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Post by Goldilocks on Apr 20, 2018 17:18:05 GMT
The first time I have really cried my heart out for baby Goldilocks, was because I have lacked safety. It was soon after my father had died, and I cried and screamed so much that my neighbour came over. She thought I was crying because I missed my father as I could not explain the situaton to her beyond telling her about my father´s death. In reality I was crying because all the safety needs I realise I actually had that my father could not give me and had not given me and the danger he has put me in.
My father has severely neglected me when I was very small. As he was drinking and not working, my mother had to be the provider. He has left me home alone as a baby at least twice and had been home drunk and not performing any care several times. That I know from my mother and the divorce papers. My father has told me about letting me fetch his beers when I was a toddler. At some point after my second birthday, there has been a very dangerous abusive situation and my mother realised that my life was in danger and started the divorce process. those things I know with relative certainty. My mother has also told me my father has beaten me badly once. My father took baby Goldi to bars and god knows what could have happened.
I grieved about having been exposed to my father when we had visitation. At age 11 I ended it because I started seeing into his character and realised I could not be in contact with him and grow up in a healthy way. My father has been dead to me to some degree from that point onwards. I used to resent my mother for wanting the visitation while knowing, yet not telling me that my father had been violent with others and killed his pet during that time. Now I have peace with her decision and the need for me to end contact with my father, because in the end, this has not given me the opportunity to romanticize my father. Having to be the one to dismiss my father has made me DA, with all th strengths and all the pains this entails. Yet I also mourn for the child that has been exposed to the risk of needless death.
Inner child Goldilocks had to be quiet and not need much and had to be wiser an tougher and more clever than the adults and it was really hard. She was never truly safe enough to relax and be playful and foolish and all the things children can normally be.
After his mother died, my father has told my uncle he had read a book about how NPD can stem from an unhealthy relationschip with the mother and that he believed he had this. I know my grandmother used my father as a partner and best friend when he was really young. My father had very low empathy and I also think he did have NPD, possibly even ASPD. He was not capable of love, but did love me within his limited ability. But it was like he loved his computer or a rare book or plant. Not enough for me as his love was neither safe nor warm. I have not been able to love him, but I have forgiven him. I do love my mother very much. She has done the best she could in a hard situation and has warmth in her heart for me.
Deep down, I feel love is not safe.
Mostly because of my father, as he really was a dangerous person. His close friend and his sibling have verified this. Forming this concept was completely logical for baby goldi.
Now for child goldi from age 3, the risk of physical harm was a lot less, as my father was not in the house anymore. But I did not get the level calm and peace that I had needed to heal from the deep hurts of early childhood. I have now given myself a calm, peaceful house where I can be alone. I really wish I had had that as a child.
While I am grateful that my mother kept me from serious abuse and was consistent with care, feeding, cuddles and play, she too was mildly abusive though she never intended to be. She raised her voice to me several times every week and has hit me twice in childhood and once as a young adult. She was scary when she was angry. Her heart is truly kind, but her upbringing has been very abusive raised to sacrifice herself and her kindness was applied in unhealthy dynamics. There was a vicious cycle of my mother feeling the compulsion to help people who were toxic, either bringing them in the house and making our homelife less safe and calm or letting them drain her as she could not say no. Once she was drained, the stress kept her on edge and frustrated. Much like a boil that is filled to the brink with other people's toxic mess. I was not a naughty child, I was not even an average child. I was a very quiet child, too quiet according to my teachers. But like a full boil, my mother was often ready to pop. I did not feel safe being anything but a very quiet child with few needs. I never felt truly safe in childhood period. I felt both fear and resentment throughout my childhood and teens. I cried most nights in my early teens.
This is like a puzzle I am finding pieces of and putting together.
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Post by Goldilocks on Apr 20, 2018 17:19:14 GMT
In a therapy session, I am smiling although I don't feel happy. My therapist observes this and asks why:
5 year old Goldi is smiling even though she feels sad. There is no time to be sad. As I hold the little Girl doll in my arms, I comfort her and tell her it is okay to be sad. We have time for her sadness and it does not matter if we are a bit late. It is more important to be allowed to have vulnerable feelings than to be on time.
I fully understand that having to provide for a child and care for a child alone and with a rather threathening ex was very taxing on my mother and I appreciate what she has achieved and understand that she was under stress and in survival mode. She did the very best she could. What I did not understand and felt resentment about was that although she had little to give, she was always giving to her relatives, friends and acquaintances. Many of them were actually mean to both my mother and me.
