Oh patrick patrick patrick.
We've been at this a while, and I get it - I see your rage and distress, and I see your desperation and your utter desolation. I think you are feeling quite alone right now.
I also, quite honestly, want to slap you upside the head. Well, part of me wants to do that.
Another part of me is completely disheartened at your inability to "get" the concept of the emotional work, and I'm so very sad for you, because I don't know what else anyone can do if you can't make that leap on your own.
And then there's another part of me that is disgusted by your parents, who clearly failed at being proper parents you when you were a child. Not that this is something you seem to be willing to address.
So those are the things I'm feeling - and before I go any further, I do want to acknowledge that unlike some other people who keep coming back here, I have seen that you remember the basic civilities and you do thank people for responding. Even when you're feeling bad and expressing extreme negativity, and even if it's the only thing you say in response, I respect and appreciate the fact that you let people know you at least saw the answer they took the time to prepare. Not everyone does this!
@Cactusflower wrote you a very wise and sensitive response above, listing your issues in relation to her own personal work. Very wise, very appropriate, and very loving. (btw, after thanking her, you added, as you so often do, a "Yes, But..." response - more on that later).
I will not be so loving, and I might be inappropriate, and who knows if I will be wise, but I hope you can at least see this as tough love, and accept the fact that if I didn't care, I wouldn't bother.
Here goes.
You asked if any practitioners have the courage to post unsuccessful stories. I hope you realized after the fact what a reactive and pointless comment that is. If I'm suffering and want to recover, I don't go to a mindbody practitioner's web site to see tales of woe (as
@miffybunny accurately calls them) or to buy into other people's victimhood (also accurately applied). Why would I want to see that? As she also said, it's easy to find that shit just about anywhere else. I will disagree with her on one point only, which is that on this forum, as long as someone is not actively abusive to other participants (which you have never been), I don't have a problem with a post that expresses frustration and failure, and I'm pretty sure that
@Forest would agree with me (since he trained me, I'm actually quite sure about that). This whole discussion could be educational for someone else - you never know. I also feel like your participation here is completely sincere, even when it's negative, so personally I would not apply the "t" word.
In any case, it's interesting that you posted this yesterday, because yesterday afternoon I listened to Nicole Sach's latest podcast, which was a repeat from last year on the Symptom Imperative (a really powerful episode) and in her intro she said that the reason for the repeat is because SO MANY people in her groups have been reporting recently about serious struggles with setbacks and flares. So I refute your perception that practitioners don't report on struggles, because she
literally just did. Her "real time heals" episodes are all about people struggling, and I've heard many other audio programs over the years (I can't remember them all now, but some at least have been with Alan Gordon) that include sessions with people who are on board with TMS theory and who are still struggling. Dr. Hanscom often writes about setbacks.
Anyway, on to your issues. Here's what I see, and have seen in the months since you landed here, and none of these things are new (I think Cactusflower addressed most if not all). Please keep in mind that I am a retired tax accountant, not a trained mental health professional.
1. I strongly suspect that you suffer from serious childhood trauma. An ACEs score of 3 tells us that. My score is 0, and I still have TMS. I wonder if someone with a score higher than 5 could even survive without being institutionalized in care or prison? Is there even such a thing as a score of 10? The test really can't be thought of in that way. All we know is that 3 ACEs is a significant predictor of adult mental health problems.
2. You are incredibly resistant to being vulnerable. This alone is probably your biggest stumbling block, because if you can't find a way to be emotionally vulnerable to the truth about your childhood, you will never be able to get close to actually "doing the work" with any sort of honesty. "Doing the work" is not just some catchphrase. In the case of someone with trauma, it is serious, emotional, and very vulnerable - and it is scary as all fuck to the traumatized brain, especially if the trauma is laid down in childhood. The brain of the traumatized child MUST repress any reaction to the trauma in order to simply survive. Uncovering those old buried emotions is probably like trying to dig through cement with a garden trowel.
3. You seem to be convinced that someone outside of yourself should be able to magically fix you.
Yet you are incredibly impatient - you gave the most recent therapy virtually NO time whatsoever.
Plus you are incredibly resentful about spending anything on your mental health, in spite of thinking that someone else has to do all the work.
You were already
obsessing about the cost of the SIRPA therapy before you even had a session. It's no surprise that you got nothing out of it, if all you could think about was what it was costing you!
4. You are completely attached to your victimhood.
As long as you need to see yourself as a victim, you will never heal. Never. The good news is that victimhood is a choice, but the bad news is that it's kind of like an addiction, not easy to let go of, and probably requiring help.
(I mentioned the "Yes, But..." response above. This is the classic response of the victim. I call it YBS - Yes, But... Syndrome. Very common in people who report no progress.)
5. Your rage is palpable, but I have not seen it directed where it needs to go. You reported your ACEs score and said NOTHING about it. Like 3 ACEs is a "low" score or something? What the fuck? Three ACEs is SIGNIFICANT and it means that your parents either inflicted those things on you or they did fuck-all to protect you from whatever it is that occurred. Based upon a small amount of information I seem to recall that you divulged very early on (I think it was you, anyway, I could be wrong, and there are too many posts to go through) it seems likely that your father inflicted the abuse, which means, as is often the case, that your mother was unable to protect you, for whatever messed-up reasons of her own.
People don't get this. For the traumatized child, the rage must be directed at both parents,
even if one parent (maybe both) is literally incapable of being there, perhaps through death or disability or substance abuse or being victimized by the other parent or being unable to leave an abusive partner. No matter the cause, the fact is that one or both parents have failed to live up to the commitment they made when bringing that child into the world, to always protect and nurture their child. It's a form of abandonment, and abandonment is a really primal and basic source of rage.
The true source of your rage must be brought into the open, and
then it needs to be directed where it really belongs. When childhood trauma is in place, these two steps can take a LONG time in therapy.
6. I don't think that self-compassion or self-love exist in your life whatsoever. You also can't heal without these.
THE BOTTOM LINE: These things are not YOU and they are not
consciously your choice. All of your roadblocks are a function of your terrified repressed unconscious brain, probably since childhood. This is the part of your brain that is in control of any move you make towards emotional vulnerability. What IS your choice is what you're going to do about it. You can give up, or you can give in to the necessity of facing the painful truth about reality, no matter how terrifying that is.
You can also tell me I don't have a clue what I'm talking about. I am only a retired tax accountant, after all, and I can totally live with that. But I hope there's something you can use, patrick, at this time which could be a critical crossroads.
~Jan
