| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
hottm8oh
USA
141 Posts |
 Posted - 06/05/2008 : 10:11:36
|
Please humor me while I think out loud.
I fit the TMS personality profile. I'm the overly responsible quasi-perfectionist. I'm a quasi-perfectionist because it doesn't have to be perfect; it just has to not be wrong. I think I get so down on myself over making a mistake because any mistake I made as a child or a teenager was treated as an unforgiveable travesty. When I was a teenager, my parents barely spoke to me unless it was to tell me that I had done something wrong. Sometimes I was blamed for things that never even happened. I believe my mother had, and still has, Borderline Personality Disorder with Narcissist tendencies, and she was prone to sudden, violent, terrifying outbursts, often with me trapped with her in the car. My father was, and still is, almost totally emotionally absent. I was the youngest and physically the smallest in the family, so it was easy to pick on me. I was frequently made to feel that I was stupid. I was told by my mother that she never wanted a girl, so I was essentially doomed from birth. My brother did some things—things I’ve never told anyone--that at the time were considered normal "boys will be boys" behavior, but in today's climate would be considered abusive.
I think I'm overly responsible and fiercely independent because I was abandoned more than once--I was tossed back and forth between divorced parents--and I had then and have now no one to fall back on. If there comes a day when I can't financially support myself, then I'm homeless, and I live with that fear every single day. I can't ask my family for help because not only will I not get it, but I'll be ridiculed, guilt-tripped, or called names. So I don't ask for help. From anyone. Ever. Asking for help is a sign of shame and weakness. My mother withheld basic needs from me and threw me out of the house at age 13 as punishment. I ended up living with her again at 18 when my stepmonster threw me out. I tried to go to college, but I had to pay my mother rent and listen to her constant anger over nothing. I moved out onto my own when I was 21. I think I was making about $6.00/hr at the time. She expected me to fail as a human being and come crawling back to her begging for help and forgiveness. I think I’ve fought so hard to support myself without any help to prove to my parents and to everyone else that I don’t need them. Asking for help subconsciously means to me that my mother was right.
When we were teenagers, my brother looked at me and said, “It’s just us now. Our parents are gone.” He meant that our parents were gone on a mental and emotional level. We were orphans even though they were physically with us. We’ve been close ever since, though my brother likes to disappear and not be found, so it can be hard to get a hold of him. I honestly don’t even know where the man lives. He won’t give me his address.
As much as I want to believe that I've gotten past my childhood and become a fully functioning adult, I'm sincerely starting to doubt that. I think so much of my daily rituals come from these experiences. Here’s a good example--If I don’t pay a bill the day I get it, it gnaws at me. It hangs over my head and fills me with anxiety and fear. The GUILT I feel if I pay a bill late is way out of proportion with the actual consequences. I’m a month ahead on my mortgage, car, and student loan payments because of the intense fear I have of falling behind. I can’t fail financially because so many people set me up to fail and expect it of me.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, but what do I do with all of that? Is it possible to change my personality? Is it possible for me to ask for help without feeling like a complete failure? My brother had the same parents, and he screws up his bills all the time. He doesn’t have TMS, either. What gives? Is being aware of it just enough? I want to believe that, but I’m not sure that I do. I feel pressure to really change my core feelings, to make myself NOT fit the TMS profile. But is that just the perfectionist in me coming out? The feeling that I can’t get better unless I completely change my attitude--similar to the feeling that I have to live my adult life totally *right* to prove my parents wrong? And how much of this past history is truly TMS related? I don’t live with these people anymore or listen to their negative opinions of me. I have a college education, a job making more money than either my mother or father ever did, a home, a husband, I’ve never been in trouble, and I did it all with no help from anyone. I have things to be proud of, but WHY do I have things to be proud of? I truly wanted them all for myself, but I HAD to accomplish them to prove that having a crappy childhood doesn't predispose one to drug abuse or holding up liquor stores.
I haven’t spoken to my mother in 7 years. My relationship with my father is cordial but completely superficial. My relationship with my brother is the only authentic family relationship I have, but he’s pushing me to “forgive” my mother and get into contact with her again. I can’t wrap my head around the concept of forgiving someone who has never apologized to me and doesn’t think she’s done anything wrong. And why should I go back for more abuse that I don't deserve?