I was just a child, I had done nothing wrong. They were adults and they bullied me. My mother's boyfriend would bully me and if I got angry about he would hit me.My mother befriended the mother of a girl who bullied me in school. She invited bullies to my birthday party and made me stay over at the bully's house. Both mother and daughter were bullying me. The daughter had kicked me and stolen my stuff and the mother gave me things I was allergic to. My aunt gossiped about me and turned other people in the family against me, but if my aunt had a party, a cake had to be baked and we had to be there on time. My mother did not even question these ties and obligations. She fulfilled them compulsively.My mother had several grown women friends who were jealous of me and openly expressing this. In her own memory, she ended the friendships when she saw people mistreated me, but I feel like she should have known so much sooner and prevented it. But I did see the pebbles and did not understand why she waited and assumed complete kindness until the rock fell down and crushed us. I now realise that exactly because my mother was generous to a point, that I had learned to be so stingy of spirit.
Now that I am an adult, I would sooner break my own arm than torment the child of any of my friends. I feel abhorrance at the thought. I do not have any friend who is like that and to be honest, I still feel resentment about my mother having had all of these horrible people in her life and not protecting me enough.
My father had already shattered my trust in early childhood, but I feel these situations have etched the grooves of distrust deeper into my soul. Now I know why it is so hard to say “I am feeling sad.” Too many people would have chuckled and felt victorious at my sadness. I resented showing them my tears. I know now why it is so hard to say “Ouch, that hurt!' Too many people would have used precisely that to hurt me again and again and again. I had very good reason not to show my soft belly.
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Post by Goldilocks on Apr 20, 2018 17:19:45 GMT
11 year old Goldi told her dad she no longer wanted visitation. Why? She was not sure, perhaps it had to do with the way he spoke to her mother... Manipulative, dangerous. Something was just very off...
Goldi was both protective and critical of her mother. All the toxic people who came into the house? Preteen Goldi told them ”Stop coming, you make my mom sick and tired! Whenever you have been here she is complaining about how you drain her and how much of a headache you really are! Why are you even here!”. Preteen Goldi confronted her mother. “Why don't you ever stop bringing people in that make me sick and tired???” She was like a one girl army slaying all of the horrible people with brutal honesty.
Teen Goldi put a lock on her bedroom door, the type of lock that safely locks a front door. She did not mind her mother's dislike of it, she chose safety over politeness. She also rejected her father over and over and over as he desperately and aggressively sought contact. His letters displayed a strange and disturbed person. She did not let his pressures wear her down and she rejected so much that, like many people bite their nails habitually, she grew up to reject habitually.
She is not sorry.
Being able to set a physical boundary in my room, I no longer felt overwhelmed and intruded on a constant basis. I had the space to breathe and expand a little. Quite often I felt sad or was in emotional pain. I could cry in my room without being witnessed. My mother did come bang on the door and shouted, but I knew she could not barge in. I had a space to be me. Fewer toxic people came to visit, and even if they did I could be safe in my room. I was louder, naughtier and also more alive. I did numb my feeling with ciggarettes but also felt them roar with loud music.My mother was getting therapy around this time and could handle having a daughter with more presence. After having been bullied for much of my life and not having any real friends I actually made friends!!! Not the closest friendships and I made many blunders but I was making progress fast and by the end of my teens I had a normal social life.
Once in college I could make casual friends with ease and enjoyed exploring the world through conversation and travel. I did still not have much emotional closeness or depth in my friendships and frequently heard I came across as cool and distant. Nonetheless, intellect and humor were my strenths in the social world. My circles were mostly seperate and I continued to feel like bit of an outsider in each. I tried out different things in life and became more confident. I did always have to pull back in and cocoon in order to carry all the things that were coming in from the outside world. My studies were not really progressing very fast because of this combination. This worsened when my mother fell ill and suddenly needed as much care as a toddler. This was emotionally difficult for both of us, as old roles shifted and duties had to be borne. Once she started becoming less dependent, I myself started suffering from health issues that kept me in pain and unable to be very productive. I started reading a lot about physical and emotional health and the relation between the two. I also learned how the neglect I had faced in childhood could disrupt the settings of my physical body and went through my life story as I am doing now. Perhaps with less depth, and not in the company of you here in the forum. The crisis in my body was acconpanied by being fed up with my love life and choosing celibacy for a while. I started experimenting with meditation, which really did help me feel more of my body and my emotions. Recording my dreams gave me a look inside my psyche. I had a large variety of deep experiences; some incredibly beautiful and others incredibly dark and frightening.
At some point my health improved enough to have more capacity to get things done. While I had focussed my energy on taking care of myself and my mother, I still did not have a degree or a career and my finances were a mess. I found a job and made a budget to save at least a tiny bit out of my small income. My mother and I were in mutual dependence, me relying on my mother for housing, and her relying on me for care. I was in a dead end job. I had to choose between working full time and living on my own, but never getting a better life or working part time and studying for something more and living with my mother. After graduating, I moved to a new town almost immediately. I wanted to start afresh and have my own life. Looking back, I have always lived in houses where my mother could not visit me. I had to work hard and move around a lot to build a good career and feel relaxed in the knowledge that I can choose the job I want.
