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Picking, or Unpacking?
Jun. 14th, 2024 10:30 am Looking back over previous entries this week, it feels like I'm falling into a pattern of just...complaining about slights and the things that upset me. While it's good to have a space for that I also really don't want to just dump my bad mood onto the page every day if it's not actually helping. I don't want to unpack trauma that I'm not prepared to deal with. I don't think I'm doing that here, but I should still take a step back to make sure I'm getting something out of this.
So I'll talk about yesterday's video a bit and the whole concept of CPTSD. It's a relatively new concept in psychology and there's no "official" criteria for diagnosis in the DSM -- but it's also just a matter of time before it (or a condition like it) is added. Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is...an interconnected set of behaviors and adaptations formed in your developmental stages. Basically, while most of us are learning how to recognize, process, and express our emotions or discovering our self-identity, those with CPTSD grew up in environments that were chaotic, traumatizing, or isolating.
One of the core beliefs in folks with CPTSD is "toxic shame", this idea that they are fundamentally a bad/broken person and have to "mask" in order to build and maintain relationships. If anyone saw the "real person" behind that mask, they would be left alone and exposed as the truly worthless person they are. Over time, this core belief develops a "shame-bound personality", where 'masking' is the only option for relating to other people. Anything that causes the mask to slip, whether it's an honest mistake or some perceived criticism, throws us into a full-fledged panic over being found out.
The cost of forcing ourselves to 'mask perfectly' is regular bouts of burnout and exhaustion, needing to spend long amounts of time by ourselves in order to rebuild our energy. There's a persistent drain of anxiety about maintaining the image or managing the fallout when it cracks. And since every relationship in your life is built on this premise that you have to lie to them in order to keep them, you can end up resentful of this unseen effort you're putting in that no one's asking for -- or even aware of.
I can be needlessly evasive about what I'm doing, reflexively lying because honesty means disapproval and authenticity isn't safe. I'm always going to feel a distance with someone else, whether I want to or not, because it doesn't even feel like an option for me to be truly intimate and vulnerable. If I say what I really want, feel, or mean, it will be rejected. I will be rejected. Because I'm not a person inherently worth love and respect. I have to earn it by being better.
When I think of myself as a kid, I feel a distant pity but also disgust. I was a really dirty child. I didn't bathe nearly often enough, I didn't know how to dress or talk well, I couldn't relate to most people around me. I just wanted to read my books and be left alone, even when I was so lonely it felt like a physical ache in my chest.
My adopted mother was always angry -- first about my dad's alcoholism, then the divorce, then I guess...just life. I rarely felt loved by her even though I realize how *much* she sacrificed to take care of us when she didn't have to. Still, I always felt like a burden whenever I had to ask for anything. She was a big fan of "children should be seen and not heard", corporal punishment, and giving us long hours of unstructured time.
My dad was...a very stoic man. I think he loved me, but he was lost to alcohol when I was a toddler and I almost never saw him. He was out with his drinking buddies all the time and only came home to sleep off the drunk or fight with Mom. After they got divorced and Mom put him in assisted living, he seemed content to take his allowance of alcohol for the most part -- but every month or so, he'd squirrel away enough bus money to ride to our house.
It still breaks my heart to think about. I'd go outside and he'd be waiting in the yard, and Mom would pack us all in the car to drive him right back to the place. I think he was saying that he loved her and he missed us in the only way he could, but she...was done. I can't blame her for it, either. It sucked to watch him do that to himself.
I think he was trying to come home to us when he left in that blizzard. And I honestly feel so guilty about that, about never telling him I loved him when I had the chance, not understanding what he was trying to say when he did it. Not reaching out more. Not talking to him when he was around. Because he was the only parent I had that loved me.
Instead I grew up with mom, who told me she was glad she never got closer to me growing up because she would have hated me after I came out. And the reason that's seared into my brain is because it gets to the heart of the way I feel about myself. I grew up stunted and now my inner world is twisted and wrong. No one wants to get close to that. If they did, they would hate me.
And so my life is choked by the fear of being authentic -- when so much of who I want to be is driven by authenticity. I can't be properly creative. I can't connect. I can't learn. Every authority figure in my childhood gave up on me after spending appreciable time with me. I want so badly to communicate my perspective, but I also know that to be known is to be hated.
But that's not way I want to think, because it leads me to being an evasive, kinda-fake person who can never truly trust anyone around him. And I mean, I do, for the most part, but...to really know me? To accept and love the way I think? No fucking way.
There's another behavior that people with CPTSD frequently adopt, and that's something Sneppers says I do often. It's basically "people-pleasing", but on a social level. I always thought of it as a form of "code switching", but now I understand what he means through this video. Basically we have so much panic about feeling anything in front of other people that we sublimate and reflect the energy of the room as best we can. Like, "aggressively appeasing the crowd" is what "bonding" feels like when being true to yourself isn't an option.