Is there a formula for reconciling the childhood traumas? Are there some things that just can't be reconciled? Is there a way to accept the childhood traumas? How do you deal with your past and let it have as little affect on your future as possible? |
|
|
armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 06/05/2008 : 12:23:00
|
quote:
Is it possible to change my personality? Is it possible for me to ask for help without feeling like a complete failure? My brother had the same parents, and he screws up his bills all the time. He doesn’t have TMS, either. What gives? Is being aware of it just enough? I want to believe that, but I’m not sure that I do. I feel pressure to really change my core feelings, to make myself NOT fit the TMS profile. But is that just the perfectionist in me coming out? The feeling that I can’t get better unless I completely change my attitude--similar to the feeling that I have to live my adult life totally *right* to prove my parents wrong? And how much of this past history is truly TMS related? I don’t live with these people anymore or listen to their negative opinions of me.
I'm going to kind of take this bit by bit:
1) It is possible to change your personality (in some sense), but it's really not the point. YES, you can recover without changing yourself. You may decide, during/after recovering, that you don't want to live recovered but unchanged. At that point, it's appropriate to do self-reflection or therapy to decide what you do want yourself and your life to be like. I am in this process and it's terrific. But I got physically recovered first.
Yes, I think your impulse to become totally recovered personality-wise is coming from a perfectionist place. Someday you may start to want this authentically too, but right now it smacks of "Now that I've discovered I have TMS I realize I'm doing everything wrong and I want to do everything perfectly so I have to stop everything I'm doing wrong."
Wrong! You don't. You need to start with the basics and you need to make progress at speed that works for you.
Stop analyzing, and start doing the work. It is easy to get mentally tangled up in this and that, but the essentials are pretty basic.
2) You and your brother chose different coping strategies to deal with your childhood. Yours resulted in TMS. His didn't, for some reason -- at least, not yet. It's not going to be all that helpful to compare yourself to any or all of the people who didn't get TMS during this process. More like frustrating.
3) You do still live with your childhood in your unconscious. In the unconscious, time does not pass in the way it does in the conscious mind. Everything is yesterday. The voices are still there in your head, but they became part of you -- you internalized them. Luckily, you can re-externalize them if you want! For now, just recognizing that you still live with them is enough.
--
It's not 100% belief that's required, but 100% commitment. |
 |
|
|
mizlorinj
USA
490 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2008 : 14:38:45
|
hottm8oh LOVE your user name!!!
I am so very sad to read your post. Yes, you CAN recover from these events in your childhood. Dr. Sarno puts our childhood at 1/3 of our repressed emotions issues. That's a lot!
Would you please either start writing about or see a therapist about the things you have posted here. I also suggest LOUISE HAY books to learn how to love yourself since YOU MATTER.
If I had to choose topics to start writing your FEELINGS about:
1. parents wanted a boy not a girl. I worked in a program called The Solution (www.thepathway.org) and watched a fellow participant "cycle" her way through the exact same issue. She (and we who were a loving presence) cried bitter tears. But she DID work her way through the feelings and accept who she is: A MAGNIFICENT WOMAN!! (I have come to LOVE being a woman)
2. brother's abuse
3. fear of asking for help--explore more deeply
4. feeling of abandonment
5. perfection? whom are you trying to please? YOU are the only person whose opinion of you matters!!
I think it's great that you are able to so clearly identify issues. Now let's get started working your way through a list if you will and write and FEEL the feelings. Keep in mind our parents probably did the best they could for who they were at that time. They have their own issues--which has helped me heal things from my own past.
Forgiveness does play a large role I think moreso after you have worked though some of the outer layer issues. I'm up to that point now on some things and have learned to release the (perceived in my eyes) offender and myself from carrying the hurt! You LET IT GO. It feels great, but it takes as long as it takes. This does not mean we condone someone's behavior. But we release ourselves (most important) and them from the past. No one can speed the healing up.
Dr. Sarno says toward the end of his lecture that we cannot completely change our personality but we can alter it.
I hope this helps you. I do believe we can heal the past. It takes time and effort.
Best wishes,
Lori |
|
|
|
pandamonium
United Kingdom
202 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2008 : 15:46:18
|
I also wondered why I was predisposed to TMS while my sister and brother have never had a day of back pain. My therapist has pointed out that all 3 of us handled our childhood in different ways: my sister was a fighter and used to have huge rows with our parents (she got her rage out), I was a pleaser and thought I could stay out of their way like that, meanwhile my brother is like yours, he's a "runner" and that's how he dealt with it, he left home at 18 (emotionally left at 11) and is now 39 and he's been running ever since.
I haven't read the Louise Hay book but would think it's a good way to start looking after yourself and you really need to do that and start giving yourself a break.
P |
|
|
|
ralphyde
USA
307 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2008 : 15:46:46
|
quote:
I can’t wrap my head around the concept of forgiving someone who has never apologized to me and doesn’t think she’s done anything wrong. And why should I go back for more abuse that I don't deserve?