Now I do have a happy life. I can support myself, with some comfort, without working long hours. I have a wide and deep group of friends and every topic I can at least talk about with one person. I am happy on my own and with my friends. My relationship with my mother is now good and healthy. I visit her regularly and within my own boundaries.
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Post by Goldilocks on Apr 20, 2018 17:21:07 GMT
A therapy session and a dream
Two weeks ago, we did an approach exercise. When the therapist approached me, I recoiled. She asked my what I felt and it was fear, but I did not know what I feared, and I actually feared knowing the source of my fear. A few days after, I did a third eye meditation. That night, I had a dream:
I'm at a party and see a man who I assume is a friendly person coming to chat. Then he starts dancing with me and I notice he is sexy. I litterally feel a spark in both of us, then almost immediately feel a sensation of intense stress.
There is no doubt about it that there is some issue that applies specifically to the romantic and sexual connection.
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Post by Goldilocks on Apr 20, 2018 17:23:22 GMT
Another dream, that happened in the space between dreaming and waking. It happened the night before my last therapy session.
I am a preteen girl, heasring a male voice: He speaks about me, observing me. These are his thoughts and he thinks I cannot hear them, but I can.
He thinks I am so quiet and so pretty and he wants to force his love on me. He is thinking about how he will rape me. There is a whole train of thought along these lines, streaming....
Why am I afraid of approach?
Would my father have abused me sexually if I had continued visitation into my teens?
He has not abused 11yo Goldi, but he has made sexual jokes twice that made her feel uneasy. He has not had access to 14yo Goldi, but he has stalked her like an unwanted admirer would.
My father also had an unhealthy relationship with his own mother, who had on an emotional level made him her romantic partner when he was only a young boy. She worshipped the image she had of him and forced him to live up to it. He could not and she became increasingly delusional about him. He became increasingly dependent on her, for seeing him as better and greater than he turned out to be.
His letters to me also had an element of role play. I felt disgust about these letters.
My instinct are like the fiercest, strongest and biggest wolf. My wolf is a mind reader. She sees the pebbles even before they land on my path. She not only growls at those who hold a knife, showing she is ready to rip them up with her teeth...She growls at those who are thinking of the knife they have at home, planning and plotting or even just entertaining the idea and testing the waters.
I have discovered a deep seated belief in me that to be loved romantically, a man must hold a desire to hurt me sexually. This makes love a scary, revolting and dangerous endeavor. Yet I also have keen instincts that kept me from being harmed. I now realise that a large part of my life, I have been instinctively looking for men who had the capacity to hurt me, but would not harm me. This is not something I am aware of until now.
The feeling of disgust in relation to romance is not a socially acceptable one. Yet it is for some of us a valid and authentic emotion. The inability to recognize and express this feeling made me feel incredibly lonely whenever it came up in the moments that were supposed to feel juyful and warm. Things simply feel as they feel, whether it is what society tells us we should feel, or not.
Many of the men that have pursued me, shown interest in me, and been in love with me have been potential abusers. I have dodged many bullets. Rejecting a guy after a few dates only later to find of he has abused his next girlfriend. Going out to dinner with a guy and feeling unsafe with him, then ghosting on him only to find out he has committed multiple rapes.
Yet, I have had only two real committed relationships, both with healthy and safe men. My first boyfriend was a great guy with whom I have had a great mental and sexual connection and he broke up because something was missing. (I think emotional intimacy) We dated when I still tested dismissive avoidant. Our sexuality had a kinky flavor to it and in a relatively safe way I satisfied my unconscious quest for hurt without harm. Much later, after I had already tested secure, I have had a second boyfriend who was also a great guy. With him, I have had a deep friendship and emotional connection, but the sexual polarity was missing. On the whole, this is actually a pretty good love life given the dating landscape I have faced.
Before both of these relationships, I have had a non serious puppy love who was kind although he had a mental problem. I am glad I did not stay with him allthough he meant no ill. Another guy loved me at first sight and was very sweet and sexy, but also a high school dropout who had admitted to being open to crime. Had I chosen to marry either, I would have had a hard life.
I have also dated several jerks after my first relationship, but never became serious with any. Two times it happened that I have been dating a guy and they acted like they were single, but only later told me they were actually in a realtionship already. Both guys ended their relationship to be with me. I told them I would not commit to them from the get go just because they left a commitment to be with me. Both had felt entitled to it. While dating after they had become single, I broke up with them both. One because I felt far too stressed in the relationship and he was not helping me with this. He was basically not good in the situation and not good for me rather than an actual bad person. The other because he was simply a bad person all round. He was screwing people over both in business and in his personal life. He also broke an item when angry during an argument and after that I orchestrated the relationship into ending. I did not feel safe breaking up directly.
I had the guts and the wolfs heart to end things before hurt could turn to harm.
