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Open Eyes
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Default Jan 12, 2018 at 11:25 AM
 
((Carmina)),

When you are asked how you are all that means is that someone else is acknowledging your presence politely. When you respond by saying I am ok, all you are doing is responding to that other person politely letting them know you are acknowledging their presence. Instead of thinking about your response as a lie, think about your response as your way of acknowledging the other person but that you have decided not to include this other person in your personal space or challenge. (this is self empowerment, not self deprivation)

Quote:
Put my 'game face' on and just got on with things. I just can't contemplate the idea of letting other people down, or giving in, or going to pieces.
Putting on your "game face" doesn't have to mean you are depriving yourself or that you should "feel" like you are being punished or deprived either. What you are really doing is you are actually controlling and protecting your personal boundaries where only you can decide who you will share with and who will not be of any help if you talk about how you really feel. (this is self empowerment, not self deprivation)

Quote:
I just can't contemplate the idea of letting other people down, or giving in, or going to pieces
This thought you have shared is another self punishing thought where you are telling yourself to feel deprived and "just" suck up so other people get to have their needs met.

This doesn't really have to be your inner dialogue with yourself. Instead, the reason you are not going to pieces is because you need to find YOUR WAY to being strong for YOURSELF and this should not be about "them" but something you are doing for YOURSELF. (again self empowerment and not self deprivation)

Quote:
there was this fat kid who always made for me in the playground and would just push me over and sit on my chest most of the break time. I couldn't get up or do anything so I just took myself out of myself in my mind till it was all over.
This is where what you just faced in the now has brought up a past experience. It's a question, and yet it's also recalling something in your past that you experienced where you were pinned down and did not know what to do. Actually, what you did in this past situation is you went right into a defense mode that is part of our natural design as a way for self protection. You did not fight back and laid still because it was the best way to survive that experience because if you did fight back you would have wasted energy and that fat kid could have used his weight even more that would have physically "hurt" you. If you were to observe a mouse that is trapped by a cat, that mouse will freeze and be still, the reason for that is "instinctively" that mouse knows that this cat will react aggressively if the mouse chooses to move.

Predators get a "high" off of "reaction". Actually, that fat kid got to know that he could trap you, BUT, eventually he got bored with you because once he got you down "game was over and no more fun". YOU controlled that part. So you actually did much better than you realize. However, because you were so young, you did not have the knowledge and life experience to know that so it traumatized you and you stored that experience "unresolved question". The other thing you learned from that is to avoid "fat kids" and you probably continued to feel uncomfortable around individuals who resemble that "fat kid" that caused you to have such a bad experience. Well, that is simply how we are designed, to remember anything that hurt us in some way.

Quote:
, had to cope with staying at my parents over the weekend
An interesting statement. Something tells me that your parents may be the people who taught you to not bother them with YOUR FEELINGS AND NEEDS. The individuals in your past/childhood that encouraged you to put THEIR needs before your own. It would not surprise me because this is often how a lot of children are raised where they are encouraged to think that their challenges and feelings need to be suppressed so they don't disturb mom or dad. This kind of environment can lead to memories where the individual ends up having a block and instead of talking about something with the therapist, the individual sinks into dissociation. How you "felt" while staying with your parents means a lot. It may help if you sit with your therapist and think about your stay with them and why it was an experience you felt you had to "cope with".

A funeral in a family can mean the family facing a gathering and how that can often be worse than the death in the family. What I am seeing in what little you shared is how much that entire experience was such a challenge for you. You deserve to talk about it, but not with a person that may just be acknowledging your presence with a "hello how are you" that is not meant to be something that says, sit down with me and let your feelings pour out of you. This is not the same as telling you that you don't deserve to feel and that you need to deprive yourself of "needing to feel and have someone who can sit with you and help you grieve the entire experience you just experienced".

What I am thinking from what you have shared is that in that experience there really was not anyone around that could validate YOUR feelings and show YOU respect for how you feel.

I am sorry for that ((((Carmina)))) because that is how I struggle myself. This is a common challenge many who suffer from complex PTSD have. However, each person will have their own experiences and can include many times where that individual survived through something traumatic and had to be strong somehow and yet began to hear messages of how they should stay silent with how they "feel" and "need".
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