Tisk, Tisk Shame on you for being you...
DP is ugly business.
Yea, I know-this feeling we have is "horrible." That's not what I'm talking about.
Once you get past the fact that you're not bat shit crazy or dying you realize that this thing that's happened to you has happened as a means to defend from you FROM you. Only then do you become aware that you're in the thick of a civil war with none other than yourself. And this battle is ugly. And once you get to this point, a cruel irony happens. For a moment (or moments) you will see that chick (or dude) in the mirror more often. Or from time to time, you'll be re-personalized and remember the smell of cut grass, dirt after it rains, the feel of being "present" on crisp winter's day. And once that lovely reunion subsides, you remember feelings other things too.
And that isn't quite as rosy.
I have often thrown around the word trauma in my posts but I don't believe I've every explained what that does? Mainly, because it sounds so inane. "You've been traumatized." Telling that to someone who is depersonalized doesn't penetrate their awareness. It sounds more like a description than a feeling. Because from a depersonalized perspective, they're not traumatized. But IT IS this perspective- that inability to feel and know in our bones -that is what handicaps us.
And it's not just the restoration of negative memories.
It's remembering and feeling the truth about yourself and being that into everyday awareness. And previous trauma is the factor that make you less capable of doing that.
I noticed on this site that a lot of stock is put into what kind of parents you had and their parenting style- you'll get no argument from me that they were probably dysfunctional and co dependency can be a precursor to dissociative states. However, many people who are co dependant do not become depersonalized. Dysfunctional parenting is an important part of the paradigm that got you here but it's not enough by itself to oust you from you.
The way out of DP requires a brutal, emotional honesty as it relates to you and sticks. Again, sounds easy to say. It's not. But make no mistake it is the LACK OF acknowledgement about yourself and your life that keeps DP alive. The saying the "truth will set you free" is damn skippy but the truth can hurt like a bitch too. And honesty comes hard for us DPer's. As observant as we are, we aren't very skilled in experiencing our own emotional reckonings. We look at ourselves thru splayed fingers covered around our face. We cringe when we look back…turn up the "LA LA LA LA…I can't hear you.." when we think of our feelings and history. Sure we can tell you how we are experiencing ourselves in existential rumination FOREVER LOL. But the range of emotions we feel on a regular basis is fairly limited to numb, fear (or panic), uncertainty and confusion. And in many instances, THAT'S NOT OUR FAULT. We simply don't know how. But I can tell you that the more you hide from the things that cause you shame, the more DP will set up shop and stay.
YOU HAVE TO OWN THE FEELINGS THAT BELONG TO YOU EVEN WHEN THEY HURT.
This is what emotionally healthy people do. DP'ers don't because we created a system in our mind that doesn't allow that and even when we do, we don't what to do with those feelings.
This is where honesty and shame become road blocks to awareness.
Are you heavy? Do you have physical scars, Do you have crooked teeth, A big nose? Do you feel unattractive? Have people teased or picked on you? Bullied you for being different? Or maybe it's not physical. Did someone belittle, humiliate you? Were you weak at times you thought or wished you were strong? Are you a perfectionist? Do have rigid standards for yourself that you explain away as just having "high expectations?"
Do you think you 'SHOULD' be smarter, faster, prettier, thinner, stronger, healthier than you actually are or were?
Think about these things.
If so, what if that "SHOULD" became a law in your mind? And I mean the word "law" in the strictest sense. What if you believed fanatically that you SHOULD be all the things I mentioned above but aren't. You'd have no choice but to hate who you really are since you can't live up to them. This law of "should" will divide you. (Here's the crux of our civil war) literally causing a split before two opposing side blow each other to smithereens. And in the Dp'ers mind, you live in the should. You hear it all the time when someone says I live in my head. Unfortunately, when you do that, the real you becomes someone lost. You don't know you because don't want to be you. You shouldn't be well, all the things that make you, you!
DP is both your protection from the real you and the consequence of losing touch with it. It's a solution because it removes hurtful awareness of who you truly are from your own awareness. It is the same solution baby baldness used all those years ago. An escape where there is no escape. This is how DP relates to trauma. It's a solution you learned a very long time ago.
And it's effective. So much so, that you forget YOU! (think I'm joking? ask the stranger in the mirror) and worst part, the most deceptive and on many level cruel it leaves you lost…you don't even know what happened to make you feel removed or disconnected but you are absolutely aware of the consequence of it.
DP is multifaceted but I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you how effective the denial of shame is in keeping this thing alive.
Shame is a powerful, POWERFUL motivator in maintaining DP because of course, no one wants to feel it. But a DP'er (because of previous trauma) have a harder time acknowledging, feeling and above all processing shame than people who have developed healthier.
Because the law of "should" is something we CANNOT actually live up to. NO ONE CAN. And we can't seem to forgive ourselves because of it. But you absolutely, positively have to let go of the should and face the sober truth about yourself. This take courage and help.
Face yourself. The good, the bad, the ugly. Even if all the things I mentioned above are true about you, it's only one side of a coin. Emotional healthy people are balanced. They have the same doubts, fears and insecurities about themselves but see and feel them in a realistic, integrated way. They faced the "should" and realized that that aren't and they are ok with it.
To be fair, they've had a better base than some of us.
But none of the ugly truths in your mind make you unloved or unlovable. This is truest thing I can tell you when you face your shame because it will be hard.
And the more forgiving you are of yourself, the more compassionate the more willing you will become to admit your own life story and your feelings and the closer you'll become to feeling present in your own life because YOU will actually be there.
![Hair Arm Eye Jaw Gesture]()
bill
Mar 24 2014 08:27 AM
Excellent my friend, very true indeed.