There are several aspects to Goldi the young girl. A pure golden heart that wants to prevent all harm. A wild wolflike face that sniffs out the slightest sign of danger. She also includes darker parts. The part that wishes to be hurt and senses the darkness inside an apparantly decent man. The blackest part of my soul was a raging teenage girl that wanted to use the darkness inside wicked men. That part wanted to attract such a man, gain control over him, becoming disgusted with him and then leaving him to prove she was stronger. To prove she could win. When I released that part of me, it felt like an exorcism. I am an atheist and I have never witnessed one except in horror films, but it felt like releasing a screaming and kicking black shadow from my body. The shadow transformed into a crying and weak little girl. I comforted her and was liberated. Then, my soul was once again pure and innocent.
After this moment, I felt no desire to date and went celibate for years. Working on myself, healing, getting to know little Goldi in a way. Not in one as focussed as I do now. Not in therapy and connection with others. But deep work nonetheless. I no longer attracted bad men. Then, I tested as secure. Once I was living on my own and feeling some safety, I went on a few dates with men, all of whom normal, and met my second boyfriend.
It is a true miracle that I have gotten safely from 11yo Goldi to grown Goldi, given the situation I have been in. I am in the deepest awe and gratitude for my self.
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Post by Goldilocks on Apr 20, 2018 17:23:58 GMT
Love, only love and nothing but love.
Possibly.
This is why.
A man recently told me “No matter what has happened to you in the past, you are love, you are only love and you have nothing but love in you.”
In the moment I tought it was cool he did not notice the remainder of my DA defense system. Yet now I realise my defenses were already an expression of the deepest and purest love.
Once I realize this and speak it all out loud, all of me seems to transform.
I am deeply grateful for my bulletproof jacket as it has protected me from the worst kind of harm. My detector has been incredibly sensitive. While in court people are innocent until proven guilty, I hold no shame for my system not only keeping out those who have already harmed others, but also those who are thinking of doing so. I thank my defense system for having kept every truly horrible person away from me. I did not get killed or retraumatized. I am not stuck in a soul destroying relationship. I have survived and thrived.
This is an expression of the deepest self love and a I am grateful in my soul for having created this extra strong defense. Lo and behold... I feel all my defenses melting into my soul. All is love, only love and nothing but love.
I have let go of my defenses, no longer needing them. Yet also not needing to get rid of them. The deep gratitude I feel for my defenses is precisely what allows me to release them. The core question in my quest as a DA has been “How have my defenses been an expression of the purest and deepest love?”
Then I go to my therapist and tell her all of this.
Everything is whole now and all that was frozen is flowing. Inside the melting ice are so many insights and words of wisdom. Everything is okay as everything is love. I feel extatic joy. I am on the ground shaking. I am laughing while crying and crying while laghing and enjoy the happiness, enjoy the pain, enjoy the sadness and enjoy the anger. All my feelings are okay and all are flowing in my body. Everything is okay. Inside and out. I am ready to face all as I trust the incredible strength I have inside me.
All is well.
Being in awe of the strength I have inside me makes me realise that I can now trust the world exactly because I have such deep trust in myself. I hold no fear...I release all the fear.
I no longer need to be alone in life. Nor do I need to be together. All good things of being together I already have while alone. My heart is full of love already. I am also as safe together as I am alone. I can be alone together and together alone and all at one.
Considering Goldilocks at all ages...
Does she sound like she would marry an abuser?
Does she sound like she would marry a man who would even impede her happiness?
Do I have any reason to fear marriage?
No, no and no.
My instincts are fine.
I feel no compulsion to marry, but if I would choose to do so, it would only be with a kind and loving man with whom I can live in ecstatic happiness.
I feel no compulsion to remain alone, but if I would choose to do so, I already have all the love in my heart and would lack nothing. For indeed I am love.
I am at peace with all outcomes.
My vulnerability is so strong it does not need to be protected.
Even my defenses have never been anything but love. If love is water, then my defenses were ice. As I feel all the ice melting and all the beautiful thoughts streaming into my heart from the melted ice, I know that all is love and all is one and all is okay.
All is well.
All has always already been well.
Now I am all of me. I am all of the best parts of what I have ever been. The pure lovable innocense of baby Goldi, the fierce wild woman nature of preteen Goldi who kicked ass, the playfulness of naughty teen Goldi and the wisdom to trust the inner learning and transformational process of adult Goldilocks. I am whole.
My riddle is solved.
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Post by juniper on Apr 21, 2018 2:26:37 GMT
i love this whole story. thank you for bringing this here and sharing it again, so we can continue our reflections. i have been a busy woman the last few days and it will take some days to settle, but i'll be returning to this to really absorb again, i have thought more about the ways in which i relate also. eventually i will share my story. and- i am so excited about this whole forum, thank you!!!
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