The following is a cluster of related questions.
Why am I so hard on myself? Why am I constantly judging myself by standards both draconian and unfair? Why is my feeling of self-worth always on the line and why is the deck stacked so high against it? Why is my inner world so god damned dark??
My first answer to these questions is that it’s all part of how the pattern of internalized abuse works. Like all abusers, my internal one needs tools it can use to justify and enable the abuse because that’s the only way the abuser knows to regulate their emotions : to take their anger out on their chosen victim. me.
And like any other abuser, my inner tormentor is perfectly willing to lie, cheat, manipulate, arm-twist. and uses terror tactics to get the sweet release that comes from putting the negative emotions that you can’t handle uourself into someone else and thus expressing them via proxy.
That’s why abusers are often super nice – even apologetic – right after the abuse. They got the stress and anger out by putting it into you, and now they feel great.
Internalized abuse has the same sort of high attached to it, but seeing as you are also the victim, it doesn’t help much.
Nevertheless, the tension et al is relieved.. in the worst possible way.
And I have wandered off from my own specific case and into the greener meadows of the general concept with which I feel safe.
Back to the basics : Why am I such a dick to myself?
Of course, there is more to it than self-abuse. That is only a possibility because of my often tragically low self-esteem.
Which is a product of the self-abuse as well, naturally.
And my mind will invent all kinds of reasons for me to hate myself but the truth is that the emotion comes first, the explanations second./
I don’t need a reason. The emotion is there whether it’s justified or not.
Which brings me to The Wound.
That’s what I call the enormous mass of psychological scar tissue and unresolved emotion that I have been carrying around ever since I was raped when I was 4.
That’s where my toxic self-hatred comes from. and until I can resolve this primary trauma somehow. the self-hatred, shame, and pain are not going to go away.
But it’s such a daunting task. Toxic though it may be, this primary trauma is at the very heart of my psyche. So much of who I became was structured around this Wound of mine – to protect it, shield it, sustain it, and deal with all the costs associated with keeping that brutal monster down.
So what happens when it’s gone? I keep telling myself that it’s impossible to drive yourself insane just by thinking the wrong thoughts, but I ain’t buying it.
Still, it’s something I have to do. I have to climb up that mountain and face my most ancient of demons and that means feeling a lot of very bad stuff that I have had on pause for 45 god damned years.
Maybe I will fall apart as a result. That will just make room for me to reboot myself and start over fresh with a much healthier mind, body, and soul.
And I will still be me.
Because that’s all that I can ever be.
I guess we’ll see.
More after the break.
Another sunset storm
Another brain frying late afternoon into night nap.
Oh well. Whatever. Guess is the new normal. I can live with that.
The tragically absurd thing is that this is the closest I get to normal sleep;, because at .least I am sleeping at least mostly at night and in a large bloc as opposed to an hour and half here and two and a half hours there.
This time I slept for almost five hours! That’s gotta be a record.
Back to my Wound. (yay?)
I’ve carried this damage around for so long that it’s hard to imagine life without it. When I try, I get this silly image of myself suddenly growing so light and shiny that I float off into the sky.
I’ve had nightmares like that.
I wonder if for a less neurotic person., that would be a glorious dream of flying.
Instead, I get a terrifying battle with oblivion as I cling to the ground in a desperate fight not to disappear into the brigjht blue sky forever.
That has to be symbolic as fuck, doesn’t it?
One of these times I should just let goi and see what happens. I mean, it’s just a dream. Worst case scenario, I wake up scared.
Oh, and I might have to kick Freddie Kruger’s ass again. Man, that guy never learns.
One thing that came up in yesterday’s therapy session was that I haven’t remembered a dream in quite a while.
Doc Costin suggested a technique by which I might start remembering them.
And my first thought was, “But I don’t want to remember them!”.
Which was a surprise. I had no idea I felt that way. But my mind balked at the very notion of remembering my dreams.
Apparently, my subconscious has stuff going on when I sleep that it feels the need to keep hidden from my conscious mind.
I can’t blame it. My conscious mind is not to be trusted. It’s crazy and dangerous and reckless and ruins everything it touches.
I wish I could purify it. And I probably could if I could get my act together and keep my blood sugar and get more exercise and use my CPAP and all the rest.
No doubt I would feel one hell of a lot better, and you would think that would be sufficient to motivate me to do it.
But you’d be wrong.
For one thing, I have felt this way for a really long time. So I don’t have a memory of feeling better to draw me forward towards that incandescent goal.
So it’s all theoretical to me. And theory doesn’t motivate.
Who knows, though. Maybe one day the flood will come, and I will be reborn.
I hope I do a better job of being born the second time around.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.