We've had a number of discussion about forgiveness, why it's necessary for healing, and how hard it is to do. My favorite quotation about fogiveness is:
"To forgive is to set a prisoner free, and discover that the prisoner was YOU."
From 1001 Pearls of Wisdom, by David Ross
Ralph |
|
|
|
Scottydog
United Kingdom
330 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2008 : 18:18:22
|
I would read up on the emotional and mental issues your parents had. Reading stuff on alcholholism and codependenccy helped me to understand my parents own problems.
My mother says she prefers boys, (very tactful), but I think she had a good relationship with her father and poor one with her mother. Also she had no brothers! which might explain alot.
If you can understand them better, and even pity them, you might feel less angry with them. |
|
|
|
la_kevin
USA
351 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2008 : 20:49:23
|
Childhood experiences= Yesterday
To your brain...that is.
--------------------------
"Over thinking...over analyzing...separates the body from the mind." Maynard from the band TOOL |
|
|
|
hottm8oh
USA
141 Posts |
Posted - 06/08/2008 : 09:41:01
|
quote:
Originally posted by pandamonium
I also wondered why I was predisposed to TMS while my sister and brother have never had a day of back pain. My therapist has pointed out that all 3 of us handled our childhood in different ways: my sister was a fighter and used to have huge rows with our parents (she got her rage out), I was a pleaser and thought I could stay out of their way like that, meanwhile my brother is like yours, he's a "runner" and that's how he dealt with it, he left home at 18 (emotionally left at 11) and is now 39 and he's been running ever since.
I haven't read the Louise Hay book but would think it's a good way to start looking after yourself and you really need to do that and start giving yourself a break.
P
This is a very interesting parallel. I was also the "pleaser", but a very confused pleaser because everything I did was still wrong. I also thought that if I just shut up and stayed out of the way, then I would make it through to my adult years. I spent the majority of my teenage years barely speaking to anyone. Since you and I didn't "get it all out", then maybe this is how we internalized it. I also had terrible IBS all throughout my 20's. I have a pretty solid history of having my body act out in emotional ways. |
|
|
|
Peg
USA
284 Posts |
Posted - 06/08/2008 : 17:57:41
|
Where to begin? You have identified a lot in your history which has led to your experience with TMS. It's a very good start to get to the feelings these experiences must have generated. You have been through a lot and you have not only survived, but have thrived. Maybe coping too well, thus the development of the TMS.
I also had a lot in my past that I was forced to come to terms with early in my recovery from back pain. What helped me was lots of journaling, writing letters to those who had hurt me (not to send, just to express my feelings), and sometimes I just cried and grieved for the things in my life that had caused me pain. I also read "Facing the Fire" (listed under the books on this site) and released my anger (toward family members, the Catholic church, etc...) using the techniques in the book.
In time, I was able to see that my parents had done the best they could with the knowledge they had at the time. Just as I am trying to do the best with my children.
Forgiving those in our past, does not mean that we have to return to them for more abuse! If they have not changed and the possibility of more abuse is there, I believe we owe it to ourselves to keep our distance and protect ouselves. But trying to understand their behavior (understanding not condoning) and forgiving them from a distance, is somehting that we do for ourselves.
As far as your fierce independence. This can be good to an extent, but learning to lean on someone occasionally and asking for help can be a humbling experience. It can also lead to closer connections with people. It doesn't have to be a family member though, it can be a friend that you respect and trust.
I have learned to choose my friends wisely and I have a saying: Life's too short to spend time with people who suck. I have grieved about the fact that I can't have a close relationship with some of my siblings, but I believe they are toxic and I have learned to take care of myself and not allow any body to abuse me, even if we share the same genetics.
You covered a lot in your post. I hope some of my ramblings will be helpful to you.
Good Luck
Peg
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei |
|
|
|
hottm8oh
USA
141 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2008 : 11:55:31
|
quote:
Originally posted by Peg
Where to begin? You have identified a lot in your history which has led to your experience with TMS. It's a very good start to get to the feelings these experiences must have generated. You have been through a lot and you have not only survived, but have thrived. Maybe coping too well, thus the development of the TMS.
Aha! That's a great statement. I'm coping too well, or at least I'm hiding it too well.
quote:
Originally posted by Peg
I have learned to choose my friends wisely and I have a saying: Life's too short to spend time with people who suck.
Can I borrow this phrase? I love it. |
|
|
|
Peg
USA
284 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2008 : 15:40:18
|
Absolutely, go right ahead.
Peg
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
The TMS connection to childhood experiences (long)
