Day 8 · High Vibe Tribe

Day 8

This one is about body armor, shielding. I find this one rather complex for me. I found I typically would submit, lose myself in the other person. This comes from a tribe of origin experience where the highest value was obedience to the adults - very consistently applied. But the roots are in my relationship with my birth mom, which ended when I was two years old. She evidently had no experience with newborns or infants, so she had no idea of the needs of that life stage. She would neglect me, leaving the house after gating me in my room, to take the train into the City to shop. I'd hear the kitchen door open and the rustle of the shopping bags placed on the kitchen table when she returned hours later. After arguments with my dad, she'd try to take care of my needs, at lease physically, but invariably break off again and go do what interested her. By two years of this cycle, my nervous system was exhausted, and I evidently gave up on love, connection or my needs ever being met. So, I didn't get my love received, or even noticed, it seemed. I was essentially starved of the attention that nourishes and grounds a stable sense of self through the parent/child emotional connection. The basis for a human relationship never developed. I call this "missing circuitry."

My dad remarried within something over a year to a woman that didn't like me and my brother (and one of her four daughters). She hid that from our dad, complaining to him "how much we hurt her." I experienced being constantly pushed away. My need for love was already off the table, so I just tried to tough out that relationship. The dynamic of her anger directed to me nearly daily continued from three well into adulthood. My parents' relationship was marked with heavy arguments the first five years and after that my dad spent his time involved in his work life, pretty much, leaving my stepmom to handle the kids and the household. It was hell for me, and I came close to not surviving it at nineteen. A recurring dream has kept me going.

So, I had no experience of a healthy relationship, nothing to draw from as an adult. I escaped into reading a book or playing outside; school was my emotionally safe place. More missing circuitry. We moved a lot, so I never saw how other families operated. My first relationship, a marriage, I knew I had no say in my wife's choices, so I toughed out that relationship, which lasted ten years. I learned on my first child how to love a child in the way that they would feel loved, meeting their emotional needs. This giving role worked for me: no expectations laid on the kid, but being the adult in the room, I knew the onus was on me to build a good-feeling relationship with them. This was my training in healthy relationships. Not all of that can be generalized to adult relationships. That was the part I was still missing.

After marriage relationships have been rocky. The unhealed baby and child experience of relationship being subconscious came out, well, the pain and insecurity came up. After a couple of tries, I saw the common denominator is me and I decided to just not go there. Friends are OK but anything deeper got me into trouble; emotional chaos, deep depression (my kind of ground state anyway) and extreme feelings of despair, hopelessness and anger. No matter what I tried to discharge my body of the anger I could not find something that actually would work.

I tended to default into surrendering, losing myself in the other person. This felt completely infantile, powerless, helpless. Eventually they would ask me to leave, if not verbally then behaviorally. This was the point when I took a break and stayed with working my spiritual practices. My insides took a long time to begin to smell of sanity. Friends work out OK, which has been helpful.

So I have used all of the mentioned shields. Lately I have settled on hyper-independence. Life is just easier. Dramatic emotions I find exhausting and debilitating. I choose pretty much anything but drama today. What is this body armoring preventing me from feeling? Devastation. Horror. Paralyzing depression. I am no stranger to putting my attention on the feeling du jour with curiosity, examining the feeling for all its nuances and have sometimes directly healed an issue doing this. I've been through more than a dozen mental health professionals. I take my process slower these days.

Boundaries have been difficult for me to find. Having an iffy sense of self, the hyper-independence helps me stay in my own life, rather than blur into the life and personality of the other person. So, this has been a definite boundary, a sort of self-containment I find helpful. The missing circuitry continues to feel daunting. I am making use of my friendships to learn more of what adult people need. Learning NVC has been very helpful for getting clear on feelings and needs. The self-isolation sort of slows down the learning process in dealing with others, but it facilitates finding out more about me.

This is all a childhood trauma story. It is maybe not so appropriate for this venue. But I am writing this for my own self-exploration as much as to share. I have found there is a lot of childhood trauma in this culture. I have found no "quick fix," but consistent working at it seems to keep improvements happening. However far I get in resolving this inner situation I celebrate. And I am OK if I end up not completing my journey towards sanity. I know there will be another chance. A big boundary for me is to be nice to myself, rather than mean and pushy. I was raised in that energy and have a need to treat myself with patience and kindness. So far so good.

This Love Reset experience has been useful to find further blocks to love. I have more ideas to practice now. Some seem a bit advanced for my current stage. I intend to stay with the practice and see how far I can get.

I plan on doing the long breathwork exercise maybe on Sunday afternoon. My plate is rather full at the moment.

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