, feels more like I am perceiving it and asking for it than receiving, since the T can’t truly give the parental love, in that way as you describe, that is needed to fill the gap).

If I never received it and didn’t know what it felt like until now, where can it come from to fill the void that was left from childhood? I would imagine it can never truly be filled, so how is this wound healed?

Instead of responding in the comments, I thought this would make a good topic for a post, so with her kind permission, I am going to answer her here. For most of my life, I carried within me the sense of a terrible abyss, a void, which threatened to swallow me up and destroy me. I can still remember the shock when I realized it was no longer there, and my amazement as I shared that realization with BN. So, while there may not be a way to fill the void, I do believe there is a way to close it. Continue Reading

Categories: acceptance, ambivalance, boundaries, childhood sexual abuse (CSA), commitment, dependence, disorganized attachment, earned attachment, encouragement, feelings, healing, limbic resonance, love, needs, self-worth Tags: , , , , , , ,

The Paradox of Shame – Part II

July 29, 2012 27 comments

Greetings, gentle readers, thank you for your patience in waiting for the followup. 🙂 This is the second half of a post started in The Paradox of Shame – Part I.

The level of shame and embarrassment surrounding finding out about BN’s relationship with this author was almost indescribable and I found it extremely difficult to actually GO to the appointment. I basically managed by refusing to think about it that morning. Every time I started to think about what it would be like or imagine what I would say or BN would reply, I would just shut it down in order to stop myself from being overwhelmed to a point of not being able to function. And I kept focusing on my breathing and slowing it down. It helps that I’m the best terrified driver in the world.  Being in therapy for so long, has given me plenty of opportunities to practice. 🙂 Continue Reading

Categories: acceptance, art, boundaries, earned attachment, Emotional regulation, healing, hope, love, self-worth, shame Tags: , , , ,

Forgot How Good This Was

June 20, 2012 9 comments

I had my Ipod on “shuffle all” which I do occasionally when I can’t decide what I’m in the mood for. I have wildly eclectic taste in music (some people have implied it gives them whiplash :D) so when I do this I have no idea what will turn up. One of the reasons I like to do it. The other reason is that once in a while, something you REALLY love, but haven’t heard in a long time, pops up. That happened this morning. And it’s so good I wanted to share it. I hope you enjoy it as much I do. 🙂

Baz Luhrman’s Everyone’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

Favorite lines: “You’re not as fat as you imagine” and “you’ll miss them when they’re gone.” 🙂

Categories: encouragement, Funny, healing, hope, perserverence, self-worth Tags: ,

Shackles

June 14, 2012 16 comments

Greetings gentle readers. I have returned safely from a wonderful, refreshing vacation, but re-entry was a bit bumpy. 🙂 We brought back a stomach virus, to which I added some asthma and sinus problems, so I’m sloooooowwwwly getting back into a normal rhythm. It was really nice to be away, but it’s also really nice to be back. 🙂

I wanted to share with you an analogy about healing that I thought many people might find helpful (h/t to Blackbird as it was during a discussion with her on psychcafe that I first came up with this one :)). When I first started seeing BN, the prism through which I saw myself was one of pathology. That I had been injured and damaged by the abuse and I needed to be “fixed.” One of the greatest gifts that BN has given me (which is saying a lot as the list is quite long) was instead seeing my struggles as development gone awry. That there was nothing fundamentally “broken” or “wrong” about me. I just had not gotten what I needed or been taught what I needed to know. That anyone who had endured what I did would have similar struggles with similar issues; my reactions were reasonable, it was the circumstances that produced them that were unreasonable. Continue Reading

Categories: acceptance, ambivalance, childhood sexual abuse (CSA), encouragement, healing, hope, perserverence, self-worth, trauma Tags: , ,