Yea, I know-this feeling we have is "horrible." That's not what I'm talking about.
Once you get past the fact that you're not bat shit crazy or dying you realize that this thing that's happened to you has happened as a means to defend from you FROM you. Only then do you become aware that you're in the thick of a civil war with none other than yourself. And this battle is ugly. And once you get to this point, a cruel irony happens. For a moment (or moments) you will see that chick (or dude) in the mirror more often. Or from time to time, you'll be re-personalized and remember the smell of cut grass, dirt after it rains, the feel of being "present" on crisp winter's day. And once that lovely reunion subsides, you remember feelings other things too.
And that isn't quite as rosy.
I have often thrown around the word trauma in my posts but I don't believe I've every explained what that does? Mainly, because it sounds so inane. "You've been traumatized." Telling that to someone who is depersonalized doesn't penetrate their awareness. It sounds more like a description than a feeling. Because from a depersonalized perspective, they're not traumatized. But IT IS this perspective- that inability to feel and know in our bones -that is what handicaps us.
And it's not just the restoration of negative memories.
It's remembering and feeling the truth about yourself and being that into everyday awareness. And previous trauma is the factor that make you less capable of doing that.
I noticed on this site that a lot of stock is put into what kind of parents you had and their parenting style- you'll get no argument from me that they were probably dysfunctional and co dependency can be a precursor to dissociative states. However, many people who are co dependant do not become depersonalized. Dysfunctional parenting is an important part of the paradigm that got you here but it's not enough by itself to oust you from you.
The way out of DP requires a brutal, emotional honesty as it relates to you and sticks. Again, sounds easy to say. It's not. But make no mistake it is the LACK OF acknowledgement about yourself and your life that keeps DP alive. The saying the "truth will set you free" is damn skippy but the truth can hurt like a bitch too. And honesty comes hard for us DPer's. As observant as we are, we aren't very skilled in experiencing our own emotional reckonings. We look at ourselves thru splayed fingers covered around our face. We cringe when we look back…turn up the "LA LA LA LA…I can't hear you.." when we think of our feelings and history. Sure we can tell you how we are experiencing ourselves in existential rumination FOREVER LOL. But the range of emotions we feel on a regular basis is fairly limited to numb, fear (or panic), uncertainty and confusion. And in many instances, THAT'S NOT OUR FAULT. We simply don't know how. But I can tell you that the more you hide from the things that cause you shame, the more DP will set up shop and stay.
YOU HAVE TO OWN THE FEELINGS THAT BELONG TO YOU EVEN WHEN THEY HURT.
This is what emotionally healthy people do. DP'ers don't because we created a system in our mind that doesn't allow that and even when we do, we don't what to do with those feelings.
This is where honesty and shame become road blocks to awareness.
Are you heavy? Do you have physical scars, Do you have crooked teeth, A big nose? Do you feel unattractive? Have people teased or picked on you? Bullied you for being different? Or maybe it's not physical. Did someone belittle, humiliate you? Were you weak at times you thought or wished you were strong? Are you a perfectionist? Do have rigid standards for yourself that you explain away as just having "high expectations?"
Do you think you 'SHOULD' be smarter, faster, prettier, thinner, stronger, healthier than you actually are or were?
Think about these things.
If so, what if that "SHOULD" became a law in your mind? And I mean the word "law" in the strictest sense. What if you believed fanatically that you SHOULD be all the things I mentioned above but aren't. You'd have no choice but to hate who you really are since you can't live up to them. This law of "should" will divide you. (Here's the crux of our civil war) literally causing a split before two opposing side blow each other to smithereens. And in the Dp'ers mind, you live in the should. You hear it all the time when someone says I live in my head. Unfortunately, when you do that, the real you becomes someone lost. You don't know you because don't want to be you. You shouldn't be well, all the things that make you, you!
DP is both your protection from the real you and the consequence of losing touch with it. It's a solution because it removes hurtful awareness of who you truly are from your own awareness. It is the same solution baby baldness used all those years ago. An escape where there is no escape. This is how DP relates to trauma. It's a solution you learned a very long time ago.
And it's effective. So much so, that you forget YOU! (think I'm joking? ask the stranger in the mirror) and worst part, the most deceptive and on many level cruel it leaves you lost…you don't even know what happened to make you feel removed or disconnected but you are absolutely aware of the consequence of it.
DP is multifaceted but I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you how effective the denial of shame is in keeping this thing alive.
Shame is a powerful, POWERFUL motivator in maintaining DP because of course, no one wants to feel it. But a DP'er (because of previous trauma) have a harder time acknowledging, feeling and above all processing shame than people who have developed healthier.
Because the law of "should" is something we CANNOT actually live up to. NO ONE CAN. And we can't seem to forgive ourselves because of it. But you absolutely, positively have to let go of the should and face the sober truth about yourself. This take courage and help.
Face yourself. The good, the bad, the ugly. Even if all the things I mentioned above are true about you, it's only one side of a coin. Emotional healthy people are balanced. They have the same doubts, fears and insecurities about themselves but see and feel them in a realistic, integrated way. They faced the "should" and realized that that aren't and they are ok with it.
To be fair, they've had a better base than some of us.
But none of the ugly truths in your mind make you unloved or unlovable. This is truest thing I can tell you when you face your shame because it will be hard.
And the more forgiving you are of yourself, the more compassionate the more willing you will become to admit your own life story and your feelings and the closer you'll become to feeling present in your own life because YOU will actually be there.
bill
Mar 24 2014 08:27 AM
Excellent my friend, very true indeed.
- meccalexus48 likes this
