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CBT and childhood traumas

11 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Hi Davit,

Your honesty really resonates with me. really means a lot to me.

I go back and forth. There's still a lot of anger. Why can't I just be accepted for who I am? There's a lot of anger. There's a lot of confusion. I figure given enough time with a long life this will sort itself out within me but in the meantime it is really hard living angry and confused.

A part of me feels wise in that I suspect this is the process, there is no getting aroudn it. For years I just tried and tried to be an apple, not just act like one but be one. Or I told myself that I really am an apple, I just seem like an orange because of my past trauma, once I treat that, I'll be a happy apple. I no longer believe that. I've spent some time around happy apples and I have no connection to how they live their life. They seem like aliens to me.

i want to be an apple because they don't seem to struggle with moods like I do. I have asked for help for my mood but no one seems to see any problem. And yet it affects my life greatly.

11 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

loves trees

How bad do you really want to be an apple. To be one you will have to give up most of what you are, not all but most of it and it will be just as hard. It is hard having one foot in both worlds. But it can be done. I'm doing it. It has become my personality. Mr parrot maybe. No that is what it used to be. Now I'm just comfortable in what ever world I'm in at the time. I can be because I'm an introvert and when I go home I turn back into an orange. Not instantly but always.

From what I have seen of happy people, their friends are not similar, they have different interests or different ways of doing the same interest. In this case 2 + 2 makes 4 . Where as if you are too similar it makes 0. Friends and partners that are clones of each other become apples even if when alone they are oranges. And they will always clash. One will always try to lead the other. Yet if your friends are individual you have something in common, the ability to converse and learn and not be bored from listening to something you already know. What good does it do for a wife to say to her husband when he comes in from the garden "how are the cabbages" if she already knows. Or him to say "how were the kids" if she demands he spend all his time with them. A sheep doesn't care what the other sheep are doing because they are all doing the same thing. Eating and pooping is there whole life. Just once it would be nice if they got on their hind legs and danced. But that would make them oranges. But they are not required to be happy, just sheep and they don't know or want to be anything but sheep.

I would recommend you look up the test on the internet by jung preferably. It is 50 or so questions and will tell you if you really are an extrovert and what to expect from it. From there you can figure out what kind of people to seek out so you don't seek clones of yourself. This way you can be among apples and stay an orange at the end of the day. And you can live a very interesting life even if it is being annoyed by idiots some of the time.

Am I right in guessing you still have self esteem issues in this want to be an apple. For my part I like your individuality and find you very interesting and intelligent. Definitely an orange. A shame to waste that becoming a full time apple. But if you think being an apple is the answer still then that is what you must do. You will get no argument from me. Well maybe a subtle one.

Davit.

11 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

It really doesn't feel worth it lately. I wish I was an apple. I know you , and other people in my life are happy i am an orange but I am not happy I am an orange. It is too hard and I am exhausted.

I wish someone could help me to find a life that feels right for me. Working for apples, dealing with apples, having no family, it is too much. Most people I meet can see I am different and they do not want to be friends with me or even get to know me at all. Or they want to take advantage of me. Or they are oranges but they are too busy or they have their guard up from years of their own exhausted path.

11 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

It isn't total coincidence what apples rhymes with. But it wasn't my intention. Once you accept you are different and special it becomes easier to deal with them. According to Jung I'm an introvert yet here I am happily conversing with people I don't really know. Yet in a few minutes I will be sitting in my garden picking and sorting apples (real ones) by my self unless a cat joins me. And later I will go to the store for milk and talk to people. Most will be apples. I'm different so their are few oranges. Still I find them interesting and few if any do I want to be like yet they are considered normal. I have a right to be who I am as long as I am not intensionally hurting any one, and contrary to the belief of at least one person I do not intentionally hurt people. I'm not sure if this person doesn't. See there is a pattern there that is not obvious. It is possible to hurt yourself and blame others even though all they did was be themselves. And to them we are apples and they are oranges. That is how the world works. But that is no reason to be like them. We are all individual and we are all special. After all who with any intelligence wants to join the flock and lose their individuality. Even if at times you think you do as indicated by how sad it makes you. Being an orange is not easy. But it is worth it.

Davit

11 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

That is making a lot of sense to me right now Davit.

On the one hand, I want to feel I belong in the places I am in, but since most people are apples, this is just frustrating.

