Hi! I’m on Day 5 of the SEP and have started journaling. Generally speaking, I am a very positive and pragmatic person and I do not dwell or fixate on the past. I’ve written my lists of evidence of events, and found myself writing down events and moments in my life that “could have caused me pain or anger” but I’m finding that I no longer feel connected to those possible emotions. I can recognize, for example, that being dumped by my best friend in high school was painful, I cried, etc, etc, but when I revisit it I no longer have those emotions. In my mind, I’ve moved on. What happened sucked, but I also see it as part of life and learning about relationships. I operate that way with most of what has happened in my life. I can recognize it was painful but it no longer causes me pain. Isn’t that a good thing? Or am I completely disconnected from my unconscious self and that’s the reason for all this TMS? Are we supposed to be going back an re-living this pain? As I write this, I’m aware that most of this is on the conscious level. Thoughts?
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Alan has completed the new Pain Recovery Program. To read or share it, use this updated link: https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/painrecovery/
Positive thinking person
- Thread starter Elzriley
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Cactusflower
Beloved Grand Eagle
You look at things that were important to you, and look for similarities or patterns in your responses to situations.
When else were you abandoned as a kid by people you loved and trusted? How did those incidents of “abandonment” happen? It may have only been a few words of someone.. but you had emotions about it. Do you now ever feel abandoned by people and have emotions or have no emotions about it?
That’s one way to look at it.
Another way to look at things is that sometimes journaling brings up a big 0. Nada. Nothing.
Not everyday will be emotionally cathartic.
Notice how that makes you think and feel?
Them move on with your day…
When else were you abandoned as a kid by people you loved and trusted? How did those incidents of “abandonment” happen? It may have only been a few words of someone.. but you had emotions about it. Do you now ever feel abandoned by people and have emotions or have no emotions about it?
That’s one way to look at it.
Another way to look at things is that sometimes journaling brings up a big 0. Nada. Nothing.
Not everyday will be emotionally cathartic.
Notice how that makes you think and feel?
Them move on with your day…
Diana-M
Beloved Grand Eagle
I think that TMSers are practical survivalists. Usually, as a child, we learned that our feelings were too dangerous to have —for whatever reason. Maybe our parents would be angry if we had emotions. Or maybe no one would comfort us, so why feel? Just stuff this pain as fast as possible. So now— that’s what we still do. For a while, it works. You’re just tough and cold. You get through hard times by being numb. Then, one day, it’s all too much. This strategy catches up with you, and you get TMS.
Why do you have to go back? Because that pain you stuffed is still inside you. It’s part of your rage reservoir. And any time a new current event in your life reminds your subconscious of the prior pain, it goes ballistic. So all in all — you’re cleaning up the past so the present doesn’t trigger you so much.
Why do you have to go back? Because that pain you stuffed is still inside you. It’s part of your rage reservoir. And any time a new current event in your life reminds your subconscious of the prior pain, it goes ballistic. So all in all — you’re cleaning up the past so the present doesn’t trigger you so much.
Sita
Beloved Grand Eagle
It's a good thing! Don't think about it, move on. Lesson learned, stop wasting your time and energy thinking about it/analyzing it.
I like you!
JanAtheCPA
Beloved Grand Eagle
I'm going with @Cactusflower and especially @Diana-M. The fact that this incident still comes up is a clue that there are unresolved emotions which go beyond (farther back) than this teenage incident.
Abandonment is a really powerful issue for humans as social animals, because Abandonment can mean Isolation, and in the long-ago primitive world - where our brains still exist - Isolation inevitably leads to death. Our brains do not understand the physical safety of the modern world (for most of us). Our primitive brains literally interpret all of our everyday stress responses as if they are life-threatening physical dangers.
In other words, your brain is programmed to survive above all else, and in the name of survival, it has zero regard for your quality of life. It's possible that your brain has repressed earlier childhood experience of abandonment and the fear of isolation, because repressing these emotions allowed you to do whatever it took, even as a small child, to go into survival mode.
You can take this incident as a starting point to go backwards in time, and open up to the vulnerability of your very young self. That's where many revelations occur when doing this work.
Another avenue to explore: in your previous processing of the teenage incident, did you examine the role that negative self-judgment may have played? Given our natural inclination to be hard on ourselves, it's highly likely that you were questioning your self worth when it happened. Self judgment is something we also tend to pick up in childhood, even if there were no adverse experiences (such as abandonment or isolation). In our automatic desire to be accepted by our community/family, even very young, there is inevitably negative judgment involved!
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Baseball65
Beloved Grand Eagle
The 'You' that is having that thought is the 'Adult' or 'Ego' in the "Id, Ego, Superego" triumvirate. Sarno would call it "Parent, Adult Child." I call it "Moses, Me, 5 year old.". It doesn't matter what we call it...it matters that we acknowledge that there are things going on which we have no access too, so we must accept it, postulate it's existence and keep digging, or do something to stir the pot and shake up the system.
I have a great Job.
I Love my wife and family
I am really content.
Except for this pain, I am totally Okay.
those are all statements that I might have made until I started looking closer. We are conditioned to NOT look, for as @JanAtheCPA just posted, it would not be in line with the Brain/Mind trying to optimize our adaptation and keep the ship balanced.