So yeah. This feels like a framework that fits very well for me. I've been watching a few more videos, like one about self-abandonment, that feels like a good descriptor of behaviors and feelings too.
It's a lot to work through, but I need to work through it. I just wish I had a decent therapist to help. :)
So I'll talk about yesterday's video a bit and the whole concept of CPTSD. It's a relatively new concept in psychology and there's no "official" criteria for diagnosis in the DSM -- but it's also just a matter of time before it (or a condition like it) is added. Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is...an interconnected set of behaviors and adaptations formed in your developmental stages. Basically, while most of us are learning how to recognize, process, and express our emotions or discovering our self-identity, those with CPTSD grew up in environments that were chaotic, traumatizing, or isolating.
One of the core beliefs in folks with CPTSD is "toxic shame", this idea that they are fundamentally a bad/broken person and have to "mask" in order to build and maintain relationships. If anyone saw the "real person" behind that mask, they would be left alone and exposed as the truly worthless person they are. Over time, this core belief develops a "shame-bound personality", where 'masking' is the only option for relating to other people. Anything that causes the mask to slip, whether it's an honest mistake or some perceived criticism, throws us into a full-fledged panic over being found out.
The cost of forcing ourselves to 'mask perfectly' is regular bouts of burnout and exhaustion, needing to spend long amounts of time by ourselves in order to rebuild our energy. There's a persistent drain of anxiety about maintaining the image or managing the fallout when it cracks. And since every relationship in your life is built on this premise that you have to lie to them in order to keep them, you can end up resentful of this unseen effort you're putting in that no one's asking for -- or even aware of.
I can be needlessly evasive about what I'm doing, reflexively lying because honesty means disapproval and authenticity isn't safe. I'm always going to feel a distance with someone else, whether I want to or not, because it doesn't even feel like an option for me to be truly intimate and vulnerable. If I say what I really want, feel, or mean, it will be rejected. I will be rejected. Because I'm not a person inherently worth love and respect. I have to earn it by being better.
When I think of myself as a kid, I feel a distant pity but also disgust. I was a really dirty child. I didn't bathe nearly often enough, I didn't know how to dress or talk well, I couldn't relate to most people around me. I just wanted to read my books and be left alone, even when I was so lonely it felt like a physical ache in my chest.
My adopted mother was always angry -- first about my dad's alcoholism, then the divorce, then I guess...just life. I rarely felt loved by her even though I realize how *much* she sacrificed to take care of us when she didn't have to. Still, I always felt like a burden whenever I had to ask for anything. She was a big fan of "children should be seen and not heard", corporal punishment, and giving us long hours of unstructured time.
My dad was...a very stoic man. I think he loved me, but he was lost to alcohol when I was a toddler and I almost never saw him. He was out with his drinking buddies all the time and only came home to sleep off the drunk or fight with Mom. After they got divorced and Mom put him in assisted living, he seemed content to take his allowance of alcohol for the most part -- but every month or so, he'd squirrel away enough bus money to ride to our house.
It still breaks my heart to think about. I'd go outside and he'd be waiting in the yard, and Mom would pack us all in the car to drive him right back to the place. I think he was saying that he loved her and he missed us in the only way he could, but she...was done. I can't blame her for it, either. It sucked to watch him do that to himself.
I think he was trying to come home to us when he left in that blizzard. And I honestly feel so guilty about that, about never telling him I loved him when I had the chance, not understanding what he was trying to say when he did it. Not reaching out more. Not talking to him when he was around. Because he was the only parent I had that loved me.
Instead I grew up with mom, who told me she was glad she never got closer to me growing up because she would have hated me after I came out. And the reason that's seared into my brain is because it gets to the heart of the way I feel about myself. I grew up stunted and now my inner world is twisted and wrong. No one wants to get close to that. If they did, they would hate me.
And so my life is choked by the fear of being authentic -- when so much of who I want to be is driven by authenticity. I can't be properly creative. I can't connect. I can't learn. Every authority figure in my childhood gave up on me after spending appreciable time with me. I want so badly to communicate my perspective, but I also know that to be known is to be hated.
But that's not way I want to think, because it leads me to being an evasive, kinda-fake person who can never truly trust anyone around him. And I mean, I do, for the most part, but...to really know me? To accept and love the way I think? No fucking way.
There's another behavior that people with CPTSD frequently adopt, and that's something Sneppers says I do often. It's basically "people-pleasing", but on a social level. I always thought of it as a form of "code switching", but now I understand what he means through this video. Basically we have so much panic about feeling anything in front of other people that we sublimate and reflect the energy of the room as best we can. Like, "aggressively appeasing the crowd" is what "bonding" feels like when being true to yourself isn't an option.
So yeah. This feels like a framework that fits very well for me. I've been watching a few more videos, like one about self-abandonment, that feels like a good descriptor of behaviors and feelings too.
It's a lot to work through, but I need to work through it. I just wish I had a decent therapist to help. :)