Then I come home, and being alone is very hard so then I feel awful about that.

It is a daily challenge. I am an extrovert so I want to be around people, but apples just make me feel bad about myself.

. I am trying to go to places where I could meet people who are more like me but there is no trick to that, it is hit and miss.

On the whole things are getting easier but I am still alone too much. I have to process all of this by myself because I have not found anyone to trust to help me. We have really crappy health services where I live. A lot of money has been spent. no wasted, on people who refused to help.

One thing that has improved is I am more mindful of where my time and energy is going. I am directing more of it towards myself rather than trying to change other people. There are some people in my life who are just apples and I am trying to stop wanting them to change.

11 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

loves trees

No matter who you are there are two kinds of people Oranges, (us) and apples (them) You have to be with apples some of the time but you can still be an orange and I know how hard it can be and how easy it is to parrot apples. But remember you are an orange and at the end of the day you better feel like an orange even if you have to stand in front of the mirror and say it. Losing your identity to others is not good and leads to depression. Some times when I'm with a group of apples at a coffee shop I go home sad because they have rubbed off on me and I don't want to be an apple, I'm an orange, an intelligent happy with myself orange. Even a good orange friend who has been among the apples can rub it off on you. People can be both. The thing is to not let it stick. Some times you have to be an apple to fit in among them, but when you are alone or among oranges that is what you want to be. And never doubt it for a minute, you are an orange. Be proud of it.

The difference between acceptance and escape is although you accept it because you have to you can still try to work with it. Where as escape is escaping because you want to with no intention of working with it. Escaping and accepting at the same time gives you the option of doing either in the future and believe me some times escape is the only answer at the time.

Some times a core can make you do some very elaborate things to avoid doing what another core won't let you do. It can leave you feeling embarrassed or wondering where that came from. Often saying why did I do that. That is not like me. No it isn't like you until something triggers that specific core. So how do you treat it if it is so powerful it won't let you. Or it hides. This is where therapists earn their money by pointing you in the right direction so you find it. It does no good for them to point it out because it will deny it exists. You will deny it exists. This happens among people you love and trust even. But if you can get past the distrust core and trust some one then they can help you find and fight this very powerful core that is making you go to all this trouble to hide a core you don't want to admit you have. I know first hand how hard it is to help some one find one of these. Impossible some times if it is attached to trauma. How to tell is if you can not replay all of the sequence of the trauma. If any is missing that is where to start because you can even lie to yourself about trauma. The lie can be subtle. This is why single witnesses to a traumatic event are seldom reliable and even multiple witnesses may remember it different depending on what their cores will allow.

Davit , being confusing as usual so please read it more than once if you have to.

11 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Davit,

I apologize greatly for not responding sooner.

First off, I can settle your first question - yes you are different. You think about life.

Personally, and I suspect you will agree, it is impossible to determine if something is escape or acceptance because I think most of the big picutre questions come down to being 2 things at once. Its escape, and its acceptance at the same time. Am I me, or am I affected by other people? Both. Am I satisfied or should I keep pushing for more? It is a bit of both, for people who are able to see life in a way where you see that it is both, at the same time.

I think I get what you are describing in the first part of your post about core beliefs making you do some weird things. you could elaborate on it to see if it resonates with others. i agree, this topic could use more input.

This sounds judgemental but there are a lot of people preoccupied with things you and I could care less about, and vice versa. This has been my big lesson the last few years. What do to with these people? If I spend too much time around them I start to judge myself for being so different from them.

If I could truly describe the stage I am at, that would probably go a long way to understanding what to do next. I do'nt want to live with so much anxiety, but honestly it feels like a part of it is part of me now, but then there are times when I think, ugh, its the people I am around, they are not letting me be myself, be happy, grow, be open. I think I am tired. I am tired of how much work this is, and how it is always 2 steps forward 1 step back. I am tired of having so little support. I am tired of being tired. I am worn out by the energy required to overcome.

I am so glad you are able to build new core beliefs and let the bad memories fade. I think I have done some good work with my core beliefs BUt my mind still lives in the past too much.

Sunflower thank you for your post also. The childhood trauma stuff has become exhausting . I am glad you get what i am talking about there.

