Self-hate ?

According Nicole Sachs, if I have well understood, one of the main causes of TMS pain is self loathing..
The devastating warlike of me against me (dr Jekill vs Mr Hyde ?) is unbearable from the psychological point of vue. Our protective, reptilian brain detects that threatening war (menacing our biological integrity: in a «emotional nuclear war» we could think about suicide!) and produces pain in order to create physical worry and distraction.
So, for instance, I don't hate my old, tyrannic, decayinng absorbing, fastidious mother for ruining my day to day life....I hate deeply MYSELF for hating my beloved, tender, sweet and protecting mum, even in the last years of her life.

Does that make any sense?

 

What makes sense is that we can hate the part of a person that we realise has caused us so much psychological stress and hardship - BUT at the same time still love the person in their present day persona... I have huge resentment and anger at my Mother, when i was first doing the SEProg I couldn't bear to see her - I was just TOOOOOO angry. But now - I spend time with her every week and I love her to bits. I have dealt with the anger and resentment - that does not mean that her actions are absolved or erased - but it means that although I will always see her past actions as harmful and wrong - I also see her as a flawed human being (just like me!!) I have compassion for the part of her that feels like a failed parent and the guilt she carries (she's a Catholic - so that's going nowhere!) and I am able to respond to her as a balanced adult - I am not still 'locked' in to being that scared, angry child...
I had similar issues with my father - who passed on before I found the TMS 'cure'. I found it easier to deal with because he was dead and no longer had a 'present' voice. Which sounds a bit mean - but he was a demanding, self-centred man... I find that having passed through the main 'healing' of TMS I really have got to a totally different space in regard to my feelings towards my family. I see them for what they are - but i love them nevertheless. There is (generally!) good and bad in everyone.
That includes YOU - so be compassionate to the small child inside who hates - she/he is entitled to feel those feelings - the child has been hurt badly and needs to be soothed and healed. it may not last forever....
So give yourself time, time to work thru the programme, time to 'feel' what you need to feel, and time to recover. Then you may look back with a different perspective. It is all SO raw when you start this journey. Be kind to yourself!

 

It seems we all human beings arrive to the World factory-equipped with some kind of emotional airbag: PAIN (and related symptoms)

 

Hi hecate,

I just read your reply 3 times. Wauw
this really touched me. To be angry at someones actions but still love them.
That’s what i know i have to ‘do’ with my mother. Forgive the actions but love her anyway. I do this already but strugle somehow to be ok with that.
The ‘balanced adult ‘ Well maybe i am not there yet. We are the same age though. Read your story and i am so impressed. Did you do all this inner work yourself of did you found help ?

 

Yes, mbo, you have a great understanding for what most of us experience. As a child, when something is wrong in our environment, when we feel rejected, not loved, etc., we decide that either the inner experience (our self) or the outer experience (the parent) is wrong. We know something is wrong. Since it is dangerous to our survival to reject our caretakers, the safer alternative is to reject --hate-- ourselves. Even though logically there may be very valid reasons for rejecting/hating/being enraged at the parent, the safer bet is to hate the self. This self doubt or self hate becomes core to our identity, although usually hidden.

Just to know this is happening, that there is a "war going on inside" is enough to explain the tension which Dr. Sarno tells us about. So, without having to change anything, this insight begins to undo the belief that symptoms are physical. When we become directly aware of our inner reality, or even have suppositions about it, how deep this is --as in self-hate, then we understand why such powerful symptoms manifest.

In my experience, while it is very powerful to forgive, the first step is to be real about your feelings, which you express so clearly. And hecate puts this so beautifully too, that there can be a deep mix of feelings, and if we can love ourselves in this deep tapestry, this is wonderful! Our love is the antidote for the self-hate.

 

Hi Karina, thank you! I did do the work on my own. After all the years of 'illness' and believing all the myriad, conflicting things that doctors told me... - I really needed to 'heal myself' - to believe in myself and give myself credit - instead of my usual position of 'not being good enough', 'being stupid', and all the ideas you grow up believing.
In a way it was so freeing to have time to myself, to tell everyone and everything to 'sod off' - I am more important right now, I matter. My healing is the single most important thing in my life...
Of course my ability to do this was greatly enhanced by my lovely husband being open to my 'crazy ideas' and supporting me by fielding family and friends, giving me the space i needed, and being rather good at dealing with a tear-stained mess of a wife!! In time he saw how i healed (no more pushing me around in a wheelchair!) and he has since done the SE prog himself and found it immensely useful.
The most important thing was treating it as a journey - some days were miserable, hell - some weeks were... but incrementally I was able to stop the pain, heal the symptoms and arrive eventually at full healing... and a much more compassionate view of all humans, myself most of all.
So, carry on with your journey, you never know where you will end up!!

 

All of your input is wonderfully informative and inspiring to where I currently am on this healing journey Thank you!

My entire life I've always thought everyone else had life all figured out, I was the odd man out. So, starting in childhood, I did what others told me to do thinking I was doing the "right" thing. I didn't hold my opinions and thoughts in high regard because I assumed I was always wrong. (As you can see and as I'm discovering now, I saw/see the world in a very black & white way...it's one of my biggest challenges on this journey, learning to see all the beautiful shades of gray in between!).

Along the way my inner tug-o-war with what I actually wanted and what others wanted for me created TMS and a myriad of physical (as well as mental) pain. Now I KNOW I can't go on as I used to, I must claim who I am and learn to be me. But I must also overcome that fierce SELF LOATHING and HATE. I've hated myself, what I couldn't be for everyone else, for so long I don't know where or how to start loving and caring for my true self. There's parts of me who doesn't even know where the true me begins, where that line between what I want and the facade I've put up for so long actually is. It's very confusing and frustrating.

If anyone has any advice on how to reclaim myself, has gone through similar experience where you've found yourself dug so deeply into a hole that you've created, it would be greatly appreciated I'm re-starting the TMS Recovery Program, am taking it very slowly, even on Week 0, to just injest it all and take it all in. I just CAN'T hate myself anymore, even if that means taking time away from others in order to separate their opinions from my own in order to discover what I actually want and believe (I'm also an empath who takes in others' pain and I find it difficult to be around others who unleash their pain onto me, I don't feel I can handle any more, at least for now until I can figure myself out).

 

I feel for you Homestead Hermit, i think the 'empaths' and folk full of compassion are far more likely to suffer from tms. We are particularly sensitive.. this can be a problem in that we take on other peoples crap and feel 'bombarded' by the world and society... BUT it also makes us far more 'human', we connect and appreciate others and their pain.. which i think makes us eventually better people for it!
Connecting with our own pain and figuring out our own healing is THE most important thing we can do,not only for ourselves, but so that we become better with and around other people. Take it step by step, you WILL get there...!!!