11 years ago 0 +0 / -0 250

I used to use anxiety to soothe or preoccupy myself too. I was a worrying child. I remember being 3 or 4 and worrying about looking silly. I remember accidentally putting my head my mom's friend's lap by accident because they had switched chairs. I remember them laughing at me and meanwhile I was obviously looking for comfort. I remember it so vividly.

As I have learned more about life, myself and panic I have realized that worrying isn't soothing. It just rehashes things over and over. I used to think it was productive looking for all the scenarios, all that could go wrong until my mind just sought out what could go wrong. My mind didn't stop and think, "Gee, what happens if it goes really well?" Meanwhile that positive scenario is as likely to happen as a negative one. And really, what is positive or negative in the grand scheme of things?

I find myself, now, trying to replace my worry sessions. They are not really productive. I am using a tool called Living Life to the Fullest. It's a website with a lot of help along with this one of course. They suggest using a worry time. A scheduled time when you can stop and worry to your hearts content. If you find yourself slipping and trying to worry, you just stop yourself and make yourself wait until that designated time.

Maybe that would help?

Do you find that you miss the constant worry? I do, or did. I guess without that soothing activity we need to fill it up with something else. Like focusing outward, away from our inner thoughts. Busy making I guess. I know that helps me.

As for childhood trauma I think things take time. You will change your perspective as you learn more and age.

Sunflower

11 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

Everyone.

I still think this needs more input from other people. We are all different so how has our childhood effected us? How much is it keeping us from being what we think we should be? And how much is it trying to make us what we don't need to be?

Davit.

Ps An interesting thing has happened in the last five years. I have kept every good memory from the past and let the bad ones fade. I think I'm building new core beliefs. Good ones.

11 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

Hello loves trees

Do I have to change anything is a question I ask myself often. With a "I'm a freak" core I've thought I did. Now it is really just an "I'm different" core. But cores tend to exaggerate. It is not so much my childhood that bothers me as that I had no option and the more the cores it was building gained control the less option I had. And worse was that the more then that I wanted to be someone else. Everyone else seemed to have a better life. It didn't take long to develop the idea that I would never attain it. And along with this came the thought that I had no right to it. So I never aimed for the goals others did, home, family, new car and all the toys that go with it. But I still wanted them. And got them in a sideways way within the parameters of my cores. It made me do some weird things. When I bought things I bought the best but not flashy so they wouldn't stand out because I thought I had no right to them. I had a truck that ran like a top but was very plain outside. I lived in a cabin on the lake set back where it couldn't be seen with no driveway to it. Plain outside but inside it had carpet and oak cabinets. Am I sounding weird. Cores do that to you.

When I moved all that changed. I left a world built on the past and entered one built on the present. The core was still there but the world I was hiding from was gone. I could be just like everyone else now. And I tried but it didn't work. I had the wife and a new truck and a brand new home. I even had horses, something I never had before. So here I was driving down the road in my new truck with my dog in the back and my wife going out to ride our horses. About as normal as normal gets. D....n core was still there only this time it was saying this is not you. And it is not. What I really wanted was to go somewhere isolated and build something, something I didn't have to compare and compete with. So I did. Is this escape or is it acceptance? Is it living within the parameters of my core beliefs? Or more likely is it being who I am because of what my childhood made me? This is more likely it because of the cores that childhood built. The question we have here is simply, is it wrong and does it need to be changed? And the answer to that question is another question. Is it messing my life up? Am I unhappy? Only when I'm stupid enough to look at that world I don't really want and don't feel comfortable in. I'd like to have my old truck back and my cabin on the lake but I still do in my memory.

I moved here because there are a lot of people just like me living a way of life that is different from most of the rest of the world. Are we all escaping, or is this normal? Did they all have childhoods that made them how they are? But the biggest question is are we normal and the rest of the world insane. The rest of the world works too hard so they can have two weeks holiday that costs them more than my heating bill. They have to have all the things necessary for show that wear out rather fast and on purpose. Their life is hectic, and for most they live like mice crowded into too small of a space practically living on top of each other. All because they think this is normal. Well it is, it just is a warped definition of normal. So it boils down to, to hell with my core beliefs. To hell with the bad parts of my childhood that built them, I'll keep the good memories. I like me and I like my life for the most part and that is pretty good. Is this acceptance, I don't know but I know that it is stress free except for money and health issues which I would still have where ever and how ever I lived. Freedom came from accepting I can be happy just being who I am. Where I am and how I am.

Davit.

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CBT and childhood traumas